We are happy to announce the availability of VMware Aria Operations 8.17.1! In this blog, we will provide an overview of some of the great new features added in this release, making VMware Aria Operations even more powerful in managing and monitoring your SDDCs and troubleshooting issues faster in your hybrid environments.

As recently announced, VMware Aria Operations will now only be available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware vSphere Foundation, as discussed in this recent blog: Dramatic Simplification of VMware Aria as part of VMware Cloud Foundation.

Now, Lets look at the new capabilities with this release:

Private AI and GPU Monitoring enhancements

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have come a long way since their inception as specialized processors for graphics rendering.  In the world of virtualization, GPUs are instrumental in enhancing the performance and efficiency of resource-intensive workloads.

In the previous release, we enabled support for GPU metrics for VMware Private AI foundation; new GPU metrics like CPU, Memory, Temperature and Power consumption were added for Cluster and Host level for ESXi hosts having GPUs. 

We have further enhanced the monitoring capabilities in this release by providing new GPU and Inventory overview dashboards and a summary view of GPUs at the cluster/host level. Also, support for GPU Temperature alerts was added as out of the box.

Enhancements to the vSAN Dashboard

In large enterprise environments on vSAN Infrastructure, it is imperative that the admin can see all the health-related details of vSAN Infrastructure in a single place. From vSphere 8.0 onwards, a new look Skyline Health APIs with Health Score and Dashboard were introduced but customers had to navigate to each cluster within vCenter UI to access these health scores. This is simplified in Aria operations 8.17.1 by showing all the vSAN health-related details in once place.

We have introduced new Health Score for each vSAN Cluster in Cluster Summary Page showing visibility of all vSAN Cluster health scores in vSAN World summary page and vSAN Adapter Instance summary page

Also, improved visibility into effective free space on storage policy selection has been introduced in the vSAN dashboard

• In each vSAN Cluster the list of polices and the effective space required is made available.
• Once the user chooses a policy an instant metric is made available showing the capacity required. The instanced metric can be used in Views and custom Dashboards

Workload Placement (WLP) history support using REST API

We also introduced the Workload Placement(WLP) Task history for analysis or auditing purposes which will help users make critical decisions about their infrastructure. Using REST API, users will be able to extract this information to find out how many VMs moved via WLP.

New API to assign priorities to policies in Aria Operations

Policies are extensively used in Aria Operations environment. Users import policies from one of the instances and export them in another instance but they need a capability to reorder the policy priority after import. Using below APIs, users can now set priority on policies.

GET /api/policies – get all policies (active/inactive)

PUT /api/policies/priorities – update priority order of provided policies

Workload Placement(WLP) historical task events to show more data for Audit/troubleshooting

Workload Placement(WLP) moves workloads from one cluster to another to mitigate resource constraints. As a huge number of critical workload operations are involved, monitoring is imperative for effective management. Hence we have added support for additional data for WLP notifications under Recent Tasks. The task will contain the following information: –

        VM Object name

        Source Cluster

        Source Host

        Source Datastore

        Destination Cluster

        Destination Host

        Destination Datastore

        Time Stamp

Workload Placement(WLP) Action Based Notification support.

In a large enterprise environment, it is imperative to know the successful or failed WLP VM actions so that the administrator can take actions based on the tasks. Users need an API to export this information and a webhook so that they can take action on the VM based on the data mentioned in this task entry. This is critical for end-to-end automation for WLP via Aria operations. Users will use this information to change the metadata information of the VM further downstream.

Payload templates scope Enhancements 
There has been a significant increase in the adoption of payload templates. Users use this in conjunction with webhook plugins to customise the payload they send to external systems. This is extensively used to address automation use cases. In this new release, users will now be able to add both ancestors and descendants and add their metrics and properties along with object metrics and properties using the new simplified User interface.

Conclusion:

With the new 8.17.1 release, VMware Aria Operations is even more powerful in managing and monitoring your SDDCs and troubleshooting issues in your hybrid environments.

For additional information see our YouTube playlist, Cloud Management blog, and TechZone for additional content.

• VMware Aria Operations – Youtube
• VMware Aria Operations – TechZone
• VMware Cloud Management – Blog

We are excited to announce VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle 8.14 introduces an innovative capability known as “VMware Identity Manager Cluster Auto-Recovery”.

The new ‘autorecovery’ service minimizes the use of the time-consuming ‘Remediate’ process from the Suite Lifecycle UI.

New deployments of VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle 8.14 ship with the VMware Identity Manager Cluster Auto-Recovery enabled. You may enable the VMware Identity Manager Cluster Auto-Recovery feature for upgraded deployments on the ‘globalenvironment’ environment tile.

About the ‘autorecovery’ service

The ‘autorecovery’ service is a Linux service, running on all three nodes within the vIDM cluster.

With the new ‘autorecovery’ service:

• pgPool service starts and restarts are controlled programmatically.
• Only the primary role node will have the cluster VIP or delegateIP applied.
• Detachment of VIO is performed only on standby nodes with the standby role.
• Recovery is synchronized based on the node’s status as database primary and cluster leader is applied if all nodes are noting standby.

These significant improvements ensure duplicate operations are no longer executed on the cluster nodes.

Features of the ‘autorecovery’ service

• Remediates cluster VIP loss on primary role node.
• Resolves cluster issues due to network outages.
• Recovery of “down” cluster node/s.
• Avoids the necessity to initiate “Remediate” from UI in most cases, which involves node(s) restarts contributing to downtime.
• Eliminates the necessity of rebooting vIDM nodes because of PostgreSQL cluster problems.
• Recovery in cases with significant replication delay (‘significant’ configurable in bytes, more than 1000 bytes of lag between primary and secondary nodes)
• Recovery in rare cases of all nodes are in a ‘standby’ state
• Prevent discrepancies in the /etc/hosts

Downtime

No, there is no downtime when the auto-recovery script runs.

