Tag Archives: GA Announcements

vRealize Log Insight 4.5 is Now Live!

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vRealize Log Insight 4.5 is Now Live!

 

On June 13th, 2017, VMware released vRealize Log Insight 4.5! vRealize Log lnsight delivers heterogeneous and highly scalable log management with intuitive, actionable dashboards, sophisticated analytics and broad third-party extensibility. It provides deep operational visibility and faster troubleshooting across physical, virtual and cloud environments. Below, you can fins a list of what’s new in this release of vRealize Log Insight 4.5!

Whats New?
This release of VMware vRealize Log Insight delivers product improvements and updates to the previous release, including these features:

Server Features

  • Added API to query alert execution and notification history
  • Added ability to specify basic authentication for webhooks
  • New product configuration APIs added
  • The source field is maintained when forwarding from vRealize Log Insight forwarder to a vRealize Log Insight server
  • Hosts on the /admin/hosts page can now be exported
  • Support for external load balancers has been deprecated
  • VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) is recommended for vRealize Log Insight. Native AD support is now deprecated. See the following Knowledge Base article for migration information: https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2148976

General User Interface Items

  • Dashboard legend mouse-over in one widget now highlights corresponding chart items across widgets
  • Added ability to show a given time across all dashboard chart widgets simultaneously
  • Separate options are available for descriptions and recommendations for user alerts.
  • User alert history for aggregation queries now includes count

Agent Items

  • Added ability to send unaltered raw syslog to destination server
  • Added ability for agent syslog parser to parse structured data (SD), PRI, PROCID, and MSGID syslog fields
  • Added auto-update checkbox option on MSI user interface
  • Added support for sending logs to multiple destinations
  • Added directory wildcard support
  • Added support for Photon OS
  • Support for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS has been deprecated

Content Packs

  • Updated General and vSphere content packs
  • VSAN and vROps content packs included out of the box

 

vRealize Operations Manager 6.6 Now Live!

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vRealize Operations Manager 6.6 Now Live!

 

On June 13th, 2017, VMware released its updated vRealize Operation Manager 6.6 solution! VMware vRealize Operations integrated with vRealize Log Insight and vRealize Business for Cloud helps plan, manage and scale SDDC and multi-cloud environments with unified monitoring, automated performance management, cloud planning and capacity optimization. Check out the below list of enhancements that have been made to the vRealize Operations Manager solution!

Whats New?

vRealize Operations Manager 6.6 focuses on enhancing product usability, accelerating time to value and improving troubleshooting capabilities.

  • Simplified usability and faster time to value capabilities:
    • New HTML5 user interface provides an easier and consistent experience.
    • The Getting Started dashboard allows for quick navigation.
    • Persona based dashboards provides for answers in one place. Dashboards are separated into categories such as Operations, Capacity and Utilization, Performance Troubleshooting, Workload Balance, and Configuration and Compliance.
    • Out of the box integration with vSAN and vRealize Automation provides quick time to value.
  • Watch videos related to the new dashboards that are introduced with vRealize Operations Manager 6.6 here.
  • Added Native vSAN management capabilities:
    • Allows for centralized management across stretched clusters.
    • Ability for complete vSAN management, which includes administering performance, capacity, logs, and configuration and health.
  • Fully Automated Workload Balancing:
    • Ensures performance across the datacenter’s with fully automated workload balancing, across clusters and across data stores.
    • Ensures DRS Configurations and provides the option to set DRSautomation level for individual objects.
    • Predictive DRS takes action to preempt resource contention.
    • Utilizes operations analytics to optimize initial placement of workloads through vRealize Automation.
  • Watch this video for a demo about automatic workload placement.
  • Additional out-of-the-box compliance capabilities: 
    • Ability to tackle compliance problems through the new vSphere hardening dashboard
    • Extends compliance through PCI & HIPAA compliance for vSphere.
    • Ensures business configurations through new cluster, host, and VM configuration dashboards
Documentation and Links:

vRealize Business for Cloud 7.3 Now Live!

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vRealize Business for Cloud 7.3 Now Live!

