So I’m sure many of you saw the release of vCD9 – in my opinion, one of the largest releases in some time now. Many exciting features to talk about, but I’m going to highlight a few very valuable things that will change how providers utilize vCD9 in the future.
Oh, before I forget – release notes: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vCloud-Director/9.0/rn/rel_notes_vcloud_director_90.html
Multi-Site Federation Capability
This is a phased approach, but the first phase of this providing the ability to view two distinct vCD sites from a single console and provide a trust relationship between them.
More info here – Configuring and Managing Multisite Deployment – vCD9 Documentation
Tenant Metrics built into vCD + vROps Tenant App
Big addition here. Natively, some level of performance data has been in the Cassandra DB for some time – it was up to the SP’s to utilize the data if they choose.
Part of vCD9 is the ability to see basic monitoring data of their vApps/VM’s from the tenant UI.
There is no additional charge for this capability inside of vCD9 – which is fantastic: new capabilities for your end-users.
Now if you want advanced monitoring and analytical capabilities, we have the vRealize Operations tenant plugin for vCD. This complements the built-in tenant metrics and one could run this side by side based on the tenant use case.
So how does the vROps integration work – it collects data from vCenter backing vCD and there’s a management pack for vCD that filters data into vCD constructs like org vDCs and so on.
For multi-tenancy, one can provide two distinct views: Provider and Tenant. A user configured as Service Provider admin can see both views while a Tenant can only see the Org views. User and Role creation is a manual process at this time.
Please note that for vCD9 integration, you must run vROps 6.6 with the 4.5 Management Pack. Get the management pack here:
https://marketplace.vmware.com/vsx/solutions/management-pack-for-vcloud-director
As expected, for the vROps integration, you will need to be licensed for Advanced or Enterprise for the vCD9 integration.
NSX Networking Additions
Always love this. Some awesome additions:
- Ability to spin up DLR’s between org networks and edge gateway from the UI
- Notes:
- Existing org network can be converted to use a DLR
- Org network can either be connected to an Edge or DLR
- Only DNS and DHCP from the edge can be relayed to org networks
- Read more here in the What’s New Whitepaper – Link to vCD9 What’s New Whitepaper
- Notes:
- Trunking Support for VLANs and External Networks
- Notes:
- Support only for router and external networks
- Notes:
- Security Groups for Distributed Firewalls
Gosh, there’s so much more to cover. But these are my three top things I wanted to cover this morning.
Last of all, I want to thank our Product Management, Marketing, and Engineering teams at VMware – without them, this could not of happened. I’m just highlighting THEIR efforts while I provided feedback.
Enjoy and I look forward to seeing vCD9 in action with many of our providers.
-Daniel