Toggle the VMware Identity Manager Cluster Auto-Recovery feature

Once enabled, users can come to the day-2 operations pane of ‘globalenvironment’ or vIDM and then choose to disable and vice-versa.

For additional information see our YouTube playlist, Cloud Management blog, and TechZone for additional content.

• VMware Aria Automation Config – YouTube
• VMware Cloud Management – Blog
• VMware Aria Automation – Tech TechZone

With the release of VMware Aria Automation 8.16.1 and the new Avi Load Balancer resources let’s look at how to integrate these new resources into your templates. To get familiar with the new resources see the following documentation, Setting up plug-in based VMware Avi Load Balancer resource.

The new VMware Aria Automation and Avi Load Balancer integration provides the ability for the Aria Automation administrator to design templates that take advantage of the extensive L4-L7 load balancing scenarios Avi supports. Additionally, we have exposed all of the Avi resources in the Template canvas to provide complete flexibility in your template designs. All of this together will enable the administrator to provide your users with a self-service catalog to provision Avi resources either as a service or with clustered resources as shown below. For additional examples see our extensive documentation here.

Automation Assembler Template Example

In this example, I will show how to create a cluster of web servers in a Security Group, backed by an Avi Virtual Service IP (VS VIP), Virtual Service (VS), and a Pool with the web servers as members. Also, we will create an Application Profile and Health Monitor. With multiple Avi controllers added to the environment we use a cloud zone allocation helper for provisioning based on cloud account type and constraint tags.

The demo environment has two Avi Controllers named ‘controller1’ and ‘controller2’ with capability tags ‘env:dev’ and ‘env:prod’ respectively. Additionally, there is a vCenter added with both capability tags.

2 Node Web Server

To begin let’s review an aria automation template with two web servers connected to an existing network called ‘VMNetwork-PortGroup’.

formatVersion: 1
name: ALB - Web Servers
version: 1
resources:
  Web_Server:
    type: Cloud.vSphere.Machine
    properties:
      name: web
      count: 2
      flavor: small
      imageRef: https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/18.04/release/ubuntu-18.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.ova
      cloudConfig: |
        packages:
          - apache2
          - open-vm-tools

        runcmd:
          ### update the top of the web page to the web servers resource name
          - sed -i 's/Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page/${self.resourceName}/g' /var/www/html/index.html
          
          ### Restart services
          - systemctl reload apache2
          - systemctl restart apache2
          
          ### Log completion
          - echo 'Cloud-init is done!' >> /tmp/finished.txt
      networks:
        - network: ${resource.Cloud_vSphere_Network_1.id}
  Cloud_vSphere_Network_1:
    type: Cloud.vSphere.Network
    properties:
      networkType: existing
      name: VMNetwork-PortGroup

2 Node Web Server added to an Avi Load Balancer

To expand on the 2-node web server template let’s add the web servers to a Pool, create a Virtual Service, and VIP referencing the existing vSphere network.

VIP

To begin we assign a dynamic name leveraging the uuid function, set a description, and define the Cloud Account to create the VS_VIP resource to. Next, we start by defining a VIP with an id of 0. Set auto_allocate_ip to true, so the Avi controller will Auto-allocate a VIP from the provided subnet. Since the auto_allocate_ip property requires a subnet name, we pass the name of the network resource we are provisioning the web servers on to reference on the Avi controller.

VIP:
  type: Idem.AVILB.APPLICATIONS.VS_VIP
  properties:
    name: web-vip-${uuid()}
    description: Managed by Aria Automation
    account: controller1
    vip:
      - vip_id: 0
        auto_allocate_ip: true
        ipam_network_subnet:
          network_ref: ${resource.Cloud_vSphere_Network_1.resourceName}

Virtual Service

To create the virtual service, set the dynamic name, description, cloud account, and Avi Cloud type. Then we set the Virtual Service’s port number to 80 for the HTTP web server. Finally, we reference the VS VIP and Pool by their respective resource id’s.

VirtualService:
  type: Idem.AVILB.APPLICATIONS.VIRTUAL_SERVICE
  properties:
    name: web-vs-${uuid()}
    description: Managed by Aria Automation
    account: controller1
    cloud_type: CLOUD_VCENTER
    services:
      - port: '80'
    pool_ref: ${resource.Pool.name}
    vsvip_ref: ${resource.VIP.name}

Pool

Create the pool by defining the dynamic name, description, and cloud account. Then set the default server port to define the destination server port the traffic will be sent to.

Pool:
  type: Idem.AVILB.APPLICATIONS.POOL
  properties:
    name: web-pool-${uuid()}
    description: Managed by Aria Automation
    account: controller1
    default_server_port: '80'
    health_monitor_refs:
      - System-Ping
    lb_algorithm: LB_ALGORITHM_LEAST_CONNECTIONS
    servers: '${map_by(resource.Web_Server[*].address, address => {"ip": {"addr": address, "type" : "V4"}})}'

2 Node Web Server added to an Avi Load Balancer with Cloud Zone Allocation Helpers, Persistence Profiles, Health Monitors, and Security Groups

With the basics configured above, the next step is to consider more advanced environments and deployments.

In this template example, we use a Cloud Zone Allocation Helper and constraint tagging to dynamically provision the request. This is very useful in environments with multiple Avi Cloud Accounts. Next, we create Persistence Profiles and Health Monitors and reference them in our pool configuration. Finally, add the deployed web servers to the desired Security Group.

