VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2: What’s New in VMware Aria Automation

Announcing General Availability of VMware Aria Automation 8.18.0

With the recent launch of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.2, we are also excited to announce the general availability of VMware Aria Automation 8.18.0. The VCF 5.2 release now includes the latest features from VMware Aria Automation, up to the 8.18.0 release.

The new VMware Cloud Foundation capabilities delivered by VMware Aria Automation focus on making it easier for IT organizations to get started with a private cloud and also easier to quickly start offering Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) with a modern consumption experience to cloud consumers (e.g., developers, SREs, and DevOps and Platform Engineering teams).

The new capabilities are centered around: (1) Private Cloud Quick Start, (2) Modern IaaS Consumption, and (3) Enhanced Infrastructure Consumption.

(1) Private Cloud Quick Start

VCF 5.2 brings a new Cloud Admin Launchpad and Dashboard to help empower Cloud Admins with the ability to jump-start self-service experience for cloud consumers.

Cloud Admin Launchpad

VCF 5.2 introduces a new homepage with a workflow launchpad. Released with VMware Aria Automation 8.17.0, the new launchpad enables Cloud Admins to quickly set up cloud services for self-service consumption by cloud consumers. The launchpad helps Cloud Admins to quickly set up cloud accounts, projects, and zones, then automates the creation / versioning / releasing / publishing of VM templates (from auto-discovered images) as catalog items with policies for cloud consumers.

The Launchpad streamlines initial setup and automates repetitive tasks, enabling Cloud Admins to deliver resources to cloud consumers quicker. The self-service access to pre-configured templates empowers cloud consumers to get started on projects faster to improve efficiency. The easy-to-follow guided workflows help shorten the learning curve of new Cloud Admins to deliver a cloud to end users quickly, lowering the barrier to adopting a private cloud for many organizations trying to get started.

Cloud Admin Dashboard

The new homepage features a dashboard designed to provide immediate visibility for Cloud Admins. Released with VMware Aria Automation 8.17.0, this centralized dashboard eliminates the need to navigate through multiple tabs, providing the information they need in one convenient location. The dashboard provides an overview of cloud environments and VM status (on, off, missing), an inventory summary by cloud zones and projects, a VM deployment summary, and a review of recent in-product notifications.

The dashboard eliminates time-consuming navigation across different tabs and provides access to all vital information from one central location, improving efficiency. Furthermore, Cloud Admins can gain a holistic view of the cloud environment, enabling better decision-making for cloud resource management.

(2) Modern IaaS Consumption

VCF 5.2 brings a new Cloud Consumption Interface (CCI) and support for new CCI elements (Supervisor objects) in VMware Aria Automation Templates, enabling Infrastructure as Code (IaC) on top of IaaS Services, such as the VM and the TKG service, to deliver multi-tier applications.

Cloud Consumption Interface

The 5.2 release introduces the Cloud Consumption Interface to VCF. Released with VMware Aria Automation 8.16.2, CCI is a unified self-service interface that allows for easy and secure consumption of all workloads available on the vSphere platform. These services are aggregated from multiple supervisor clusters, providing both on-demand VMs and containers across VMware-based cloud infrastructure.

CCI provides a user-friendly and secure self-service platform that enables admins to provision services through a unified cloud portal. Providing choice of interface, cloud consumers can choose between Kubernetes CLI and API or CCI GUI to develop, deploy, and manage modern applications, including AI workloads, with greater agility. This provides flexibility and control, simplifying the process of consuming VMware-based cloud infrastructure for cloud consumers, while allowing admins to maintain control of the vSphere infrastructure.

Support new CCI elements in VMware Aria Automation Templates

VCF 5.2 introduces new CCI template elements that customers can effortlessly drag, drop, and configure for VMware Aria Automation Templates. Released with VMware Aria Automation 8.17.0, this user-friendly feature empowers Cloud Admins to use the CCI service within templates, enabling them to create and orchestrate workloads using the VM Service and the TKG Service within a supervisor namespace.

Cloud Admins can customize and manage Supervisor Namespace classes and configurations, which can then be assigned to a particular project for self-service provisioning. This allows cloud consumers to quickly provision their workloads either through the CCI UI or via a catalog item that has been curated by an admin and contains a template with predefined CCI resources. Moreover, governance can be ensured through various policies such as leasing and approval policies.

As a result, Cloud Admins can configure on top VCF IaaS Supervisor services, such as the VM and TKG Service, without having to manage the infrastructure to build multi-tier applications. It also helps leverage catalog templates to streamline the provisioning process, using a single IaC platform, with an admin-oriented approach for more control and a developer-oriented approach for more self-service.

