VMware has released VMware vRealize Automation 8.11.0 as of Jan 2023. With this release, VMware has provided several enhancements and new Features.

New Features

• New Consume tab
  

This feature streamlines the vRealize Automation Service Broker user experience. Catalogs, resources, and supervisor namespaces (part of Cloud Consumption Interface which is currently under Initial Availability only in vRealize Automation Cloud) are all moved under a single “Consume” tab to centralize multiple ways to work with infrastructure and provision resources. As part of this, a new project selector was also introduced which allow you to select one or more projects with the entire Consume tab output including Catalog Items, Deployments, Resources and Supervisor Namespaces filtered based on that selection. Content and Policies, Infrastructure, and Inbox tabs in Service Broker will continue to be next to Consume tab at the top level in horizontal fashion. Learn more

• Support for shared VPCs (GCP) in vRealize Automation
  

Shared VPC allows an organization to connect resources from multiple projects to a common Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network, so that they can communicate with each other securely and efficiently using internal IPs from that network. Shared VPCs are key constructs used by GCP users to enable usage of shared networks across multiple GCP projects (applications).

Shared VPC can now be discovered in vRA when a GCP cloud account is added.

• SaltConfiguration property is no longer available in Cloud Assembly Template
  

The saltConfiguration property is no longer supported from cloud templates. In order to deploy minions and state files as a day 0 action, it is recommended to update the cloud templates and use the SaltStack Config resource.

• Day 2 action [GCP] – ability to create a snapshot of VM and attached disks
  

This feature is available only for GCP resources.

For GCP resource there is a new Day 2 action to create a snapshot. When this Day 2 action is executed it takes the snapshot of VM and all attached disks. The snapshot includes a snapshot of VM and a snapshot of all attached disks to the VM. The VM and attached disks should be managed as a single entity.

You can “name” the snapshot and save a description with it.

• “Reset VM” available as Day 2 action for GCP VMs
  

vRealize Automation now provides a Day 2 action called, Reset VM. This option is only available only for GCP VMs.

Note: Using this option wipes the memory contents of the machine and resets the VM to its initial state.

• Manage a VMware Cloud on AWS Environment in an AWS GovCloud Region
  

vRealize Automation now supports connecting to and managing VMware Cloud on AWS environments hosted in an AWS GovCloud Region.

• Snapshot limits in vRealize Automation is independent of vSphere backups
  

The snapshot limit set through vRealize Automation no longer interferes with the snapshot actions (such as scheduled backups) directly performed on vSphere.

• Support for Selecting Azure Availability Zones
  

vRealize Automation now supports selecting Azure Availability Zones that deployments should be deployed in. By setting the “attachAvailabilityZone” boolean property in the blueprint to “true”, you can facilitate the allocation mechanism to work with availability zones supportability, based on tags, and selected flavor mapping.

• Enable Change Project for deployments with Ansible resource
  

Previously, if the deployment contained an Ansible resource, then the change project feature was not enabled. Now, the change project action is available for provisioned deployments with Ansible resource.

Currently, resources that are supported for provisioned deployments are machines, volumes, load balancers, networks, security groups, Azure resource groups, nats, gateways, custom resources, Terraform configurations, Ansible resource.

• Create a Guardrails Template from an Existing Azure Environment
  

You can now create a Guardrails template from an Azure environment and use it as a desired state. When scheduled to run, it will allow users to identify any drift in the environment in case any changes are made.

• Dry Run a Guardrails template in an Azure Environment
  

You can now test run a Guardrails template against an Azure environment without making any changes to the environment. This allows users to identify all the changes that will be made to the environment once the template is enforced. It helps in making an informed decision.

• Capacity management enhancements – CPU allocation limits
  

You can now specify a maximum CPU allocation percent globally and per host/cluster. During provisioning these properties are checked for placement and prevent CPU overallocation in the host/cluster.

• AD Group support within Service Broker for Day-2 Action Policy
  

Day-2 action policies within Service Broker have been enhanced to support AD groups in addition to users during configuration.

• Enable Change Project for deployments with Terraform resource
  

Previously, if the deployment contained Terraform resource, the change project feature was not enabled. Now, thechange project action is available for provisioned deployments with terraform resource.

Currently, resources that are supported for provisioned deployments are machines, volumes, load balancers, networks, security groups, Azure resource groups, nats, gateways, custom resources, Ansible resource, Terraform configurations.

Resolved Issues

• External vRealize Orchestrator fail to start after change of vRealize Automation certificate
  

If the system property com.vmware.o11n.certPathValidator is enabled with vRO configured to use an external vRA as authentication provider and vRA certificates are replaced with a certificate from the same Certificate Authority, then vRO UI would issue an 404 error in the browser.

• First firewall rule defined in vRA deployment is failing in vRA UI
  

The Day-2 reconfigure action is failing for new security group without rules in deployment. When empty, security groups are configured and updated later. vRealize Automation fails but the group actually gets updated.

• Service Broker Deployments filter not set correctly when navigating from Cloud Assembly with Project filter
  

In Cloud Assembly, when users select a project in the filter, and then go to the Service Broker, deployments were also filtered by that project. The only way to change it is to click “Clear All”.

• Windows Vulnerability Results not always showing the ‘description’ value
  

From Saltstack Config, when viewing a Windows Vulnerability, the description value wasn’t consistently being displayed.

• Puppet: Command line length error when invoking script to install agent
  

Previously, the puppet facts sent from vRA contained information of all hosts present in the deployment. When the script to install the puppet agent and apply the facts was run, the maximum character length of arguments of a bash command was exceeded, which resulted in deployment failure.

Known Issue

• DynamicTypes plugin workflows and actions do not support session propagation
  

DynamicTypes plugin uses workflows and actions to retrieve vRO objects. These are internally used workflows/actions and do not support session propagation.

For more details go to VMware official site.

Credit: vmware