Cloud Zone Allocation Helper

With Allocation Helpers, we can leverage capability tags like ‘env:dev’ assigned to the ‘controller1’ Cloud Account. For example, you may have multiple VCF workload domains each with their own Avi controller. To ensure the load balancer is created on the Avi controller for the workload domain, we can use the cloud zone allocation helper with the workload domains tag.

Allocations_CloudZone:
  type: Allocations.CloudZone
  properties:
    accountType: avilb
    constraints:
      - tag: env:dev

Persistence Profiles

Next, create a Persistence Profile to persist the clients to the same server based on their client IP address.

Persistence_Profile:
  type: Idem.AVILB.PROFILES.APPLICATION_PERSISTENCE_PROFILE
  properties:
    name: web-profile-${uuid()}
    description: Managed by Aria Automation
    account: ${resource.Allocations_CloudZone.selectedCloudAccount.name}
    persistence_type: PERSISTENCE_TYPE_CLIENT_IP_ADDRESS

Health Monitors

For the health monitor create an HTTP monitor to monitor port 80 where the web server is running.

Health_Monitor:
  type: Idem.AVILB.PROFILES.HEALTH_MONITOR
  properties:
    name: web-monitor-${uuid()}
    description: Managed by Aria Automation
    type: HEALTH_MONITOR_HTTP
    account: ${resource.Allocations_CloudZone.selectedCloudAccount.name}
    monitor_port: 80

Security Group

Lastly, we add the deployed web servers to an existing security group by leveraging the ‘env:dev’ constraint tag.

Cloud_SecurityGroup:
   type: Cloud.SecurityGroup
   properties:
     constraints:
       - tag: env:dev
     securityGroupType: existing

ALB – Web Servers Template

Now let’s put all of this together in a complete example.

Complete Example

formatVersion: 1
name: ALB - Web Servers
version: 1
resources:
  Persistence_Profile:
    type: Idem.AVILB.PROFILES.APPLICATION_PERSISTENCE_PROFILE
    properties:
      name: web-profile-${uuid()}
      description: Managed by Aria Automation
      account: ${resource.Allocations_CloudZone.selectedCloudAccount.name}
      persistence_type: PERSISTENCE_TYPE_CLIENT_IP_ADDRESS
  Allocations_CloudZone:
    type: Allocations.CloudZone
    properties:
      accountType: nsx_alb
      constraints:
        - tag: env:dev
  Health_Monitor:
    type: Idem.AVILB.PROFILES.HEALTH_MONITOR
    properties:
      name: web-monitor-${uuid()}
      description: Managed by Aria Automation
      type: HEALTH_MONITOR_HTTP
      account: ${resource.Allocations_CloudZone.selectedCloudAccount.name}
      monitor_port: 80
  Cloud_SecurityGroup:
    type: Cloud.SecurityGroup
    properties:
      constraints:
        - tag: env:dev
      securityGroupType: existing
  VIP:
    type: Idem.AVILB.APPLICATIONS.VS_VIP
    properties:
      name: web-vip-${uuid()}
      description: Managed by Aria Automation
      account: ${resource.Allocations_CloudZone.selectedCloudAccount.name}
      vip:
        - vip_id: 0
          auto_allocate_ip: true
          ipam_network_subnet:
            network_ref: ${resource.Cloud_vSphere_Network_1.resourceName}
  VirtualService:
    type: Idem.AVILB.APPLICATIONS.VIRTUAL_SERVICE
    properties:
      name: web-vs-${uuid()}
      description: Managed by Aria Automation
      account: ${resource.Allocations_CloudZone.selectedCloudAccount.name}
      cloud_type: CLOUD_VCENTER
      services:
        - port: '80'
      pool_ref: ${resource.Pool.name}
      vsvip_ref: ${resource.VIP.name}
  Pool:
    type: Idem.AVILB.APPLICATIONS.POOL
    properties:
      name: web-pool-${uuid()}
      description: Managed by Aria Automation
      account: ${resource.Allocations_CloudZone.selectedCloudAccount.name}
      default_server_port: '80'
      application_persistence_profile_ref: /api/applicationpersistenceprofile/${resource.Persistence_Profile.resource_id}
      health_monitor_refs: /api/healthmonitor/${resource.Health_Monitor.resource_id}
      lb_algorithm: LB_ALGORITHM_LEAST_CONNECTIONS
      servers: '${map_by(resource.Web_Server[*].address, address => {"ip": {"addr": address, "type" : "V4"}})}'
  Web_Server:
    type: Cloud.vSphere.Machine
    properties:
      name: web
      count: 2
      flavor: medium
      imageRef: https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/18.04/release/ubuntu-18.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.ova
      cloudConfig: |
        packages:
          - apache2
          - open-vm-tools

        runcmd:
          ### update the top of the web page to the web servers resource name
          - sed -i 's/Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page/${self.resourceName}/g' /var/www/html/index.html
          
          ### Restart services
          - systemctl reload apache2
          - systemctl restart apache2
          
          ### Log completion
          - echo 'Cloud-init is done!' >> /tmp/finished.txt
      networks:
        - network: ${resource.Cloud_vSphere_Network_1.id}
          #securityGroups:
           # - ${resource.Cloud_SecurityGroup.id}
  Cloud_vSphere_Network_1:
    type: Cloud.vSphere.Network
    properties:
      networkType: existing
      constraints:
        - tag: net:vm

For additional information see our YouTube playlist, Cloud Management blog, and TechZone for additional content.