(3) Enhanced Infrastructure Consumption

VCF 5.2 brings enhanced ability to consume (a) Private AI infrastructure resources via Private AI Automation Services and (b) brownfield VMs via ability to apply Day 2 actions to onboarded deployments, enabling iterative development on onboarded deployments.

Enhanced Private AI Infrastructure Consumption

The VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA solution (available as a VCF add-on) was introduced in March 2024 in response to a growing need for organizations to adopt and/or develop next-gen AI solutions in a secure private cloud environment. To make it easy for developers and data scientists to consume this new Private AI solution self-service, new Private AI Automation Services capabilities were launched in VMware Aria Automation 8.16.2 as an integrated function of VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1.1. They enable customers to quickly get started with Private AI, by automating private AI service setup and the provisioning of GPU-enabled VMs for deep learning (DL) workloads. With 8.16.2 and 8.17.0, Cloud Admins can deploy:

AI Workstations (GPU-enabled DL VM-only; GPU-enabled DL VM with NVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC) packages)
AI Kubernetes Clusters (GPU-enabled TKG cluster that include an NVIDIA GPU operator)

VCF 5.2 further enables Cloud Admins to now deploy a GPU-enabled TKG cluster with the GPU operator and the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) operator. Released with VMware Aria Automation 8.18.0, this new feature allows a Developer and DevOps Engineer to provision GPU-enabled TKG clusters and automatically install the RAG operator required to stand up enterprise RAG workflows. This automates a production RAG pipeline defined through VMware Aria Automation Templates. RAG extends the already powerful capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) to specific domains or an organization’s internal knowledge base, all without the need to retrain the model. It is a natural language processing (NLP) technique that combines the strengths of both retrieval- and generative-based AI models.

VCF 5.2 also enhances the Private AI self-service catalog user experience, making it easier for both developers/data scientists to consume AI workloads and developers/DevOps Engineers to provision TKG clusters. It also makes it easier for Cloud Admins to maintain dedicated catalog items. In VMware Aria Automation 8.18.0, the Private AI catalog has been restructured and expanded for better usability and maintainability of dedicated AI Workstations and AI Kubernetes Clusters:

AI Workstation (GPU-capable DL VM* with options for installing one of the NGC packages (PyTorch, TensorFlow, CUDA Samples))
Triton Inference Server (GPU-capable DL VM* with Triton Inference Server)
AI RAG Workstation (GPU-capable DL VM* with RAG-based AI chatbot application)
AI Kubernetes Cluster (GPU-capable TKG Cluster with GPU operator)
AI Kubernetes RAG Cluster (GPU-capable TKG Cluster with GPU and RAG operators)

*at minimum will include Ubuntu 22.04, NVIDIA vGPU driver, Docker Engine, NVIDIA Container Toolkit

These new features and enhancements help organizations (1) access and consume GPU-enabled AI workloads with dedicated catalog items, and (2) iterate faster on AI-enabled Kubernetes infrastructure changes without having to retrain models, accelerating AI model development. Learn more.

Enhanced SDDC Infrastructure Consumption – Day 2 actions for Onboarded VMs

Onboarding VMs is a key capability of VMware Aria Automation to bring in any brownfield workloads under management. VCF 5.2 enables Cloud Admins to onboard brownfield workloads by assigning cloud template to those workloads as part of onboarding plan. Released with VMware Aria Automation 8.18.0, this enhancement enables any brownfield workloads created outside of VMware Aria Automation to enjoy the benefit of governance and iterative updates. After mapping each VM from the chosen cloud template, brownfield VMs are onboarded, and users can apply Day 2 action by using the VMware Aria Automation Template.

This enables single management for both greenfield and brownfield environments. Cloud Admins can bring in any outside-provisioned workloads and manage the same way as resources provisioned within VCF Automation. Furthermore, this enhancement provides more options to use advanced Day 2 actions for onboarded deployments.

Get Started with a True Cloud Consumption Experience

A component of VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware Aria Automation is a cloud infrastructure automation solution that delivers a self-service private cloud with control, security, and compliance. The solution empowers users with self-service consumption of Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure resources “as a Service,” delivering a true cloud consumption experience.

Check out the new VCF 5.2 and the capabilities delivered by VMware Aria Automation to see how you can:

Get started quickly with a modern private cloud and jump-start IaaS, including Private AI
Gain enhanced visibility and improve cloud resource management
Give cloud consumers a modern consumption experience similar to public cloud
Iterate faster on AI-enabled Kubernetes infrastructure changes without having to retrain models, accelerating AI model development
Gain a unified management experience for both greenfield and brownfield workloads