 

On June 13, 2017, VMware released an updated version of its vRealize Business for Cloud 7.3 solution. VMware vRealize Business for Cloud automates cloud costing analysis, consumption metering, cloud comparison and planning, delivering the cost visibility and business insights you need to run your cloud more efficiently. Below is a summary of what’s new in this release of vRealize Business for Cloud.

Whats New?

Private Cloud

  • Partial vCenter Server support. You can select a set of virtual machines or clusters to add into vRealize Business for Cloud, instead of adding the complete vCenter Server.

Public Cloud

  • Enhancements to Azure.
    • Azure is considered as a first class citizen in vRealize Business for Cloud 7.3, which provides the detailed costing, pricing mechanism, showback information, and VM Statistics for Non-EA accounts.
    • You can now define pricing policies for Azure virtual machines that are deployed directly on Azure and are deployed by vRealize Automation.
    • vRealize Business for Cloud 7.3 can provide upfront price for Azure blueprint and if a Azure machine is deployed from vRealze Automation, vRealize Business for Cloud can compute cost-to-date.
  • Enhancements to AWS.
  • Support import from blueprint for cloud comparison.

Cloud Comparison

  • Procurement Planning support. 
  • Support for VMware Cloud on AWS. Procurement planning (What-If Analysis) in vRealize Business for Cloud 7.3 supports cost comparison with VMware Cloud on AWS and enables you to assess placement of new or existing workloads across private cloud and public clouds, including VMware Cloud on AWS.
  • Import from Blueprint in for cloud comparison.

Pricing

  • Calculate expense-to-date value for virtual machines. 
  • Calculate price of deployment constructs. 
  • Enable utilization based pricing. 
  • Configure pricing method for resources. 
  • Configure Pricing Update Strategy. 
  • Configure network pricing. 
  • Track daily change in utilization for price calculation. 
  • Compute pricing at Organization Virtual Data Center (Org VDC) level.

Licenses and Roles

  • Support multiple license keys. You can now enter multiple license keys as part of license administration.
  • Additional access for vRealize Suite Standard license key.
  • Support Business Controller Role for Standalone vRealize Business for Cloud.

Reports

  • Schedule a Report. You can now schedule and email a custom report or the out-of-the-box reports to a set of recipients on daily, weekly or monthly basis.
  • Updates to the Daily Price Report. vRealize Business for Cloud 7.3 calculates the virtual machine price accurately based on its CPU, storage and memory resource utilization or allocation and its change within a day.
  • New Reports. Additional reports are added in vRealize Business for Cloud 7.3:
    • Azure Instances
    • Azure Resources
    • Several out-of-the-box reports (that provides operational and cost visibility)
  • Enhanced Public APIs of Reports. You can now use the Public APIs to generate reports in the VMware Identity Manager integrated vRealize Business for Cloud setup.

Integration

Documentation and Links:

vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) 3.4 Now GA!!

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vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) 3.4 Now GA!!

 

On June 1st, 2017, VMware released a new version of their vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) solution, version 3.4! VMware vRealize Network Insight delivers intelligent operations for software-defined networking and security. It helps to optimize network performance and availability with visibility and analytics across virtual and physical networks. It provides planning and recommendations for implementing micro-segmentation security, plus operational views to quickly and confidently manage and scale VMware NSX deployment.

What’s New in vRealize Network Insight 3.4?

The new and enhanced features in this release are as follows:

  • AWS Public Cloud Support – vRealize Network Insight now provides visibility into native AWS constructs such as VPC, VM, Security Group, and Firewall rules. Traffic flows are also analyzed to provide security and micro-segmentation view of cloud workloads (Enterprise edition only).
  • Configurable Data Retention – vRealize Network Insight provides ability to modify the data retention periods for problem events, configuration changes, and metrics (Enterprise edition only).
  • Support for Physical Devices in Application Modeling  – vRealize Network Insight now allows the inclusion of physical servers in application tier definition and micro-segmentation planning.
  • New NSX Operation Events – Additional NSX operations alerts have been introduced in this release.
  • Customization of Alerts  – The customization is done through global macro settings as well as at individual alerts level.
  • Support of vCenter Tags and Annotations  – It is an additional way to group virtual machines into security and application groups.
  • Visibility of Physical Layer-2 Network  – From this release onwards, the layer-2 networks are visible in the VM-to-VM path dashboard.
  • Addition of Syslog Messages – vRealize Network Insight supports syslog messages for sending the events generated by the system to external log management products (including Log Insight).