• VMware Aria Automation Config – YouTube
• VMware Cloud Management – Blog
• VMware Aria Automation – Tech TechZone

As shared in the VMware: Business Simplification, Portfolio Innovation and Ecosystem Standardization blog, we’re excited to introduce new Load Balancer as a Service (LBaaS) capabilities powered by VMware Aria Automation with VMware Avi Load Balancer, enhancing VMware Cloud Foundation’s network automation solution. Avi is available as an add-on to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).

In response to a growing need from VMware by Broadcom customers to offer LBaaS capabilities like the public cloud providers, the new out of the box integration with Avi enables organizations to deliver a comprehensive set of LBaaS capabilities across the lifecycle for VCF-based private cloud environments.

VMware Cloud Foundation and Avi Enable the Cloud Operating Model

VCF and Avi together simplify private cloud operations throughout the Day 0-2 lifecycle. The VCF Automation capabilities, powered by VMware Aria Automation, enables organizations to maximize their investments in Avi and scale their LBaaS capabilities.

Cloud admins not only can provide self-service load balancing to end-user development teams, who have minimal network experience, but also can implement governance and control over the organization’s Avi resources. As a provider of the services, cloud admins can mitigate sprawl and waste of random LB resources, by leveraging consumption projects. This also means networking teams no longer have to manually create tickets to support load balancer requests, trying to keep up with demand.

Additionally, it helps establish a foundation for a predictable and repeatable automation service – reducing the time it takes to deliver load balancer services from weeks to hours, from manual to automated steps, from multiple tickets to a single self-service request, and from multiple teams to minimal teams involved. As a result, it helps the organization to lower overall operational cost.

VMware Cloud Foundation together with Avi provides a highly flexible and powerful LBaaS solution, putting Broadcom in a position to address more advanced LBaaS use cases. The wide range of options offered by Avi than was previously available with NSX-T LB and the flexible VCF automation architecture helps provide customers more freedom and choice to provision just the specific LBaaS capabilities they need.

Supporting next-gen cloud native and AI-powered application delivery with load balancing

Through built in VCF capabilities, cloud admins will be able to offer application teams self-service access to L4-L7 load balancing services. This will enable application and infrastructure teams to immediately deploy load balancing at the time of application provisioning, with minimal know-how of load balancing technology or the need to create manual tickets.

Empowering organizations with self-service delivery of software-defined load balancers can help VMware by Broadcom customers deliver and support next-gen cloud native and AI-powered applications across their private clouds.

Learn More

This new capability is available now in VMware Aria Automation 8.16.1 release.

To learn more about VMware Cloud Foundation and self-service delivery of software-defined load balancers for your VCF-based private cloud, check out these additional resources.

• VMware Cloud Foundation
• VMware Aria Automation
• VMware Avi Load Balancer (formerly NSX Advanced Load Balancer)
• Technical Blog: Deploying VMware Avi Load Balancer resources with VMware Aria Automation Templates
• VMware Aria Automation release notes
• Idem Avi Load Balancer Plug-in documentation
• Tech Zone: Getting Started with Aria Automation
• Tech Zone: Advanced Load Balancing for VMware Cloud Foundation
• Avi Education Center
• Avi How-to Videos
• Getting started with Aria Automation and NSX ALB Integration Video (coming soon)
• Load Balancer as a Service with VCF Webinar (coming soon)

Other recent announcements:

• VMware by Broadcom Dramatically Simplifies Offer Lineup and Licensing Model
• Dramatic Simplification of VMware Aria as part of VMware Cloud Foundation
• VMware End Of Availability of Perpetual Licensing and SaaS Services

We are pleased to announce the latest release for VMware Aria Operations 8.16. This release focuses on Ease of Usage and Improved performance and governance capabilities.

As recently announced VMware Aria Operations will now only be available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware vSphere Foundation, as discussed in this recent blog: Dramatic Simplification of VMware Aria as part of VMware Cloud Foundation.

VMware Cloud Foundation is our full-stack private cloud solution that combines the scale and agility of the public cloud with the security and performance of the private cloud. VMware Aria Operations is no longer sold as a standalone product or as SaaS as discussed in this blog: VMware End Of Availability of Perpetual Licensing and SaaS Services. 

Following are some of the features announced as part of the release:

Chargeback Integration into VMware Aria Operations

Chargeback formerly known as the Tenant app was a standalone product which worked in conjunction with VMware Aria operations and vCloud Director.

In this release, Chargeback has been integrated into VMware Aria Operations.

This will allow:

1. Simplified tenant billing with flexible scheduling and billing at organization or virtual data center level.
2. Customizable pricing configuration with support for allocation models.
3. Deeper visibility of tenant network usage.
4. Comprehensive self- service monitoring capabilities.
5. Custom Dashboards and Reports for Providers and Tenants.

Improved Network monitoring information via LLDP

Link-Layer Discovery Protocol is the vendor neutral protocol used by non-Cisco network device vendors. VMware Aria Operations provided a limited set of information for the LLDP protocol as opposed to the CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol). With this release the following data will be available for the LLDP protocol:

1. System Description
2. MTU Size
3. Port Description
4. Link aggregation Status for LACP configurations

Intelligent Alert Clustering

VMware Aria Operations displays unified alerts across VMware and 3^rd Party products. With an increasing number of integrations that are readily available, the volume of alerts has gone up tremendously.

In order to improve the ease of consumption of these alerts, we have introduced a new feature that is called Intelligent Alert Clustering.

This feature was initially available on the VMware Aria Operations SaaS version but now has been introduced on-prem.

With the best-in-class object relationship mapping, grouping of various alerts can be done based on related objects. This will help narrow down the alerts and reduce the overall number of alerts. There is also a timeline option, where we can playback the original alert and check what triggered it, further helping to reduce the overall MTTR.

