A more flexible and scalable hybrid cloud platform with simpler upgrades from previous releases
The latest release of the co-engineered turnkey hybrid cloud platform is now available, and I wanted to take this great opportunity to discuss its enhancements.
Many new features are included in this major release, including support for the latest VCF and VxRail software component versions based on the latest vSphere 8.0 U1 virtualization platform generation, and more. Read on for the details!
Support for automated in-place upgrades from VCF 4.3.x and higher to VCF 5.0
This is the most significant feature our customers have been waiting for. In the past, due to significant architectural changes between major VCF releases and their SDDC components (such as NSX), a migration was required to move from one major version to the next. (Moving from VCF 4.x to VCF 5.x is considered a major version upgrade.) In this release, this type of upgrade is now drastically improved.
After the SDDC Manager has been upgraded to version 5.0 (by downloading the latest SDDC Manager update bundle and performing an in-place automated SDDC Manager orchestrated LCM update operation), an administrator can follow the new built-in SDDC Manager in-place upgrade workflow. The workflow is designed to assist in upgrading the environment without needing any migrations. Domains and clusters can be upgraded sequentially or in parallel. This reduces the number and duration of maintenance windows, allowing administrators to complete an upgrade in less time. Also, VI domain skip-level upgrade support allows customers to run VCF 4.3.x or VCF 4.4.x BOMs in their domains to streamline their upgrade path to VCF 5.0, by skipping intermediary VCF 4.4.x and 4.5.x versions respectively. All this is performed automatically as part of the native SDDC Manager LCM workflows.
What does this look like from the VCF on VxRail administrator’s perspective? The administrator is first notified that a new SDDC Manager 5.0 upgrade is available. Administrators will be guided first to update their SDDC Manager instance to version 5.0. With SDDC Manager 5.0 in place, administrators can take advantage of the new enhancements which streamline the in-place upgrade process that can be used for the remaining components in the environment. These enhancements follow VMware best practices, reduce risk, and allow administrators to upgrade the full stack of the platform in a staged manner. These enhancements include:
- Context aware prechecks
- vRealize Suite prechecks
- Config drift awareness
- vCenter Server migration workflow
- Licensing update workflow
The following image highlights part of the new upgrade experience from the SDDC Manager UI. First, on the updates tab for a given domain, we can see the availability of the upgrade from VCF 4.5.1 to VCF 5.0.0 on VxRail 8.0.100 (Note: In this example, the first upgrade bundle for the SDDC Manager 5.0 was already applied.)
When the administrator clicks View Bundles, SDDC Manager displays a high-level workflow that highlights the upgrade bundles that would be applied, and in which order.
To see the in-place upgrade in action, check out the following demo:
Now let’s dive a little deeper into the upgrade workflow steps. The following diagram depicts the end-to-end workflow for performing an in-place LCM upgrade from VCF 4.3.x/4.4.x/4.5.x to VCF 5.0 for the management domain.
The in-place upgrade workflow for the management domain consists of the following six steps:
- Plan and prepare by ensuring all important prerequisites are met (for example, the minimum supported VCF on VxRail version for an in-place upgrade is validated, in-place upgrade supported topologies are being used, and so on).
- Run an update precheck and resolve any issues before starting the upgrade process.
- Download the VMware Cloud Foundation and VxRail Upgrade Bundles from the Online Depot within SDDC Manager using a MyVMware account and a Dell support online depot account respectively.
- Upgrade components using the automated guided workflow, including SDDC Manager, NSX-T Data Center, vCenter Server for VCF, and VxRail hosts.
- Apply configuration drifts, which capture required configuration changes between release versions.
- When the upgrade is completed, update component licensing using the built-in SDDC Manager workflow (only applicable for VCF instances deployed using perpetual licensing).
Upgrading workload domains follows a similar workflow.
If performed manually, the in-place upgrade process to VCF 5.0 on VxRail 8.0.100 from previous releases would be potentially error-prone and time-consuming. The guided, simplified, and automated experience now provided in SDDC Manager 5.0 greatly reduces the effort and risk for customers, by helping them perform this operation in a fully controlled, guided, and automated manner on their own, providing a much better user experience and better value.
