VMware Aria Automation New Features in versions 8.13.1, 8.13 and 8.12.2

The latest release is 8.13.1 released in September 2023

VMware is enhancing the Aria Automation the Multi-Cloud Management solution has a very frequent release cycle to add new features to enhance the product and meet customer demands. Here is a glance at the latest features released in recent versions of VMware Aria Automation.

The table format of the latest features comes in handy, I am keeping the latest three versions which will be very helpful in understanding what is newly available. I have planned to maintain this way to have reference to a few latest versions as some of you are running previous versions and can easily reference when needed.

 

8.13.1	8.13	8.12.2
7th September 2023	July 2023	June 2023
Custom naming for plug-in resources	Secure Host supports CIS Benchmark for RHEL9	Continued management of workloads failed over by SRM
FIPS compliance for plug-in based resources	Command line support for configuring VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator	Support for VM snapshots in GCP
Storage filter should pass all the eligible selections to downstream filters	Support for load balancer in GCP plugin	Support for managing disks resources in GCP
Updates to the Service Broker Catalog	Onboarded deployments are compliant with Service Broker policy limits	Support for AWS subnet and Test feature in VCT
Plug-in based resources now support new OOTB Day 2 actions	VMware Aria Automation billable object visibility	Support for managing network resource in GCP
Updates related to Terraform license changes made by HashiCorp	Day 2 action to change performance tier of Azure storage disks	Support for storage buckets in GCP plugin
Add a cloud account for vCenter that is connected to vSphere+	Rebuild virtual machine for Onboarded and Migrated vSphere workloads	Storage policy support for plugin based resource
VMware Aria Automation Config support for Salt Onedir packages	Resource visualization Improvement	Manage shielded instance resources in GCP
VMware Aria Automation for Secure Hosts: Qualys Vulnerability scan imports now has UI support	Support for service accounts in GCP plugin	When onboarding machines, ability to also onboard the connected NSX-T networks
Salt Open (Open Source Project) release Information	Custom Forms Versions Integrated with Content Items	Support for GCP VMs
Limiting the number of vAPI metamodels supoprted by Aria Automation Orchestrator vAPI plug-in	Increasing inventory limits
	Custom Forms Versions Integrated with Content Items
	Remove node.js 14 from runtimes and polyglot
	Python 3.7 is deprecated and will be removed in next release
	Optionally neglect CPU/Memory of powered off VMs in resource quota policy
	Unregister provisioned machines Day2 action
	The package signing certificate can now be changed using the "Generate Package Signing Certificate" workflow
	PowerCLI 11 runtime is deprecated
	Qualys Vulnerability scan imports via API with Aria Automation Secure Host

For more details on each of the features always refer to the latest vRealize Automation Release Notes

VMware Aria Automation New Features in versions 8.11.2

VMware Aria Automation New Features in versions 8.11.2, 8.11.1 8.11.0 and 8.10.2

The latest release is 8.11.2 released in March 2023

VMware is enhancing the Aria Automation the Multicloud Management solution has a very frequent release cycles to add new features to enhance the product and meet customer demands. Here is the glance of the latest features released in recent versions of VMware Aria Automation.

The table format of the latest features comes handy, I am keeping latest four versions this will be very helpful in understanding that what is newly available. I have planned to maintain this way to have reference to few latest versions as some of you are running previous versions and can easily reference when needed.

This time there are 5 new features have been added related to API, Azure, Saltstack and Cloud Extensibility Proxy