Reducing widget Sprawl to simplify dashboard experience

vSphere and vSAN Out of the Box Dashboards use only limited number of widgets and views. To deliver more capabilities while increasing usability, we have reduced this number to 17. Following is the list of widgets and views:

1. List (View)
2. Top-N List
3. Summary Table. It’s a View
4. Health Chart
5. Trend Chart. It’s a View
6. Distribution Chart. It’s a View
7. Scoreboard
8. Heat Map
9. Property List
10. Geo
11. Relationship –> Was called Object Relationship (Advanced)
12. Weekly Pattern
13. Alert List
14. Top Alerts
15. Metric Chart
16. Metric Picker
17. Object List

New Metric Added for number of VMs moved via Workload Placement

In environments where there are large number of workloads, it becomes difficult to track multiple vMotions and VMs that move due to WLP. A new metricWLPVmMovedCount has been added to the cluster object level to:

1. capture the number of VM migrations happening in each WLP action.
2. determine the clusters involved and the time of these migrations.

Upgraded VCF compliance pack based on VCF 4.5 Audit Guide

With the latest release, users can initiate compliance assessment of VCF 4.5 environments with the latest upgraded VCF compliance pack. Users will be able to generate a non-compliance report with affected objects and misconfigurations associated with them.

Usage of Tags to exclude VMs and clusters from participating in Workload Placement

In larger environments where there are production critical workloads, there is a need for running certain VMs on specific hosts. In instances where there is a VCF upgrade, there is a need for such VMs to be excluded from WLP. In the latest release, we will be able to use Tags created in vSphere to form a Business intent to exclude VMs and Clusters from participating in the Workload Placement.

Ability to change VMware Aria Operations display language

VMware Aria Operations currently chooses the display language based on browser settings. With the latest release the user will be able to change the display language from the user preference section.

For a full list of updates, visit our Release Notes.

Also, visit us online at VMware Aria Operations and check out these additional resources. 

Learn about VMware Aria Operations features on TechZone.

In this article, we will discuss how we can use the PowervRA PowerShell library with Jenkins to establish a connection to VMware Aria Automation and trigger Service Broker catalog item requests as Jenkins automation jobs. Before we proceed It will be useful to familiarise with relevant concepts, platforms, and services.

What is Jenkins?

Jenkins is a Java-based open-source automation server that enables developers to reliably build, test, and deploy their software. It is used to continually create and test software projects, making it easier for developers and DevOps engineers to integrate changes to the project and for consumers to get a new build.

What is Aria Automation?

VMware Aria Automation is a platform where you build and manage modern applications. It provides a consistent self-service experience for users, regardless of the underlying cloud provider. Aria Automation also provides governance and resource lifecycle management capabilities, which help organizations control costs and ensure compliance with policies.

The VMware Aria Automation Service Broker provides a single point where you can request and manage catalog items. As a cloud administrator, you create catalog items by importing released VMware Aria Automation Assembler cloud templates and Amazon Web Services CloudFormation templates that your users can deploy to your cloud vendor regions or datastores. A catalog item could also be an entry point for a VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator workflow.

As a user, you can request and monitor the provisioning process. After deployment, you manage the deployed catalog items throughout the deployment lifecycle.

For this article, we will use the catalog item called “Catalog Item Request via Jenkins and PowerVRA” which allows the Aria Automation Service Broker user to trigger an Aria Automation Orchestrator workflow:

For simplicity, the request form only has one input parameter called “input_1”:

What is PowervRA?

PowervRA is a PowerShell module built on top of the services exposed by the VMware Aria Automation REST API. It helps you manage Aria Automation environments using PowerShell scripts. It is a community project and is not in any way supported by VMware

Prerequisites :

• Jenkins installed on a Windows machine
• PowerShell plugin installed (enabled) in Jenkins
• PowervRA module downloaded on the machine where Jenkins is installed
• Connectivity between the machine where Jenkins is installed and Aria Automation

Step 1: Create a parameterized PowerShell Project (Job)  in Jenkins

From the main dashboard, navigate to “New Item,” and enter a preferred name for your Jenkins job, e.g. “My freestyle project”. Select “Freestyle project,” then click OK to create the project.

After creating the project, this will bring you to the “Configure Project” page. Enter the project description and then check “This project is a parameterized item” from the list below.  For the purpose of our article, we will add 5 parameters for our sample PowerShell script:

• vraServer – FQDN or IP of our Aria Automation instance. The parameter’s type is “String Parameter”.
• vraUsername – username used to establish a connection to our Aria Automation instance. The parameter’s type is “String Parameter”.
• vraPassword –  password used to establish a connection to our Aria Automation instance. The parameter’s type is “Password Parameter”.
• vraProjectName – the name of the project used for the Service Broker catalog item request. The parameter’s type is “String Parameter”.
• powervRAPath – the PowervRA module location on the local system. The parameter’s type is “String Parameter”.

Step 2: Configure the Jenkins project to run PowerShell

In the “Build Steps” section of the project settings, click “Add Build Step” and select “PowerShell” so that Jenkins can run the PowerShell script that we’ll paste in.

Step 3: Enter the sample PowerShell script in Jenkins

Before using a PowerShell script in Jenkins, you’ll need to modify it so that the parameters that users enter will be passed into the script. This involves accessing and changing the variables you use from $ParameterName to $($env: ParameterName).