For more information on vRealize Network Insight 3.4, see the below links…

 

Missed The Latest VMware Announcements In The Past Month? Check Out This Summary!

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Missed The Latest VMware Announcements In The Past Month?

Check Out This Summary!

 

 

Have you been busy lately and haven’t keep up to date with the latest VMware announcements over the last month or two? If so, you have missed quite a bit! So I thought I would make it easy on you and pull together all the recent announcements related to product updates, acquisitions, promotions, partnerships, VMworld, Wanna Cry Ransomeware, etc. This summary has a lot of great information that you want to be aware. I highly recommend that you read through the full list of announcements to be sure you are aware of them.

One link I would like to draw your attention to specifically is under “Security” which takes you to a VMware blog about the “WannaCry Ransomeware” attack that swept the world on May 12th, 2017 in over 150+ countries worldwide. The article discusses how VMware’s NSX solution and its “Zero Trust” model could have helped those that were attacked mitigate this attack. This just proves how important it is that businesses consider using VMware’s NSX solution to help protect their environments from attacks in ways that other solutions can’t.

 

Product Announcements:

 

Acquisitions:

 

Latest Promotions/Discounts:   http://www.vmware.com/promotions.html

  • New Promotion – User Environment Manager (UEM) 9.2
  • Updated Promotion- vRealize 25% Upgrade Promotions Extended to July 29, 2017

 

Security:

  • WannaCry Ransomware attack that attacks Microsoft operating systems swept the world on May 12th in over 150+ countries. Below is VMware’s response on how the NSX Zero-Trust model could have helped mitigate this attack using NSX. This is a great opportunity for you to drive how critical it is to use NSX and where other solutions couldn’t provide the same protection that we can from these types of attacks.

 

VMware Partnerships:  

 

VMware Partner Accreditation’s:

 

VMworld 2017:

 

VMware Releases (4) Updated Solutions From The vRealize Family On March 2, 2017!

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VMware Releases (4) Updated Solutions From The vRealize Family On March 2, 2017!

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On March 2nd, 2017, VMware released (4) newly updated solutions from their vRealize family of solutions! You can go to my “What’s New” tab on this site to get to the links to the release notes and documentation for all four updated solutions. Below is a bullet list of the updated solutions as well as a little bit of information on what’s new in these versions. For more detailed information, go out to the the Release Notes and Documentation links I have provided on the What’s New page.

vRealize Operations Manager 6.5:

  • Additional monitoring capabilities of larger environments with same size deployment
  • Automatic upgrade of Endpoint Operations Agents
  • Enhanced troubleshooting capabilities by correlating logs and metrics between itself and vRealize Log Insight
  • Improved collaboration by simplifying exporting and importing
  • Update processes have been optimized (40% faster)

vRealize Network Insight 3.3:

  • Enhanced event management experience
  • New set of NSX best practice and troubleshooting events
  • Deeper visibility for micro-segmentation planning
  • Compatibility with the most current NSX for vSphere (6.3) and vSphere (6.5) releases
  • Deeper security analytics which include Palo Alto Networks
  • Support for new hardware: Dell switches (S-4048, S-6010, Z9100)
  • Addressing gaps in NSX firewall support
  • Enhancements to LDAP support

vRealize Business for Cloud 7.2.1: 

  • vRBC 7.2.1 release sets a new milestone for vRBC in the endeavor of more tightly-coupled integration with vRBC being available within vROPS as one of the menu options providing operational and cost visibility to the end user in a single pane of glass!!!
  • vRBC 7.2.1 also re-brands cloud business analysis report as Hybrid Cloud Assessment.
  • With new look and appeal it includes a concise and precise summary page describing Inventory, Total cost of ownership of infrastructure, Comparison of private cloud cost with that of public cloud, a glimpse into how well the private cloud infrastructure is utilized and subsequent reclamation opportunities.
  • This release also addresses the annoying waiting time customer goes through while downloading an OVA file by reducing its size by more than 50%.