SDDC Manager context aware prechecks
Keeping a large-scale cloud environment in a healthy, well-managed state is very important to achieve the desired service levels and increase the success rate of LCM operations. In SDDC Manager 5.0, prechecks have been further enhanced and are now context aware. But what does this mean?
Before performing the upgrade, administrators can choose to run a precheck against a specific VCF release (“Target Version”) or run a “General Update Readiness” precheck. Each type of precheck allows the administrator to select the specific VCF on VxRail objects to run the precheck on. For example, an administrator can run it against an entire domain, a VxRail cluster, or even an individual SDDC software component such as NSX and vRealize/Aria Suite components. For example, a precheck can be run at a per-VxRail cluster level, which might be useful for large workload domains configured with multiple clusters. It could reduce planned maintenance windows by updating components of the domain separately.
But what is the difference between the “Target Version” and “General Upgrade Readiness” precheck types? Let me explain:
- Target Version precheck- Prechecks for a specific “Target Version” will run prechecks related to the components between the source and target VCF on VxRail release. (Note that the drop-down in the SDDC Manager UI will only show target versions from VCF 5.x on VxRail 8.x after the SDDC Manager has been updated to 5.0). This feature reduces the risk of issues during the upgrade to the target VCF release.
- General Upgrade Readiness precheck - The “General Upgrade Readiness” precheck can be run any time to plan and assess upgrade readiness without triggering the upgrade. The “General Upgrade Readiness” precheck can periodically run as a health check on a given SDDC component.
The following screenshot shows what this feature looks like from the system administrator perspective in the SDDC Manager UI:
Isolated domains with individual SSO
Another significant new feature I’d like to highlight is the introduction of Isolated workload domains. This has a significant impact on both the security and scalability of the platform.
In the past, VMware Cloud Foundation 4.x deployments by design have been configured to use a single SSO instance shared between the management domain and all VI workload domains (WLDs). All WLDs’ vCenter Servers are connected to each other using Enhanced Linked Mode (ELM). After a user is logged into SDDC Manager, ELM provides seamless access to all the products in the stack without being challenged to authenticate again.
VCF 5.0 on VxRail 8.0.100 deployments allow administrators to configure new workload domains using separate SSO instances. These are known as Isolated domains. This capability can be very useful, especially for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who can allocate Isolated workload domains to different tenants with their own SSO domains for better security and separation between the tenant environments. Each Isolated SSO domain within VCF 5.0 on VxRail 8.0.100 is also configured with its own NSX instance.
As a positive side effect of this new design, the maximum number of supported domains per VCF on VxRail instance has now been increased to 25 (this includes the management domain and assumes all workload domains are deployed as isolated domains). This scalability enhancement results from not hitting the max number of vCenters configured in an ELM instance (which is 15) because Isolated domains are not configured with ELM with the management SSO domain. So, increasing the security and separation between the workload domains can also increase the overall scalability of the VCF on VxRail cloud platform.
The following diagram illustrates how customers can increase the scalability of the VCF on VxRail platform by adding isolated domains with their dedicated SSO:
What does this new feature look like from the VCF on VxRail administrator’s perspective?
When creating a new workload domain, there’s a new option in the UI wizard allowing either to join the new WLD into the management SSO domain or create a new SSO domain:
After the SSO domain is created, its information is shown in the workload domain summary screen:
VxRail accurate versioning support and SDDC Manager ‘Release Versions’ UI and API enhancements
These two features should be discussed together. Beginning in VCF 5.0 on VxRail 8.0.100 and higher, enhancements were made to the SDDC Manager LCM service that enables more granular compatibility and tracking of current and previous VxRail versions that are compatible with current and previous VCF versions. This opens VCF on VxRail to be more flexible by supporting different VxRail versions within a given VCF release. It allows admins to support applying and tracking asynchronous VxRail release patches outside of the 1:1 mapped, fully compatible VCF on VxRail release that could require waiting for it to be available. This information about available and supported release versions for VCF and VxRail is integrated into the SDDC Manager UI and API.