8.11.2	8.11.1	8.11.0	8.10.2
March 2023	February 2023	January 2023	November 2022
vRealize Automation API Documentation for some services are now upgraded to OpenAPI 3.0 standard	SaltStack Day2 Action Enhancements	New Consume tab	Audit log enhancements for Cloud Assembly
Day 0 support for Azure disk performance tiers	vRealize Automation Terraform Service and accompanying Terraform provider now supports Terraform 1.0	Support for shared VPCs (GCP) in vRealize Automation	Configuration Drift Insight and Dashboard Reporting (vRealize Automation SaltStack Config)
Ability to upgrade the Salt Master plugin from SaltStack Config	Customized notifications in Service Broker	SaltConfiguration property is no longer available in Cloud Assembly Template	Enable quick create VM for project members
Support for Azure Government Cloud with vRealize Automation	Capacity management enhancements - Storage allocation limits	Day 2 action [GCP] - ability to create a snapshot of VM and attached disks	Ability to run the Change Project action on deployments that contain custom resources
Upgrade Deprecated Cloud Extensibility Proxy Versions	Deprecate an identity service endpoint in vRealize Automation	“Reset VM” available as Day 2 action for GCP VMs	Discover existing cloud accounts and enforce governance
	Provision GCP TCP Load Balancers and perform Day 2 actions	Manage a VMware Cloud on AWS Environment in an AWS GovCloud Region	Support for network proxies in vSphere endpoints
	Provision GCP storage bucket resources	Snapshot limits in vRealize Automation is independent of vSphere backups	Additional Guardrails security and cost library template
		Support for Selecting Azure Availability Zones	Guardrails support for Azure environments
		Enable Change Project for deployments with Ansible resource
		Create a Guardrails Template from an Existing Azure Environment
		Dry Run a Guardrails template in an Azure Environment
		Capacity management enhancements - CPU allocation limits
		AD Group support within Service Broker for Day-2 Action Policy
		Enable Change Project for deployments with Terraform resource

For more details on each of the feature always refer to latest vRealize Automation Release Notes

VMware Aria Automation New Features in latest version-8.11.1

 

VMware Aria Automation New Features in versions 8.11.1, 8.11.0 and 8.10.2

The latest release is 8.11.1 released in February 2023

VMware is enhancing the Aria Automation the Multicloud Management solution has a very frequent release cycles to add new features to enhance the product and meet customer demands. Here is the glance of the latest features released in recent versions of VMware Aria Automation.

The table format of the latest features comes handy, I am keeping latest three versions this will be very helpful in understanding that what is newly available. I have planned to maintain this way to have reference to few latest versions as some of you are running previous versions and can easily reference when needed.

8.11.1	8.11.0	8.10.2
February 2023	January 2023	November 2022
SaltStack Day2 Action Enhancements	New Consume tab	Audit log enhancements for Cloud Assembly
vRealize Automation Terraform Service and accompanying Terraform provider now supports Terraform 1.0	Support for shared VPCs (GCP) in vRealize Automation	Configuration Drift Insight and Dashboard Reporting (vRealize Automation SaltStack Config)
Customized notifications in Service Broker	SaltConfiguration property is no longer available in Cloud Assembly Template	Enable quick create VM for project members
Capacity management enhancements - Storage allocation limits	Day 2 action [GCP] - ability to create a snapshot of VM and attached disks	Ability to run the Change Project action on deployments that contain custom resources
Deprecate an identity service endpoint in vRealize Automation	“Reset VM” available as Day 2 action for GCP VMs	Discover existing cloud accounts and enforce governance
Provision GCP TCP Load Balancers and perform Day 2 actions	Manage a VMware Cloud on AWS Environment in an AWS GovCloud Region	Support for network proxies in vSphere endpoints
Provision GCP storage bucket resources	Snapshot limits in vRealize Automation is independent of vSphere backups	Additional Guardrails security and cost library template
	Support for Selecting Azure Availability Zones	Guardrails support for Azure environments
	Enable Change Project for deployments with Ansible resource
	Create a Guardrails Template from an Existing Azure Environment
	Dry Run a Guardrails template in an Azure Environment
	Capacity management enhancements - CPU allocation limits
	AD Group support within Service Broker for Day-2 Action Policy
	Enable Change Project for deployments with Terraform resource

For more details on each of the feature always refer to latest vRealize Automation Release Notes

VMware Aria Automation Latest Features at glance-version-8.11.0

 

VMware Aria Automation New Features in versions 8.11.0, 8.10.2 and 8.10.1

The latest release is 8.11.0 released in January 2023

VMware is enhancing the Aria Automation the Multicloud Management solution has a very frequent release cycles to add new features to enhance the product and meet customer demands. Here is the glance of the latest features released in recent versions of VMware Aria Automation.

The table format of the latest features comes handy, I am keeping latest three versions this will be very helpful in understanding that what is newly available. I have planned to maintain this way to have reference to few latest versions as some of you are running previous versions and can easily reference when needed.