First, we need to import the downloaded PowervRA module from the local file system:

Import-Module -Name $($env:powervRAPath)\PowervRA -Verbose

Next, we need to establish a secure connection to Aria Automation using the credentials specified as script parameters and the PowervRA function Connect-vRAServer:

$SecurePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString $($env:vraPassword) -AsPlainText -Force

Connect-vRAServer -Server $($env:vraServer) -Username $($env:vraUsername) -Password $SecurePassword

After we have established a connection to Aria Automation, we need to acquire a reference to the Service Broker catalog item that we are going to request and a reference to the Aria Automation project used for the request. We will use the value “Catalog Item Request via Jenkins and PowerVRA” for the catalog item name and the value specified as a script parameter for the project name and the PowervRA functions Get-vRACatalogItem and Get-vRAProject:

$catalogItem = Get-vRACatalogItem -Name 'Catalog Item Request via Jenkins and PowerVRA'

$project = Get-vRAProject -Name $($env:vraProjectName)

Now that we have the catalog item that we are going to request and the project, we can prepare the payload for the Aria Automation REST API request in JSON format and execute the Service Broker catalog item request. The payload must include the new deployment name, the project ID, and the request form inputs. In our example, we have only one request form input called “input_1” to which we are passing the value “Test value” and we are creating deployment with the name “Catalog Item Request via Jenkins and PowerVRA 1”. We will use the PowervRA function Invoke-vRARestMethod passing to it the payload and the URI with the catalog item ID:

$json = @"{   

"deploymentName": "Catalog Item Request via Jenkins and PowerVRA 1",

"projectId": "$($project.Id)",

"bulkRequestCount": 1,

  "inputs": { "input_1": "Test value" }

}"@

$apiUrl = "/catalog/api/items"

$uri = "$apiUrl/$($catalogItem.Id)/request"

Invoke-vRARestMethod -Method POST -URI $uri -Body $json -WebRequest

Paste the sample script into the PowerShell “Command” area in Jenkins and save.

Step 4: Test/Run the sample Jenkins job

You (or anyone else with access) can now run the script using the “Build With Parameters” button that will appear on the main dashboard.

The triggered parameterized Jenkins job will authenticate toward the specified Aria Automation instance using the specified credentials and it will request the Service Broker catalog item “Catalog Item Request via Jenkins and PowerVRA” resulting in a new deployment in Aria Automation with the name “Catalog Item Request via Jenkins and PowerVRA 1”:

Related VMware documentation:

• Requesting Catalog Items
• Requesting Catalog Items Programmatically

The latest capabilities from VMware Aria Operations for Networks 6.12 and 6.12.1 can help IT users improve their network visibility, gain insights into network performance, and quickly identify and resolve network issues while using VMware Cloud Foundation.

Capabilities of VMware Aria Operations for Networks are now only available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1, as discussed in this recent blog: Dramatic Simplification of VMware Aria as part of VMware Cloud Foundation. VMware Cloud Foundation is a full-stack private cloud solution that combines the scale and agility of the public cloud with the security and performance of the private cloud. VMware Aria Operations for Networks is no longer sold as a standalone product or as SaaS as discussed in this blog: VMware End Of Availability of Perpetual Licensing and SaaS Services. All the capabilities in VMware Aria Operations for Networks as an offering of VMware Cloud Foundation stay the same, including application discovery, topology visualization, network planning, and troubleshooting.

There are many new network visibility capabilities in the latest release, VMware Aria Operations for Networks 6.12, to help VMware Cloud Foundation Networking users improve their application network performance and troubleshoot network issues.

Network Map Scope

Enterprise networks are extensive and complex, so it helps to narrow down which types of devices might be viewed in topology as users troubleshoot particular application network issues. This Network Map Scope capability allows users to create a visual network map scope for specific kinds of devices to understand better where an issue might be occurring.

This new capability to zoom in on a particular type of device rather than looking at everything in the topology can help resolve the issue quickly. The types of devices that will be able to be included in a scope are both Physical and Virtual, such as NSX Host Transport Nodes, NSX Edge Transport Nodes, vCenter hosts, switches, routers, firewalls, load balancers, blade servers, and fabric extenders.

Figure 1. Network map scope choices so that users can narrow their troubleshooting to specific sets of network devices.

Tags for Devices

A new custom tag capability will allow users to create custom tags based on city, location, data center, department, asset tag, or custom property. Tags will help users when running reports or creating dashboards on those tags. Users can add tags to VMs, switches, routers, firewalls, and other physical and virtual devices. Tags will make it easier for users to identify their devices on the network infrastructure for their day-to-day operations. 

Figure 2. Tags can be customized to help organize and search for devices while troubleshooting. Tags can be used to describe the location of a data center, asset tag, or other custom label.

APIs and Databus

For better troubleshooting and root cause analysis in NSX environments, several NSX and vCenter APIs for databus will be in the VMware Aria Operations for Networks 6.12 release, which will pull metrics across the NSX Edge, vCenter host, and vCenter host cluster. Examples of improved network visibility will be vCenter host metrics like usage, transmission, or drop rate. 

Table/Widget Update Persistence

Do you find it challenging when you change a table or view, but then those view preferences disappear when returning to the same screen after dealing with a different issue? In the 6.12 release, users will find it easier to troubleshoot because adjustments from table sorting, filtering, column ordering, and table preferences that a user makes will be remembered. Also, as a user resizes or repositions widgets, the platform will remember the modified settings in the various screens and custom dashboards.

Email Notifications for Closing Alerts

The 6.12 release now has consistent integrations for closing alerts which generates a SNMP message for tools like ServiceNow and IBM Netcool. A closed alert email can be generated to IT users when alerts are closed in VMware Aria Operations for Networks. This capability will provide better visibility for IT teams, making issues more accessible to track through the IT help desk lifecycle. The new 6.12 closed alert email feature will make it easier for IT users to collaborate and focus on the current open and relevant alerts.

