Nowadays, fewer VMware customers rely on a single cloud provider to host their applications and store their data. Many customers are starting to embrace a multi-cloud approach to mitigate risks and improve their overall cloud and application strategies.
But the multi-cloud journey often comes with challenges. Managing different cloud environments can require robust cloud management tools and skilled IT teams.
To support our customers’ multi-cloud journeys, VMware Aria Automation announced the plugin-based architecture to support native public cloud resources in the recent April release.
In the VMware Aria Automation July release, we have added more support for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) since our last June release. To learn more about the technical details of how VMware Aria Automation plugin-based architecture supports the latest GCP capabilities, please read GCP resource support in VMware Aria Automation.
To provide a better public cloud customer experience, we have added the following support for GCP in July:
Support for service accounts in GCP plugin:
This feature enables VMware Aria Automation users to deploy GCP service accounts and service account keys using blueprints, catalogs, and Idem services.
Support for load balancers in GCP plugin:
This feature enables VMware Aria Automation users to deploy a load balancer on GCP, ensuring users are directed to the nearest available and best-performing instance, reducing latency, and improving the user experience.
In addition to enhanced public cloud support, we have also introduced several new features to enhance the end-to-end automation experience.
Custom Forms Versions Integrated with Content Items
VMware Aria Automation Service Broker custom forms are added with the following improvements:
- Users can customize root-level blueprint-based content items.
- To create a custom form for specific blueprint versions, the user needs to click on the details panel and then on the version’s name (now shown as a link) to open the Form Designer for this specific version.
- Add “Disable custom form” button in the action menu in the details panel, which disables the custom form for that specific blueprint version.
- Add one column to the blueprint version table with the indication that if this version has a version-specific custom form.
- Re-label “Delete custom form” to “Delete version-specific custom form” for the data grid action menu in the details panel.
Unregister provisioned machines as Day 2 action
You can now unregister VMware Aria Automation provisioned vSphere virtual machines (VMs) from VMware Aria Automation as a resource Day 2 action. When you unregister a provisioned VM, it is removed from the VMware Aria Automation inventory but will remain the same in vCenter as it was before performing the action. This enhancement can help customers free up the license from unused VM and use the resource more efficiently.
Optionally neglect CPU/Memory of powered-off VMs in resource quota policy
Users can now choose to neglect the CPU and memory consumed by powered-off VMs in a resource quota policy. This allows users who are restricted by a resource quota policy to provision VMs even though they have surpassed CPU or memory quotas if some VMs that are being accounted for in the quota are powered-off. This improvement gives users more flexibility with the quota policy to consume the resource.
Rebuild virtual machine for Onboarded and Migrated vSphere workloads
Following the last release of Rebuild Day 2 action, we now support Rebuild action for onboarded vSphere workloads and vSphere workloads coming from the migration assistant tool. When an onboarded VM is requested to be rebuilt for the first time, the user can view and confirm the image selection much more easily.
Onboarded deployments compliant with Service Broker policy limits
Deployment that includes VM and disks are now compliant with Service Broker policy limits. Onboarded deployment is counted towards the limits below; You can choose to allow onboarding resources to count towards limits by switching the option to do so on “on”. By default, the option is “off”, which is consistent with the previous behavior. We provide this enhancement to improve users’ onboarding experience.
VMware Aria Automation billable object visibility
With the growing adoption of VMware products through subscription, it becomes crucial for customers to understand how many billable resources each product is counting.
VMware Aria Automation is introducing the capability for administrators to view a summary of billable objects under management via API and UI. In addition, the resource center inside VMware Aria Automation Assembler and VMware Aria Automation Service Broker has been enhanced to filter out billable resources in combination with any other filters. This capability helps customers constantly assess their usage and makes it easier for them to plan for renewals/expansions.
You can find the following updates on the VMware Aria Automation Landing Page:
Command line support for configuring VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator
VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator (Orchestrator) can now be configured through the command line using ‘vracli vro’ commands in addition to using the Control Center. It is a very developer-friendly feature; users can use the command line to configure Orchestrator rather than going to a different interface. The enhancement makes scripted/automated deployments of Orchestrator easier to perform and offer more of a DevOps approach to configuring the solution.
Read more: Configuring VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator via CLI
To learn more about these new features in the VMware Aria Automation July / 8.13.0 release, please check out these additional resources:
For a full list of updates, visit our release notes page
Also, visit us online at VMware Aria Automation and check out these additional resources.
- Learn about VMware Aria Automation features on TechZone
- The Forrester Wave™: Infrastructure Automation, Q1 2023 Report
- IDC Spotlight on Infrastructure as Code Report
- 451 Research Report – The Public Cloud Governance Imperative Report
- vRealize Automation for Dummies Guide
- Five Strategic Automation Use Cases for Your Business eBook
- Transform your IT with Self-Service Delivery Report
- DevOps for Dummies Guide
- Enterprise Framework for Network Automation eBook
- Follow us on Twitter @VMwareAriaAuto
