This VMware Cloud Foundation spotlight article summarizes the latest information we have received and seen from VMware by Broadcom since the end of February. A lot of great news and enhancements!
Why should you care about VMware Cloud Foundation?
VMware Cloud Foundation Is A Path Worth Investigating is one of my recent articles about VCF which gives customers, partners, and employees a better understanding of what the new VCF division is working on.
Enabling Load Balancer as a Service for VCF-based Private Cloud
As shared in the VMware: Business Simplification, Portfolio Innovation and Ecosystem Standardization blog, VMware by Broadcom introduces new Load Balancer as a Service (LBaaS) capabilities powered Aria Automation with VMware Avi Load Balancer.
Note: Avi is available as an add-on to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)
Through built in VCF capabilities, cloud admins will be able to offer application teams self-service access to L4-L7 load balancing services. This will enable application and infrastructure teams to immediately deploy load balancing at the time of application provisioning, with minimal know-how of load balancing technology or the need to create manual tickets.
This new capability is available with the Aria Automation 8.16.1 release. More information about this release can be found below.
LBaaS template examples can be found here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Aria-Automation/8.16/Using-Automation-Assembler/GUID-23057CA7-48ED-47FF-BF95-2C0734BAD2B5.html
Aria Operations Management Packs that are End of Life on December 31st, 2023
In case you missed it, some of the Aria Operations management packs went EoL on December 31st, 2023.
VMware Digital Learning Entitlement Walkthrough
VMware vSphere Product Line Comparison
Just a reminder that there is an updated version of the vSphere product license comparison available now for:
- vSphere Essentials Plus
- vSphere Standard
- vSphere Foundation
Note: Nvidia Grid vGPU support is only available in vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation
Current NSX Feature Entitlement
I thought it might be worth mentioning the current NSX feature entitlement documentation again.
VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware vSphere Foundation: Feature Comparison & Upgrade Paths
Another document that might be new for you: VCF and VVF feature comparison and upgrade paths
A Closer Look at the M7i Instance on VMware Cloud on AWS
The disaggregated M7i.metal-24xl instance type is generally available now on VMware Cloud on AWS.
A major difference to current VMware Cloud on AWS instance types is that M7i.metal-24xl does not include local NVMe devices, meaning vSAN is not part of this instance type. For customers and workloads better suited for vSAN, the I3en or I4i nodes are the go-to choices.
The M7i.metal-24xl instance uses Intel Sapphire Rapids CPU packages. Sapphire Rapids is a codename for Intel’s fourth-generation Xeon Scalable CPUs. It comes with 48 physical cores, with Hyper-Threading enabled resulting in 96 logical processors.
HA and DRS in VMware Cloud on AWS
This blog shares details about how HA and DRS are configured in VMware Cloud on AWS. It covers vSphere DRS, Elastic DRS (EDRS), and vSphere HA: https://vmc.techzone.vmware.com/resource/ha-and-drs-vmware-cloud-aws
Initial Availability of VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA
Presented at Nvidia GTC in mid-March, VMware by Broadcom announced the initial availability of VMware Private AI Foundation.
Built and run on VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA comprises the new NVIDIA NIM inference microservices, AI models from NVIDIA and others in the community (such as Hugging Face), and NVIDIA AI tools and frameworks, which are available with NVIDIA AI Enterprise licenses.
The solution brief of VMware Private AI Foundation with Nvidia can be found here: https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/docs/vmware-privateai-foundation-with-nvidia-solutions-brief.pdf
A technical overview can be found on tech zone: https://core.vmware.com/blog/vmware-private-ai-foundation-nvidia-%E2%80%93-technical-overview
Announcing VMware Live Recovery
VMware Live Recovery complements the features of VMware Cloud Foundation by providing advanced data resiliency and site protection capabilities. VMware Live Recovery combines two VMware solutions into a unified entry console, licensing model, and support structure:
- VMware Live Cyber Recovery (formerly VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery + VMware Ransomware Recovery)
- VMware Live Site Recovery (formerly VMware Site Recovery Manager)
vSAN HCI or vSAN Max – Which Deployment Option is Right for You?
In case you missed this tech zone article, it explains the ESA options for VVF and VCF: https://core.vmware.com/resource/vsan-hci-or-vsan-max-which-deployment-option-right-you
Greater Flexibility with vSAN Max through Lower Hardware and Cluster Requirements
Important updates have been made to hardware and cluster requirements for vSAN Max deployments. Read more here: https://core.vmware.com/blog/greater-flexibility-vsan-max-through-lower-hardware-and-cluster-requirements
Aria Automation March 2024 (8.16.2) – Private AI Automation Services for Nvidia
VMware by Broadcom introduced the initial availability of a new capability called Private AI Automation Services, powered by VMware Aria Automation (8.16.2) and VMware Cloud Foundation “Private AI Foundation for NVIDIA (PAIF-N).”