Trial Process and License Updates 6.12.1

The new 6.12.1 release will improve the trial process to allow VMware Cloud Foundation customers to run network assessments to evaluate their network infrastructure for VMware Cloud Foundation and NSX deployments. Before a license is installed, the platform will boot in trial mode for 60 days. Before the trial expires, a customer with paid licensing can utilize the same platform for production. The platform will no longer process incoming source data if the 60-day trial period is over without a paid license. This release will have informative updates to the platform’s trial and licensing notification banners.

Licensing will be simplified in this release. This update allows the VMware Aria Operations for Networks platform to rely on VMware Cloud Foundation for licensing, and licenses are no longer applied to VMware Aria Operations for Networks. The simpler licensing installation applies to new greenfield VMware Cloud Foundation deployments.

VMware Validated Solution

The VMware Validated Solution team has created a new validated solution with VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware Aria Operations for Networks. Please take a look at their latest blog.

These designs have been architected and thoroughly tested for use by customers and partners so that they can become confident with deploying VMware Aria Operations for Networks in their VMware Cloud Foundation environments.

Summary

As IT users look for ways to improve their network operations and troubleshoot network issues for VMware Cloud Foundation more efficiently, the latest release of VMware Aria Operations for Networks 6.12 offers several benefits, including the network map scope, custom tag capability, additional APIs for NSX and vCenter metrics, and a better user experience with persistence of the tables and widget changes. These capabilities will improve identification of the physical and virtual devices during day-to-day network operations for root cause analysis and troubleshooting. Running VMware Cloud Foundation with VMware Aria Operations for Networks 6.12, IT users can reduce the time and effort required to troubleshoot network issues, ultimately improving application performance and reliability. These new capabilities will also provide better visibility and planning insights to customers interested in deploying VMware NSX, a core component of VMware Cloud Foundation. Deploy VMware Aria Operations for Networks 6.12 and its useful new capabilities to prevent network issues from slowing down your business applications.

What’s Next?

Reach out to your VMware sales team or partner sales team to get started.

Resources

VMware: Business Simplification, Portfolio Innovation and Ecosystem Standardization

VMware Cloud Foundation website

VMware Aria Operations for Networks website

Dramatic Simplification of VMware Aria as part of VMware Cloud Foundation

VMware End Of Availability of Perpetual Licensing and SaaS Services

VMware Aria Operations for Networks Documentation

VMware Aria Operations for Networks Release Notes 6.12 and 6.12.1

The Cloud Platform Tech Zone: Intelligent Network Visibility for VMware Cloud Foundation

Introducing Intelligent Network Visibility for VMware Cloud Foundation VMware Validated Solution

We are pleased to announce that VMware Aria Operations- a component of VMware Cloud Foundation has been awarded  the “EMA AllStars 2024” award for AI-Assisted Operations in the Hybrid Cloud Performance and Health Management Category.

What is EMA?

Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading IT analyst research firm that specializes in going “beyond the surface” to provide deep insight across the full spectrum of IT management technologies. It leverages a unique combination of practical experience, insight into industry best practices, and in-depth knowledge of current and planned vendor solutions to help its clients achieve their goals.

Why is VMware Aria Operations an “EMA AllStar 2024”?

VMware Aria Operations- a component of VMware Cloud Foundation delivers a comprehensive, AI-driven solution for managing hybrid-cloud environments, enhancing visibility, performance, and efficiency across IT operations. 

The award was based on the following parameters:

• Business Impact
• Product differentiation
• Outlook
• Time To Value
• Range of Capabilities
• Adoption

VMware Aria Operations provides a unified platform for end-to-end visibility across both infrastructure and applications. It delivers the following:

• Continuous Performance Optimization
• Efficient Capacity and Cost Management
• Integrated Compliance and Governance
• Intelligent Remediation
• Sustainable Operations

Read the summarized report from EMA and learn more about VMware Aria Operations

Hi everyone, Happy New Year!

Hope all of you have had a warm and relaxing holiday with your family and friends.

As you may know, on November 22, 2023, the completion of VMware’s acquisition by Broadcom united two teams with a primary focus on engineering and a commitment to innovation. Working together, we are strongly positioned to empower worldwide enterprises in adopting private, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.

To learn more about our recent updates regarding the simplified offers and licensing model, please read:

• VMware by Broadcom Dramatically Simplifies Offer Lineup and Licensing Model

• Dramatic Simplification of VMware Aria as part of VMware Cloud Foundation

Here comes the VMware Aria Automation 8.16.0 release, which includes the following new enhancements:

Access to the Public API for listing IaaS Events. 

Access to the IaaS Events list is now available for customers through the swagger API which makes it easier for users to get access to those APIs.

Rebuild day two actions at the deployment level.  

Following the release of rebuilding VMs as a day-two action on the VM level, Aria Automation now also supports rebuilding VMs at the deployment level. Users can initiate a day-two action to rebuild an existing deployment, choose which machines to rebuild, and do it in bulk. This enhancement saves time and effort for users. 

Provide the ability to scope Secrets by Org and Projects. 

Cloud admins can now assign secrets at an organization level, or scope them to multiple projects. This enhancement adds more flexibility for customers to create secrets not only at the project level but also at the Organizational level.

For more information about VMware Aria Automation 8.16.0 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 

VMware Aria Automation for Dummies Guide

The Forrester Wave: Infrastructure Automation, Q1 2023 Report 

IDC Spotlight on Infrastructure as Code Report 

451 Research Report – The Public Cloud Governance Imperative Report 

Transform your IT with Self-Service Delivery Report 

DevOps for Dummies Guide 

Enterprise Framework for Network Automation eBook 

Follow us on Twitter @VMwareAriaAuto

 By: Paul Turner, VP Products, VMware Cloud Foundation Division

Over the past two years, VMware has been on a journey to simplify its portfolio and transition from a perpetual license to a subscription model, helping customers of all sizes gain more value from their investments in our solutions. On December 11, 2023, we commenced the next chapter in VMware’s mission to enable global enterprises to embrace private, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments with the announcement of a dramatic simplification of our product portfolio. 

