TAP Partners can easily manage Day 2 Operations through the VMware Marketplace Partner user interface.
This is the fourth article in a series about VMware Marketplace for TAP Partners. It assumes Partners have onboarded to VMware Marketplace and published one or more solutions. For information on VMware Marketplace Partner prerequisites, the onboarding process, and how to publish a solution, check out earlier posts in the Guide to the Marketplace blog series.
Whether you need to update, archive, or republish a solution, managing your solutions on VMware Marketplace is easy to do. Need to add new information to a published solution? No problem. Want to archive a published solution? Or republish an archived solution? We’ve got you covered. With in-product features and a Command Line Interface (CLI) tool available to help, Partners can ensure the latest products and versions are available to prospective customers through VMware Marketplace.
Importance of Managing Published Solutions
Customers come to VMware Marketplace in search of products that are compatible with their VMware endpoints. The information they review on VMware Marketplace regarding compatible ecosystem solutions needs to be current and accurate to instill trust. Therefore, it is important that Partner solution listings on VMware Marketplace are maintained with the most up-to-date information regarding validation, technical compatibility, and support. If this information changes over the life of a product, Partners should update their published solution to equip prospective customers with the most reliable product information.
In addition, customers discovering new products may be interested in reviewing solution briefs, demo videos, or other collateral to inform their buying decision. To provide prospective customers with additional information, Partners can attach marketing assets such as solution briefs, or upload demo videos to their VMware Marketplace solution page. If a marketing asset becomes available after a solution is published, Partners can update published listings to add marketing assets.
Partners can also update solution versions, validate new versions, and archive solutions that are no longer supported. To learn how to perform these Day 2 operations through VMware Marketplace, check out the Day 2 Operations demo video below.
Update Published Solutions
To make it easy for Partners to update information about published solutions, VMware Marketplace enables Partners to update existing solution pages without having to publish a new solution on VMware Marketplace. By logging into their VMware Marketplace account, Partners can navigate to their dashboard to review published solutions, drafts in progress, and archived solutions. Partners can then select the solution they wish to update, as shown in the screenshot below.
After selecting the solution to update, Partners can navigate to the desired section of the publish flow. From the publish flow, Partners can edit copy and/or add marketing assets, such as solution briefs, to their solution under the Support Resources section. After editing or uploading new assets, Partners can click through the remaining steps of the publish flow and click Submit. Then, the publicly available solution will be updated with the new copy and/or marketing assets upon approval by the VMware Marketplace team. To see an example of this process, view the Day 2 Operations demo video below.
Add a New Version to a Published Solution
In addition to updating existing copy or adding marketing assets to a published solution, Partners may need to publish new versions to VMware Marketplace. Partners can add a new version of their solution to a previously published listing by updating a solution as explained above. In addition, Partners can utilize the Command Line Interface (CLI) for Marketplace to automate this process.
By using a VMware Cloud Services API key, the CLI for Marketplace interacts with Marketplace servers to create a new product version with the product assets attached. Partners can use the Marketplace CLI in their own deployment pipelines to automatically push a new patch directly to VMware Marketplace. For a step-by-step guide on how to use the Marketplace CLI, check out the announcement blog here.
Revalidate the Newest Version of a Published Solution
Once a new version has been pushed to the Marketplace, it will need to be revalidated on the applicable VMware product. There are multiple options for Partners to validate solutions, depending on the form factor of the application and applicable deployment platform. For an overview of the validation options available across the VMware product portfolio, review the Certification and Validation webpage of Technology Partner Hub.
For VMware Tanzu-compatible products, the Marketplace Platform Validation feature automates the process of validating on the latest version of VMware Tanzu. After using the CLI to automatically push a new version, or uploading a Helm chart manually through the distributable solution publish flow, Marketplace will automatically trigger Platform Validation.
How it Works
Platform Validation provides real-time and automated validation of the most recent version of an application on the latest version of VMware Tanzu by executing compatibility testing at the core platform- and application-specific levels. Platform Validation currently validates Kubernetes Helm chart solutions deployable on VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. In future releases, Platform Validation functionality will be extended to other form factors and deployment environments. For more information on Platform Validation, review the Solution Test Packaging Guidelines for Partners.
Archive or Republish a Solution
Finally, when a product has come to the end of its lifecycle, Partners can archive published solutions by navigating to the Partner dashboard, selecting the desired product, and clicking “archive”. This will remove the product from public availability, but the archived product will remain on the Partner’s Partner dashboard. If the Partner decides to republish the solution at a later date, it can be made publicly available again by following the same steps as above and clicking “republish” instead of “archive”. To see how the archiving and republishing features work, view the Day 2 Operations demo video below.
Next Steps
In summary, VMware Marketplace offers multiple features and automation tools for Partners to manage published solutions. Whether updating copy, adding marketing assets, publishing a new version, or revalidating a published solution, use these tools and resources below to keep your product listings up to date to provide customers with the most reliable product information.
- Day 2 Operations demo video
- Platform Validation FAQ
- Solution Test Packaging Guidelines for Partners
- Certification and Validation webpage of Technology Partner Hub
Questions? Contact us a [email protected]. Browse the VMware Marketplace catalog and visit our webpage to learn more. Stay up to date on the latest catalog highlights by following @vmwmarketplace on Twitter.
