We are excited to announce that the next version of Usage Meter is available for all partners to download or upgrade, starting today! This is a big release with a lot of updates and some of the products our partners have been asking for the most!
There are quite a few new things to unpack, so let’s get started!
New Collectors!
- VMware Cloud Director
- With the addition of VMware Cloud Director, we close the gap on bundles reporting. Even though UM 4.2 requires the Flex Pricing Model, adding this collector makes sure that partners are able to meter the equivalent bundles for Flex Price Protection.
- VMware Cloud Director Availability (formerly vCAv)
- This means that partners can offer migration and disaster recovery services that are integrated with Cloud Director, with license metering support.
- NSX-T (NEW!)
- This has been a big ask by our partners and we are excited to not only bring metering, but the same feature based metering that partners have utilized in NSX-V! Each VM is charged for NSX based on the feature or functions that it has access to or uses on a VM-by-VM basis. Check out the product detection white paper for feature to NSX edition mapping.
- We’ve also added NSX Enterprise+ to the list of editions that we meter!
- vRealize Network Insight (NEW!)
- vRNI is a great tool to have on hand for focusing and supporting Software-Defined Networking. From troubleshooting network connectivity and firewalls between objects to creating micro-segmentation rules for workloads, this tool adds the power to offer networking & security consultative services in a partners portfolio and being able to meter it, makes the business process of using the product much easier!
- VMware Cloud Foundation (NEW!)
- As noted in several previous blog posts, there’s a new infrastructure automation engine in town, and VCF is it. This is only for the Core based model for now, so keep an eye out for a future release with SDDC Manager support to provide vRAM VCF pricing. There are three Core based editions available to partners and its configured at the vCenter Server, so partners can utilize different editions for each workload domain! Now that VCF is GA for every single partner, this is a great addition to the metering collection.
- Horizon DaaS
- HDaaS is BACK! With the return of the Horizon DaaS collector in Usage Meter, partners can easily meter and report their desktop-as-a-service offering.
License Categories
Cloud Provider partners are provided allowances for Cloud Demonstration environments, or to use perpetual licenses for their internal use. License categories are an important feature to make sure that only hosts that are running tenant workloads or management for production hosting are metered. In Usage Meter 4.2, licensing categories is back so that partner can tag vSphere hosts based on their purpose. If you have questions about mixed environments, take a look at the metering instructions available in the Product Usage Guide for more information.
Accessibility Ready
VMware has taken an initiative to make our products more accessible ready, so that anyone can use them. This is done through the User Experience and User Interface, to how the interface is read in text-to-speech. In UM 4.2, there have been many considerations and changes made to make sure that Usage Meter is more accessible than ever.
Security Fixes
One of the greatest changes we have made to Usage Meter in the 4.X line is the move to Photon OS. This allows partners to utilize in-place upgrades and for VMware to provide faster and better security patches for the appliance. The latest version includes additional security patches from the Photon OS platform.
In-Place Upgrade!
This is the first major version of Usage Meter with a full upgrade available to download. If you are currently running Usage Meter 4.1, then you can download the In-Place Upgrade file from the product download page, copy it to your appliance and run the upgrade. No more replacing the entire appliance! START HERE on the product documentation page for in-place upgrade instructions from 4.1 to 4.2.
Resources!
We’ve made updates to several locations and documents to help partners. Check out the new product website at: https://cloud.vmware.com/cloud-provider-metering