8.11.0	8.10.2	8.10.1
January 2023	November 2022	October 2022
New Consume tab	Audit log enhancements for Cloud Assembly	Support for vRA SaltStack Config on RHEL8 and RHEL9
Support for shared VPCs (GCP) in vRealize Automation	Configuration Drift Insight and Dashboard Reporting (vRealize Automation SaltStack Config)	VMware Aria Guardrails Tech Preview is moving to Aria Automation
SaltConfiguration property is no longer available in Cloud Assembly Template	Enable quick create VM for project members	Onboarded deployment compliant with project resource limits
Ability to run the Change Project action on deployments that contain custom resources	Provide the ability to track usage and consumption with vRA using Audit Log	Provide the ability to track usage and consumption with vRA using Audit Log
“Reset VM” available as Day 2 action for GCP VMs	Discover existing cloud accounts and enforce governance	Ability to configure automatic updates in Azure for Windows VM
Manage a VMware Cloud on AWS Environment in an AWS GovCloud Region	Support for network proxies in vSphere endpoints	Ability to share VMware Cloud Templates (VCT) in shared pipelines
Snapshot limits in vRealize Automation is independent of vSphere backups	Additional Guardrails security and cost library template	Preview/Perform a Dry Run of a Guardrails Template
	Support for Selecting Azure Availability Zones	Guardrails support for Azure environments
	Enable Change Project for deployments with Ansible resource	Just-In-Time Cloud Access from VMware Aria Guardrails
	Create a Guardrails Template from an Existing Azure Environment
	Dry Run a Guardrails template in an Azure Environment
	Capacity management enhancements - CPU allocation limits
	AD Group support within Service Broker for Day-2 Action Policy
	Enable Change Project for deployments with Terraform resource

For more details on each of the feature always refer to latest vRealize Automation Release Notes

Create Global Custom Naming for deployed resources in Aria Automation Assembler (VMware Cloud Assembly)

 The Global Custom Naming feature is introduced in Aria Automation (vRealize Automation) to provide options for the customers to generate the name for Aria Automation resource types based on the Custom Naming template in the organization or projects

Available in following vRA/Aria Automation versions

• vRealize Automation version above 8.6.1 and above
• vRealize Automation Cloud

Generating Custom name with custom properties to adopt the naming standards of the customer

To use custom properties in a speific Global Custom Name they needs to be defined in a property group to have a flexibility to gererate the names in required pattern

NOTE:
A custom property value in the Aria Automation Templates (VMware Cloud Templates) take precedence over the same property value in the custom name.
The Project-level custom names take precedence over organization-level names
Limitation : You can assign only one Custom Naming for one Project, but it can contain options for multiple resource types
If you do not define naming templates for all resource types, the undefined resource types default to the organization template. If an organization template does not exist, the undefined resource types default to the system naming.

To Keep is simple I am using Naming Standards defined below for generating the name for Virtual Machine, similar approach can be followed for other resource types.

Virtual Machine Naming Standard

Below is the naming standard that need to be adopted to name the Virtual Machines

<Country><Organization><Function><Environment><OperatingSystem><ServerRole><RunningNumericValue>

By defining the custom naming based on the naming standard of the Virtual Machine, the name generated at the time of provisioning will be based on the values defined in the property group and the option selected while ordering using Aria Automation Consumption (VMware Service Broker)

Example

In this case the naming generated for Windows Server "INKMVPWAP0001"

• IN is Country,
• KM is the Organization,
• V stands for Virtual Machine,
• P stands for Production Environment,
• W stands for Windows Server Operating System,
• AP stands for Application Server,
• 0001 is the four digit sequence number for the server.

---

Now lets get on to the job to create Project Global Custom Naming.

Create a property group named ResourceNamingPG.

1. Select Infrastructure > Design > Property Groups and click New Property Group.
2. Click Input Values.
3. Enter the Name ResourceNamingPG.
4. Enter Display Name Server Naming Standards
5. For the Scope, select Available for any project. (If you want to use the same naming for all your projects, else select the specific project)
6. Click New Property configure the following values and enter the name

Property Name	Type	Default Value
Country	String	IN
Org	String	KM
Function	String	V
ENV	String	P
OS	String	W
Role	String	AP

Add the Key Pair Values for multiple Value of each Property which will be available as selection option while ordering, I am including only one Example here for Country and repeated the steps create other properties except for Server Functions which has static value. 

