Today we are announcing VMware vRealize Automation 8.1 (generally available in 1H20), the latest release of VMware’s industry-leading, modern infrastructure automation platform. This release delivers new and enhanced capabilities to enable IT/Cloud admins, DevOps admins, and SREs to further accelerate their on-going datacenter infrastructure modernization and cloud migration initiatives, focused on the following key use cases: self-service hybrid cloud, multicloud automation, infrastructure DevOps, and Kubernetes infrastructure automation. In addition, vRealize Automation 8.1 supports the latest release of VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0 to enable self-service automation and infrastructure DevOps for VMware Cloud-based private and hybrid clouds, as well as integration with vSphere 7.0 with Kubernetes to automate Kubernetes supervisor cluster and namespace management.
Enabling Self-Service Hybrid Cloud and Multicloud Automation
vRealize Automation 8.1 delivers new and enhanced capabilities to enable customers to rapidly and cost-effectively implement self-service hybrid cloud, multicloud automation and network automation solutions. These solutions are supported through native integrations between vRealize Automation and VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0 on-premise cloud infrastructure, including VMware vSphere 7.0, and VMware Cloud on AWS hybrid cloud environments.
- Rapid Self-Service Cloud Setup with VMware Cloud Foundation Integration. Through its integration with VMware Cloud Foundation’s SDDC Manager, vRealize Automation enables Cloud admins to quickly setup self-service private cloud environments directly from the VMware Cloud Foundation wizard. In addition, VCF customers gain a pre-populated and content-rich self-service catalog.
- Enhanced Governance with Pre-Configured Approval Policies. vRealize Automation provides admins with enhanced governance capabilities to establish pre-configured approval policies and control specific deployment requests and actions, which require approvals before being initiated. This enables designated approvers to automate the control over which requests should be initiated and/or fail to execute.
- Flexible Hybrid Cloud/Multicloud Automation with Custom Resources and Custom Day 2 Actions. vRealize Automation provides Cloud admins with maximum flexibility and control over their datacenter and cloud infrastructure environments by allowing them to define anything as a custom resource, and to create any permitted custom Day 2 operation actions. And all actions can be controlled via consistent policies and guardrails.
- Enhanced Network Automation Support. In addition to supporting the latest release of VMware NSX Data Center, vRealize Automation allows network admins to do Day 2 reconfigurations of networks and load balancers, supports on-demand security groups for NSX-T and NSX-V, and provides an IPAM SDK to support 3rd party IPAM providers. By simplifying the orchestration layer for network automation, customers can increase efficiency and flexibility with a lower risk of security breaches.
Enabling Infrastructure DevOps and Kubernetes Infrastructure Automation
vRealize Automation 8.1 delivers new and enhanced features to support Infrastructure DevOps, and Kubernetes infrastructure automation for DevOps admins, SREs and Kubernetes admins. For customers of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware Cloud on AWS, vRealize Automation provides a modern and integrated infrastructure DevOps and Kubernetes automation platform across their VCF-based private and hybrid cloud environments.
- Launch Pipelines from Service Catalog. vRealize Automation allows infrastructure and app pipelines in the Code Stream service to be presented as items in the vRA Service Catalog. Users can leverage the easy to use self-service content request process in the Service Catalog to launch pipelines.
- Kubernetes Infrastructure Automation for vSphere 7 with Kubernetes. Integration with vSphere with Kubernetes enables Cloud and Kubernetes admins to simplify and automate the creation and management of Kubernetes supervisor clusters and namespaces on vSphere 7.0. Enable organizations to accelerate the development of modern applications and ensure proper maintenance on Kubernetes-enabled vSphere, while continuing to take advantage of existing investments in VMware technology.
- PowerShell Support for ABX Actions. The on-premises Action Based Extensibility (ABX) serverless function capability in vRealize Automation supports the native execution of PowerShell scripts, in addition to Node.js and Python scripts.
Learn More
To learn more about vRealize Automation, please visit the product page.
Related Products
- VMware vRealize Suite: [Blog] Delivering Modern Infrastructure for Modern Apps with vRealize Suite 2019 and vCloud Suite 2019
- VMware vRealize Orchestrator: [Blog] Announcing vRealize Orchestrator 8.1
- VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager: [Blog] Announcing vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.1