vRealize Log Insight 4.3:  

  • Server Features
    • Now supports VMware Identity Manager Single-Sign-On (vIDM SSO)
    • Host table entries now expire three months idle (the last ingestion event)
    • New upgraded APIs
  • User Interface Features
    • New alert history for individual alerts
    • New percent labels on pie charts
    • New trend-line overlay on line charts
    • Enhanced dashboard list selection
  • Agent Features
    • New FIPS-140-2 compliance
    • New silent auto-update of deployed agents
    • Enhanced timestamp parser that supports single-digit representation of days and months
    • Now supports Windows Server 2016

Looking For The Run Down on VMware’s New Horizon Cloud Offerings?

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Looking For The Run Down on VMware’s New

Horizon Cloud Offerings?

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On February 7th, 2017, VMware announced their new generally available offering “Horizon Cloud“. VMware Horizon Cloud enables the delivery of cloud-hosted or on-premises virtual desktops and apps to any device, anywhere, from a single cloud control plane. The Horizon Cloud delivers Cross-Cloud Architecture, a Clear Path to the Future, Digital Workspace Experience, and Redefines Cost and Complexity.

Below you will find a brief bullet list of information on Horizon Cloud to include top level changes compared to Horizon Air offering, purchasing process, deployment options, virtual desktop options, and considerations for each option, etc.

Horizon Cloud Public Page:  http://www.vmware.com/cloud-services/desktop.html

Top Level Changes in Horizon Cloud:

  • Horizon Air currently does not offer App Volumes, vGPU-enabled desktops, and standard pricing model
  • Current Horizon Air customers will continue to run in vCloud Air (vCA) data centers
  • SoftLayer Data Centers for Horizon Cloud Hosted
  • Desktop Disaster Recovery (DR) no longer offered with Horizon Cloud Hosted
  • Horizon Cloud Services offers App Volumes (Private Beta), vGPU-enabled desktops (Private Beta), vIDM support, and Instant Clones

Considering which offering:

  • Cloud Hosted VDI –
    • Seasonal Businesses
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Contract/Temp employees
    • No existing VDI environment or expertise
    • Wants a managed solution
    • Prefers a predictable OPEX payment model
    • Needs to scal up/down quickly
  • On-Premise VDI (Horizon 7) –
    • BYOD
    • Branch Offices
    • Security
    • Leverage existing VDI environment and expertise
    • Has strict security or compliance mandates
    • Needs onm-premises infrastructure for performance
    • Wants strict IT control, including management on-premises
    • Wants to utilize a perpetual license
  • Hybrid VDI –
    • BYOD
    • Branch Offices
    • Desktop Replacements
    • Is interested in the cloud but not ready to commit
    • Has strict security or compliance mandates
    • Needs on-premises infrastructure for performance
    • Simplicity and speed of deployment is a priority
    • Requires flexibility in desktop configurations

Comparisons in Use Case Options:

  • Kiosk Mode – Horizon 7 (On-Premise) ONLY
  • Smart Card Authentication – Horizon 7 (On-Premise) ONLY
  • RDSH Desktops & Apps – Horizon Cloud-Hosted & Horizon 7 (On-Premise)
  • NVIDIA vGPU – Horizon Cloud-Hosted (Private Beta) & Horizon 7 (On-Premise)

Purchasing Process:

  1. Step 1:  Choose User licensing
    1. Named User (NU) – (1) dedicated user per license
    2. Concurrent User (CCU) – Shared licenses (one user logged in at a time)
  2. Step 2:  Choose your Infrastructure
    1. Buy Hosted Infrastructure from VMware – Cloud-based infrastructure
    2. Buy On-Premises Infrastructure from partner – vSAN Ready Nodes or HCI Appliance
  3. Step 3:  Horizon Cloud Add-Ons
    1. Direct Connect (1/10 Gps)
    2. Additional IP Addresses
    3. 1TB Hard Disk Storage (can be used for AppStacks, Writable Volumes, UEM, and Utility server (E:/Drive)
    4. With more to come

Deployment Options:

  • Horizon Cloud with Hosted Infrastructure
    • Meant for…
      • OPEX model of utility based pricing
      • Scalability on demand
      • Minimal internal expertise required
      • Remote locations where building data center capacity is impossible
    • Offering comes with –
      • Production Support
      • Services that include Corp. Network Services setup (via VPN)
      • Administrative training
      • REST API access for programmatic pool management
      • Desktop capacity based on what you purchased
      • (10) images that are fully customizable
      • Free software endpoint clients
      • Supports 2-Factor authentication –
        • Radius
        • RSA SecurID
        • VMware Verify with vIDM
        • DOES NOT provide 2FA for Horizon Amin console
      • Utility Server for free – to use as AD/DNS/DHCP, UEM, File Server, etc. (CANT be used as application or database server)
        • Tenant accessible
        • Uses the Professional Desktop Specification (2vCPU & 4GB vRAM) – can be upgraded
        • Transactional based applications are not allowed and customers should use IaaS
        • Encrypted hard disks not allowed
    • End Customer or Service Provider Provides –
      • Desktop Management
      • Access devices (end-point)
      • Applications
      • Image creation, deployment, and maintenance
      • OS licenses
    • Benefits:
      • Cloud Simplicity –
        • Fully hosted & managed infrastructure
        • Enterprise security with dedicated infrastructure
        • (3) global locations and counting
      • Fast Time-to-Value –
        • Add capacity in days, not months
        • Configure and deploy desktops in minutes
      • Most Comprehensive DaaS Solution –
        • Persistent, Floating, Apps, and vGPU-enabled desktop options
        • Blast Extreme & PCOIP connection protocols
        • Configure your own capacity
      • Predictable Economics –
        • Consumption-based pricing let you pay “as-you-grow”
        • No capital expenditure
  • Horizon Cloud with On-Premises Infrastructure
    • Meant for…
      • Hybris OPEX/CAPEX model
      • Management infrastructure in the cloud
      • On-Premises virtual desktops & apps on (HCI) Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (e.g. VxRail)
      • Minimal internal expertise required and easily scalable
    • Benefits:
      • Bridge to the Cloud –
        • Cloud adoption at your own pace
        • Sensitive data resides on premises
        • Proximity reduces latency issues
      • Backed by ecosystem of partners –
        • Growing ecosystem of certified partners
        • Dell, EMC, QCT, Hitachi, and more
      • Radically simple on-premises VDI –
        • Easy to deploy HCI appliances
        • Automated updates & no more management infrastructure
        • Turnkey solution yields faster time-to-value
      • Linear scalability –
        • No CAPEX for service
        • Centralized cloud management
        • Right-sized HCI appliances
  • On Premises (Horizon 7):
    • Meant for…
      • CAPEX model
      • Greater flexibility in desktop options
      • Scalable to customer requirements
      • Feature rich management

On-Premises Infrastructure Options: (more certified servers coming in the future)

  • Dell –
    • R730
    • R730xd
  • EMC –
    • EMC VxRail160 Hybrid
    • EMC VxRail200 Hybrid
    • EMC VxRail160 All-Flash
    • EMC VxRail200 All-Flash
    • EMC VxRail240 All-Flash
    • EMC VxRail280 All-Flash
  • Quanta Cloud Technology (certification pending) –
    • QuantaGrid D51B-1U
    • QuantaPlex T41S-2U (4-Node)
  • Hitachi Data Systems (certification pending) –
    • V210
    • V210-F

Virtual Desktop Purchase Options:

  • STANDARD Capacity (everyday use) –
    • (1) UNIT = (1) vCPU / 2GB vRAM / 30GB Storage
    • Desktop Options –
      • Value = (1) Unit
      • Professional = (2) Units
      • Premium  = (4) units
      • Performance = 8) units
      • Hosted Apps Server = (8) units
  • WORKSTATION Capacity (High Performance/GPU-enabled) –
    • (1) UNIT = (4) vCPU / 16GB vRAM / 120GB Storage / 2GB NVIDIA Video Memory
    • Desktop Options –
      • ProfessionalWS = (1) unit
      • PremiumWS = (2) units
      • PerformanceWS = (4) units