This integration offers Private AI Automation Services, a collection of features that enable Cloud Admins to quickly design, curate, and deliver optimized AI infrastructure catalog objects through Aria Automation’s self-service Service Broker portal.
Aria Automation March 2024 (8.16.2) – Cloud Consumption Interface (CCI) is Now Available on-premises
The Cloud Consumption Interface (CCI) is now available on-premises for VMware Cloud Foundation customers through Aria Automation, enabling them to leverage the benefits of VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA without having to worry about infrastructure management. In addition, the CCI offers a simple and secure self-service consumption of all Kubernetes-based, desired state Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) APIs that are available in the vSphere platform.
It is available through a Kubernetes command-line kubectl plugin, and APIs, providing choices to enable enterprises to build and deploy modern applications efficiently and cost-effectively on vSphere while maintaining infrastructure governance and control.
The announcement can be found here: https://core.vmware.com/blog/aria-automation-march-2024-8162-cloud-consumption-interface-cci-now-available-premises
A lot of high-level and technical details can be found on tech zone: https://core.vmware.com/resource/data-modernization-vmware-data-services-manager
Data Services Manager 2.0.2 Release
Read more about the new capabilities here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Data-Services-Manager/2.0/data-services-manager/GUID-release_notes.html#whats-new-release-2.0.2
Cormac Hogan wrote a blog about this new DSM 2.0.2 release: https://cormachogan.com/2024/03/28/data-services-manager-v2-0-2-available-with-new-aria-automation-integration/
VMware ESXi 8.0 Update 2b Release Notes
The first important change with the ESXi 8.0 U2b release is:
Starting with vSphere 8.0 Update 2b, as part of the VMware vSphere Foundation Solution License, you can use up to 100 gibibytes (GiB) of included vSAN storage per host licensed core. For a capacity larger than 100 GiB per core, you must purchase vSAN capacity per tebibyte (TiB) and apply a vSAN license key that reflects the total raw storage capacity of the vSAN cluster.
The second highlight is the “new solution license for VCF and VVF”:
Starting with vSphere 8.0 Update 2b, you can use a solution license to license all components of VMware vSphere Foundation.
VMware vSphere Foundation includes the following components:
- vCenter Server
- ESXi
- vSphere with Tanzu
- vSAN Enterprise (100 GiB per core per host)
- VMware Aria Operations
- VMware Aria Operations for Logs
- VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle
SAP HANA on vSphere 8
VMware and its partners completed the SAP HANA validation for 4-socket Sapphire Rapids, which means that SAP now offers full support for this platform when running on vSphere 8. More information about deployment, sizing and operations can be found in the new SAP HANA on VMware vSphere best practices guide.
Solution License
General Availability of VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1.1
The VCF 5.1.1 release notes can be found here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Cloud-Foundation/5.1.1/rn/vmware-cloud-foundation-511-release-notes/index.html
These are the new included software components and versions:
- Cloud Builder VM 5.1.1
- SDDC Manager 5.1.1
- vCenter Server Appliance 8.0 U2b
- ESXi 8.0U2b
- NSX 4.1.2.3
- Aria Suite Lifecycle 8.16
Important: VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1.1 has the option of deploying a single solution license key, which now includes a 60-day evaluation period and is detailed in this post.
VCF Evaluation Mode
The latest release of VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation also supports a new “License Later” capability, which allows customers to deploy applicable VMware Cloud Foundation components while still in evaluation mode. After deployment, customers can switch to a fully licensed mode by simply adding the license keys in the SDDC Manager User Interface (UI) as a component license key or via the vSphere Client as a Solution License Key.
In other words, you can now deploy VMware Cloud Foundation with Cloud Builder and do not require any component licenses upfront! This makes evaluations/tests much easier.
VMware Cloud Foundation 5.x Posters
They are back! The blog and download link can be found here: https://core.vmware.com/blog/vmware-cloud-foundation-5x-posters
HCX 4.9
I would like to highlight the support for air-gapped environments coming with this new release.
In some environments, security policies require systems to be disconnected from internet access. Air-gap sites make no connections to VMware servers for exchanging information. HCX systems deployed in air gap mode do not participate in the HCX Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). During the HCX activation, if the system detects that air-gap mode has been selected, no internet connections are established.
