Announcing VMware Aria Operations for Networks 6.8

There was exciting news at VMware Explore 2022 today. VMware Aria was announced with new unified capabilities for cloud governance, cloud migrations, and cloud insights that provide a unified view across clouds. Read the VMware Aria announcement blog here. There was also a Tech Preview of the Aria Migration Service announcement. As part of the VMware Aria announcement, vRealize Network Insight has a new name of VMware Aria Operations for Networks. Now there is a single unified platform for VMware’s multi-cloud capabilities for management. There are several VMware Explore sessions covering VMware Aria Operations for Networks that will cover a lot of the new capabilities. All of these improvements will allow customers to run and scale their applications better to improve their end-user’s experience whether they run as a SaaS, IaaS, or PaaS.

Figure 1. New VMware Aria Logo.

At VMware Explore, we are also announcing VMware Aria Operations for Networks 6.8 (formerly vRealize Network Insight). There will be a lot of capabilities in this latest release such as a new home page for VMware Aria Operations for Networks which will give highlights to help improve troubleshooting. This home dashboard will make it easy to launch the various tools to make it easier to use the solution. There will also be a new application dashboard which will help identify applications that need attention. The new app dashboard will show alerts, intent failures as well as allow easy access to launch Guided Network Troubleshooting to look further into incidents to improve application performance.

**Figure 2**. VMware Aria was announced during the VMware Explore keynote.

**Figure 3.** Customer Anthony Huie from DIRECTV presented in an Explore session with Ray Belleville from product management on how VMware Aria Operations for Networks (formerly vRealize Network Insight) helps gives insights and find issues to architect infrastructure and networks better.

**Figure 4.** Updated webpage with VMware Aria Operations for Networks.

There is also a new video that showcases VMware Aria Operations for Networks Universal

**Figure 5.** The new animated video shows the benefits such as federaton included with the Universal solution (under Resources).

**Figure 6.** New Home Page which makes it easy to look at key items to run applications better.

The new home page will make it easier to see the health of the platform and collectors as well as the various data sources such as vCenter, NSX-T, AWS, and physical devices providing infrastructure information. There will be a heatmap view of the environment across on-premises, cloud, or hybrid deployments. There will also be easier ways to launch into various insights across applications, firewalls, VMs, and other infrastructure that might need attention. The home page will make it easier to track down anomalies and other issues that need immediate attention to improve application performance.

**Figure 7.** Application Health Summary to improve application user experience.

There will also be improvements with Network Assurance and Verification intents based on applications. The intents will help run applications more smoothly by helping find issues based on TCP traffic latency and retransmissions by alerting such issues in the applications dashboard. There will also be an easier way to compare application behavior across different device vendors on the infrastructure when there differences with packet size or MTU mismatch.

**Figure 8.** On-premises deployments now support Guided Network Troubleshooting which shows interdependencies and guides users on what to troubleshoot next.

Guided Network Troubleshooting will be available for on-premises deployments of VMware Aria Operations for Networks. Guided Network Troubleshooting is previously available for SaaS deployments. This capability will build a visual dependency topology and tree which will show how various applications, VMs, and other infrastructure components are connected with step-by-step troubleshooting guidance. This will make it easier to root cause complex scenarios.

Other Highlights in VMware Aria Operations for Networks 6.8:

Cisco ACI enhancements including path search capabilities between NSX-T and Cisco ACI topologies and new support for various Endpoint Groups (EPG) scenarios.
VMware HCX API to create automation code and scripts to make visibility of cloud migrations easier.
There will also be a better integration with VMware Cloud on AWS which will allow easier deployment setup of VMware Aria Operations for Networks as an add-on to monitor a cloud SDDC.
In-product learning guides will be available for traffic visibility and security planning, app discovery, business intent violations, network health intents, and search queries.

There are a lot of new capabilities in the VMware Aria Operations for Networks 6.8 release such as the Application Dashboard to identify which apps need attention and a new home dashboard with actionable information plus more. All of these capabilities will make it easier to run and scale the network more intelligently by providing better visibility. Learn more information at VMware Explore 2022 sessions on-site or virtually with the VMware Explore Video Library.