I am very excited to discuss our latest release and features in VMware Aria Automation which is generally available today as part of VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2! VMware Aria Automation can help simplify application deployment and management via templates, network integration, and performance insights that help to drive faster time to market and increased productivity.
There are a number of new features released in VMware Aria Automation, such as storage prioritization, a new admin dashboard and launchpad, dark mode, support for multiple VMware Aria Ops instances and much more! In this blog I will focus on a feature from each of the following main areas we are focusing on:
- Quick Start and Time-to-Value
- An Onboarding plan can now attach a cloud template to an onboarded deployment
- Enhanced Infrastructure Consumption
- Modern IaaS Consumption
- Support new Cloud Consumption Interface (CCI) Elements (Supervisor Objects) in VMware Aria Automation templates
Cloud Template Attachment to Onboarded Deployments
VMware Aria Automation onboarding plans allow admins to onboard existing (discovered) resources within VMware Aria Automation (e.g. – virtual machines). When you connect a VMware vCenter to VMware Aria Automation it will automatically discover the VM inventory of that vCenter (cloud zone). Then those VMs can be onboarded and a deployment can be created, another reason to onboard is so a full day 2 action list can be executed against the machine.
In the latest VMware Aria Automation release, we have introduced a feature whereby a cloud template can be applied to an onboarded deployment. This feature allows admins to iterate over an existing deployment as well as add other elements from the canvas such as networks or scripts. The first step is to create an Onboarding Plan, just add some information such as Cloud Account and Default Project.
After creating the plan, go back into the plan and click on the Deployments tab. The dropdown will provide an option to create a new deployment using a Cloud Template.
Then choose the cloud template you want associated with the onboarded deployment.
Pro Tip: The Cloud Template needs to be versioned and released before it will show up in the list below.
After that, you will import the VM you want to onboard in this plan. Once you do that you will see a deployment kick-off in the Resource section of the product. The associated cloud template will show up in the deployment which is what happens with a traditional deployment as well. Then admin can iterate over the template, take day 2 actions on the deployment, as well as the VM.
Private AI Service Enhancements
The VCF division has been hard at work to bring some great new capabilities to our customers around delivering Private AI infrastructure and resources for developers and data scientists. VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA offers a high-performance, secure, cloud-native AI software platform based on nVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC). VMware Aria Automation enables cloud admins to quickly design, curate and offer optimized AI infrastructure catalog objects through VMware Aria Automation’s self-service catalog.
The latest VMware Aria Automation release now provides up to five out of the box catalog items for consumption:
- AI Workstation
- AI RAG Workstation
- Triton Inferencing Server
- AI Kubernetes Cluster
- AI Kubernetes RAG Cluster
In this release, we are providing three items for DLVM (AI Workstation, AI RAG Workstation, Triton Inferencing Server).
Cloud Consumption Interface Template Elements
Cloud Consumption Interface (CCI) provides a simple and secure self-service consumption of Supervisor Services using traditional K8s APIs enabling admins to develop, deploy and manage modern applications.
In previous versions of VMware Aria Automation, users would access the CCI UI via the Service Broker “Supervisor Namespaces”, however in VMware Aria Automation we have also placed CCI template elements in our cloud templates. The benefits of consuming CCI in this way include the cloud template can be versioned and published to catalog, incorporate CCI into your IaC methodologies, and provide role based access to the catalog providing even more granular access controls.
We have introduced three elements to the template in regards to CCI:
- Supervisor Namespace (CCI.Supervisor.Namespace) – create a new Supervisor Namespace so users can provision VM and TKG resources
- Supervisor Resource (CCI.Supervisor.Resource) – create a Supervisor Kubernetes resource within a Supervisor Namespace
- TKG Resource (CCI.TKG.Resource) – create any supported Kubernetes resource within a TKG cluster
In the template image above you can see all the elements being used in the canvas, both the visual elements and the YAML code. This provides a way to use IaC methodologies when configuring and consuming CCI elements.
This methodology also allows for the building of multi-tier applications on top of VMware Cloud Foundation IaaS services without having to manage infrastructure. Leveraging the catalog items such as the ones below can help with delivering modern applications faster and easier.
Once a user clicks on the request button on the catalog item above, they are presented with input options from the cloud template.
We are very excited that the latest VMware Aria Automation is generally available for VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 customers today! Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months and see you at VMware Explore in Vegas!