We radically streamlined our cloud infrastructure and management products by consolidating our focus on two core offerings: VMware Cloud Foundation, our flagship enterprise-class hybrid cloud solution, and the new VMware vSphere Foundation, an enterprise-grade workload platform that integrates vSphere with intelligent operations management for our mid-sized and smaller customers.

This simplification strategy extends to our VMware Aria cloud management solutions. First, we’ve incorporated the full breadth of Aria’s functionality in VMware Cloud Foundation. Aria simplifies customer deployment, adoption, and management of the key VMware Cloud Foundation capabilities that transform your datacenter into a private cloud. With Aria, you can automate the delivery of infrastructure and applications services, predict, prevent, and troubleshoot performance issues, ensure maximum utilization of resources at minimal cost, and fortify compliance and governance to reduce risk across your cloud environments.​ 

In addition to the incorporation of Aria, we’ve dramatically increased the value of VMware Cloud Foundation by reducing our previous subscription list prices by half and adding higher support service levels including enhanced support for solution activation and lifecycle management. The new vSphere Foundation includes Aria Operations and Operations for Logs to provide the best performance, availability, and efficiency with greater visibility and insights. 

Second, the simplification strategy provides a consistent infrastructure and management stack across all the ways that customers can consume VMware Cloud Foundation: direct from VMware or via our partners, such as the channel, hyperscaler partners, or managed service providers. To deliver this consistent deployment and operational model for customers, we are no longer making the Aria offerings available for purchase as SaaS. They are available only as components of VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation. This end of availability covers the standalone Aria SaaS services (e.g., Aria Operations Cloud) as well as the suite offerings such as VMware Aria Cloud Universal and VMware vCloud Suite Subscription. This change also enables our partners to build out a set of SaaS management services on top of VMware Cloud Foundation, delivering significant incremental value on top of the functionality provided by Aria Operations and Aria Automation. And, with the bring-your-own-subscription license option, customers can move their license to a cloud service provider of choice to utilize their value-added SaaS services on top of VMware Cloud Foundation.

The incorporation of Aria as a core component of VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation helps simplify and streamline how customers and partners realize value from our offerings to support digital transformation. This value will flow from continuous innovation, faster time to value, and predictable investments. We are committed to your success with VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware Aria, and believe this new simplification journey will help you achieve that success faster and more fully.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What are the changes in the Aria SaaS product portfolio?

A. Customers no longer have the option to purchase the Aria offerings as a standalone product or as a SaaS product. The Aria cloud management capabilities are available only as components of VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation, which are sold for deployment on-premises or on certain public cloud providers including VMware Cloud on AWS. Existing Aria SaaS subscriptions will continue through the end of their term. At time of renewal, customers should purchase VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation.

Q: What products and bundles are impacted by this new policy?

A. See the list on this VMware KB article

Q. Why are you making these changes?  As a customer, how do I benefit?

A. As a core component of VMware Cloud Foundation, customers now can purchase a single infrastructure and management stack with a consistent deployment and operational model. In addition, we’ve reduced our previous VMware Cloud Foundation subscription list prices by half and added higher support service levels.

Q. I’m a partner – how does this Aria simplification help my business?

A. As part of VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation, we are able to make Aria available to our customers in a consistent manner across all our various routes to market – direct from VMware or via our channel, OEM, or hyper-scaler partners, or as a managed service. Partners have told us they are excited to build additional SaaS services on top of our offerings to  provide significant incremental value to our joint customers.

Q. What is the timing of the end of availability of the Aria SaaS offerings?

A. Aria SaaS SKUs have been end of availability (EoA) as of 12/12/2023. Purchasing Aria a la carte is not possible as of the EoA date.

Q. I am currently using Aria SaaS. What happens to me? What happens to existing service subscriptions such as Aria Cloud Universal?

A. You will be able to continue to use your Aria SaaS licenses until the end of your subscription term, after which we will help you to transition to VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation.

Q. I am in the middle of onboarding Aria SaaS services. If Aria SaaS is no longer available, should I continue to onboard them now? Whom should I reach out to if I have questions about what to do going forward?

A. If you are currently in the process of onboarding to Aria SaaS then you will continue to be supported in your onboarding and your SaaS subscription will continue through the end of its term. At the end of your subscription term, we will work with you to transition you to VMware vSphere Foundation or VMware Cloud Foundation and help move your Aria SaaS to an on-premises deployment. If you have not commenced your onboarding, we encourage you to transition to an on-premises deployment of Aria via VMware vSphere Foundation or VMware Cloud Foundation. Please reach out to your account team for more information on how your onboarding or transition will be supported.

Q: Can I use Aria to manage public clouds?

A.    If you want to manage native public clouds with VMware Aria you must purchase VMware Cloud Foundation and deploy it either on-premises or directly on a public cloud using the license portability to VMware validated hybrid cloud endpoints running VMware Cloud Foundation. If you have an existing Aria SaaS subscription (either a standalone service, e.g., Aria Operations Cloud, or Aria Cloud Universal) you can continue to use it for public cloud management until the end of its term. In addition, for VMware Cloud on AWS, the VMware Cloud on AWS: Advanced offering includes Aria Suite Advanced for use with customer-managed SDDCs and is available for net new purchases and renewals.