Key	Value
United States Of America	US
United Kingdom	UK
India	IN

6. Click Create.
7. Click Create to save the new property group

---

Configure custom properties for project.

Follow the steps to create Custom Properties for Specific Project (Can be assinged to multiple projects)

1. Select Infrastructure > Administration > Projects and open the project.
2. Click the Provisioning tab and locate the Custom Properties section.
3. Enter as the Property name and Value from the above table
4. Click Save.

---

Create a project level custom naming template for Virtual Machines

1. Select Infrastructure > Administration > Custom Names and click New Custom Name.
2. Enter the Name.
3. Select Project as the Scope.

4. Click New Naming Template and configure the following options.

Options	Value
Resource Type	Machine
Template format	${ResourceNamingPG.Country}-${ResourceNamingPG.Org}-${ResourceNamingPG.Function}-${ResourceNamingPG.ENV}-${ResourceNamingPG.OS}-${ResourceNamingPG.Role}-${####}
Starting counter value	1000
Increment step	1

5. Assign to the Project

After saving you can see the newly created “Custom Name” in the Custom Names

Adding as input parameter in Aria Automation Templates (VMware Cloud Templates)

Testing

NOTE : Please observe that there are few Deployment Options (Including Country) are with Dropdown, those are defined with multiple Key & Values in the Custom Property which allows the selection, that is the flexibility that allows generate the name by input parameters

---

Repeat the steps for other resource types

Feedback are welcome, reach out to me on kmaradhya@gmail.com

Part -1 Troubleshooting vRA & vRO - Troubleshooting Services and PODs

The vRA and vRO Services and POD’s running on Kubernetes and useKubectl commands for getting information and troubleshooting.

Handling Namespaces

Listing the Namespaces

1. To get list of all the namespaces and their status below command can be used

Kubectl get namespaces

Handling Services

The vRA and vRO run under namespace called “prelude”

PODs

1. To get list of all the PODs and their status below command can be used

Kubectl get pods -n prelude




2. To get filtered list of all the PODs and status below command can be used
Syntax : Kubectl get pods -n prelude | grep -i podname

Kubectl get pods -n prelude | grep -i vco

Restarting Services

1. The Specific Service can be restarted using below command

Syntax : Kubectl delete pods -n prelude < Service Name>

Kubectl delete pods -n prelude vco-app-xxxxxxxxxxxxx

While its getting deleted the POD, it goes to terminating state and new POD for service will be created. To get list specific PODs and its status below command can be used.

Kubectl get pods -n prelude | grep -i vco

And now New POD initialize and goes to running state, To get list specific PODs and its status below command can be used.

Kubectl get pods -n prelude | grep -i vco

NOTE: Watch the uptime of the POD

The Dependencies Services
/opt/charts/ < service name>/templates

cd /opt/charts/vco/templates
ls -l

ServiceNow ITSM Plug-in 8.6 released for vRA Integration  

ITSM 8.6 Features 

• Enhancement around debug Loggers.
• Reduce the delete operation on question_choice table
• Minor bug fixes

Below are the additional features/functionalities in the ITSM application

• Limit the scheduled job to run on a limited number of threads
• Improvement to the load time of Catalog Item Request form
• Toggle switch for form loader
• Additional Loggers and improvement around try/catch logging
• Fix for Project/Endpoint reference empty on deployments/resources
• Compatible with IPAM integration plugin installed on vRA
• Provisioning Catalog items and Day 2 actions catalog items entitlement across ServiceNow users through user criteria
• Resource visibility based on ownership within ServiceNow
• Reconcile of CMDB
• Email Notification
• Provision to configure Multi-Level Approvals within request workflow
• Auto re-trigger of Catalog item request if Mid-Server goes down and comes up
• Configurable vRA Cloud region base URL
• ServiceNow Incident ticket for failed deployment request
• Condition field visibility support with equals and not equals parameter
• Support of deployment name field with an external source 
• Support of custom loader on catalog item form(Native UI)
• Enhancement around reconciliation of deployment, resources, and day-2 actions,
• UI enhancement on catalog item form 

Supported ServiceNow Releases

        Paris, Quebec, and Rome

Supported vRealize Automation Version

        vRA 8.5, vRA 8.5.1, vRA8.6, vRA 8.6.1, vRA8.6.2, and vRA Cloud