VMware is excited to announce that Usage Meter 4.4 is now available, bringing with it full collector and feature parity with 3.6.1. This is a big milestone as Usage Meter and Usage Insight have been under a large architecture migration for some time.
So lets take a look at whats new:
Customer Monthly Report
A feature of 3.6.1, the customer label functionality in 3.6.1 allows partners to tag usage data as belonging to a specific customer label. This is done by creating a rule and scoping the rule against the vCenter or VCD objects. Once data is uploaded, partners can view the Customer Monthly Report to see the breakdown of product units to be reported, based on the customer labels provided.
LDAP Support
Last but not least, partners are looking for a way to login to the Usage Meter appliance using LDAP accounts for security. Instructions for configuring this feature are available on the VMware Documentation page:
Offline Reporting
Up until now, offline reporting for Usage Meter 4.X was only available through an approval, and a GSS ticket to get a token to enable this mode. As of Usage Meter 4.4, that is no longer the case. Partners can choose to configure the Usage Meter during the vCenter Server OVA deployment wizard. They choose to enable offline mode, which will bypass the Usage Insight registration validation.
Note: All processing is still performed by Usage Insight. Offline mode allows the manual export and manual upload of usage into Usage Insight for processing. Usage Meter reports are no longer processed on-premises within the appliance.
Upgrade Enhancements
In the past, Usage Meter 4.X to 4.X upgrades used a SHAR file that you uploaded into the Usage Meter and ran a script to perform the upgrade. In Usage Meter 4.4, this is changed to an ISO. Partners can attach the ISO to any Usage Meter 4.1 and up appliance, and run a script within the ISO as root. This will perform an in-place upgrade.
This may seem like a small thing, but it makes the upgrade process much easier and the upload can be done completely in vCenter Server.
Next Steps!
With Usage Meter 3.6.1 going end-of-life on July 31, 2021, now is absolutely the time to upgrade. Make sure to onboard into Usage Insight, the other half of the metering architecture, and also sign up for the Flex Pricing Model, which UM 4.X requires.