Flexible WLD target versions
VCF 5.0 on VxRail 8.0.100 introduces the ability for each workload domain to have different versions as far back as N-2 releases, where N is the current version on the management domain. With this new flexibility, VCF on VxRail administrators are not forced to upgrade workload domain versions to match the management domain immediately. In the context of VCF 5.0 on VxRail 8.0.100, this can help admins plan upgrades over a long period of time when maintenance windows are tight.
SDDC Manager config drift awareness
Each VMware Cloud Foundation release introduces several new features and configuration changes to its underlying components. Update bundles contain these configuration changes to ensure an upgraded VCF on VxRail instance will function like a greenfield deployment of the same version.Configuration drift awareness allows administrators to view parameters and configuration changes as part of the upgrade. An example of configuration drift is adding a new service account or ESXi lockdown enhancement. This added visibility helps customers better understand new features and capabilities and their impact on their deployments.
The following screenshot shows how this new feature appears to the administrator of the platform:
SDDC Manager prechecks for vRealize/Aria Suite component versions
SDDC Manager 5.0 allows administrators to run a precheck for vRealize/VMware Aria Suite component compatibility. The vRealize/Aria Suite component precheck is run before upgrading core SDDC components (NSX, vCenter Server, and ESXi) to a newer VCF target release, and can be run from VCF 4.3.x on VxRail 7.x and above. The precheck will verify if all existing vRealize/Aria Suite components will be compatible with core SDDC components of a newer VCF target release by checking them against the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix.
Enhanced certificate management
VCF 5.0 on VxRail 8.0.100 contains improved workflows that orchestrate the process of configuring Certificate Authorities and Certificate Signing Requests.Administrators can better manage certificates in VMware Cloud Foundation, with improved certificate upload and installation, and new workflows to ensure certificate validity, trust, and proper installation. These new workflows help to reduce configuration time and minimize configuration errors.
Support for NVMe over TCP connected supplemental storage
Supplemental storage can be used to add storage capacity to any domain or cluster within VCF, including the management domain. It is configured as a Day 2 operation. What’s new in VCF 5.0 on VxRail 8.0.100 is the support for the supplemental storage to be connected with theNVMe over TCP protocol.
Administrators can benefit from usingNVMe over TCPstorage in a standard Ethernet-based networking environment.NVMe over TCP can be more cost-efficient thanNVMe over FC and eliminates the need to deploy and manage a fiberchannel fabric if that is what an organization requires.
VCF+ enhancements
VMware Cloud Foundation+ has been enhanced for the VCF 5.0 release, allowing greater scale and integrated lifecycle management. First, the scalability increased – it allows administrators to connect up to eight domains per VCF instance (including the management domain) to the VMware Cloud portal. Second, updates to the Lifecycle Notification Service within the VMware Cloud portal provide visibility of pending updates to any component within the VCF+ Inventory. Administrators can initiate updates through the VCF+ Lifecycle Management Notification Service, which connects back to the specific SDDC Manager instance to be updated. From here, administrators can use familiar SDDC Manager prechecks and workflows to update their environment.
Support for single socket 15G VxRail P670F
A new VxRail hardware platform is now supported, providing customers more flexibility and choice. The single-socket VxRail P670F, a performance-focused platform, is now supported in VCF on VxRail deployments and can offer customers savings on software licensing in specific scenarios.
VCF Async Patch Tool 1.1.0.1 release
While not directly tied to VCF 5.0 on VxRail 8.0.100 release, VMware has also released the latest version of the VCF Async Patch Tool. This latest version now supports applying patches to VCF 5.0 on VxRail 8.0.100 environments.
VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 on Dell VxRail 8.0.100 is a new major platform release based on the latest generation of VMware’s vSphere 8 hypervisor. It provides several exciting new capabilities, especially around automated upgrades and lifecycle management. This is the first major release that provides guided, simplified upgrades between the major releases directly in the SDDC Manager UI, offering a much better experience and more value for customers.
All of this makes the new VCF on VxRail release a more flexible and scalable hybrid cloud platform, with simpler upgrades from previous releases, and lays the foundation for even more beneficial features to come.
Author: Karol Boguniewicz, Senior Principal Engineering Technologist, VxRail Technical Marketing
Twitter:@cl0udguide
Additional Resources:
VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell VxRail Release Notes
VxRail page on DellTechnologies.com
VxRail page on InfoHub
