VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1 Release Notes

VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1 \| 29 February 2024 Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1 | 29 February 2024

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

Build Details

VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1 | 2024 | Build 23365475

VMware Aria Operations Upgrade PAK | 2024 | Build 23365473

Note:This upgrade .pak file includes the OS upgrade files from Photon to Photon, the vApp upgrade files, and Cloud Appliance upgrade files.

VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1 Pre-Upgrade Assessment Tool | 2024 | Build 23276250

VMware Aria Operations Cloud Appliance (VMware Aria Operations Cloud Proxy) 8.16.1 | 2024 | Build 23362241

Check frequently for additions and updates to these release notes.

Document Revision History

Date	Edition	Changes
February 29, 2024	1	Initial edition.
March 19, 2024	2	Added two known issues about VC Pricing policies migration and VMware Chargeback migration.
March 28, 2024	3	Added text about creating a snapshot of each node in a cluster before upgrade.

What's New

This is a maintenance release for VMware Aria Operations which resolves a few important security and functionality issues identified in the product. For more details about defects that have been fixed, see KB 96635.

Product Support Notice

Remote Collectors

Cloud proxies have been established as a long-term solution for data collection. In future releases, the introduction of new features will be exclusively limited to cloud proxies, if relevant. The announcement regarding the expiration of support for Remote Collectors and the prohibition of deploying new remote Collectors has already been added in the previous 8.10 Release notes and accompanying documentation.

VMware Aria Operations 8.14 will be the last release to provide support for Remote Collectors. In the 8.16.1 release, upgrades will not be allowed if there are Remote Collectors in use. To upgrade to 8.16.1 or a later release, it is imperative to replace all Remote Collectors with cloud proxies.

Complete the following steps:

If you are using a collector group, you must add new cloud proxies to it and remove the Remote Collectors.
It is recommended that if you are not already using a collector group, create a new collector group and deploy cloud proxies into it. Reassign all adapter instances that were previously associated with Remote Collectors to the collector groups and remove the Remote Collectors.

vRealize Application Remote Collector

vRealize Application Remote Collector is not supported from vRealize Operations 8.10 and above. Migrate all Telegraf end points to cloud proxy before upgrading to vRealize Operations 8.10 and above. For information about migrating from vRealize Application Remote Collector to cloud proxy, see KB 83059.

What's New in This Release

Credential Management

A setting related to Credential Management has been added in Global Settings in this release of VMware Aria Operations.
If this setting is enabled, then credential management will work as follows:
- All credentials need to have a user assigned it.
- Credentials which do not have any user assigned will be found in “Orphaned and Unassigned” page. For security reasons it is highly recommended that the credentials only be used when they are assigned to a user.
If this setting is disabled, then the credential management will work as follows:
- Credential management will follow the previous workflow as it was before the 8.14 release milestone.
Note: This setting will be enabled by default. If you wish to have the previous workflow of Credential Management, disable this setting by going to Administration > Global Settings.

For all other what's new content in 8.16.1, see the VMware Aria Operations 8.16 release notes.

Metrics and Properties Modifications

The following KB article describes all the metrics and properties that have been modified in VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1:

Metrics added in VMware Aria Operations 8.16

Instanced Metrics

Instanced metrics are deactivated by default after deploying or upgrading to vRealize Operations 8.2 or later, and after importing a policy from older versions. To re-activate instanced metrics in vRealize Operations 8.2 or later, see KB 81119.

Basic Authentication

Basic authentication using the REST API is deprecated and deactivated in VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1 fresh deployments by default. Instances that have been upgraded to VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1, will inherit the same properties before the upgrade. It is recommended that you use token-based authentication instead. If you still need to activate or deactivate basic authentication, see KB 77271.

Active Directory Authentication Sources

Logging in to VMware Aria Operations with a short name will be successful only if the user name's domain suffix matches the domain name specified in the Base DN option. Otherwise, the full user name with the domain suffix is required during login. For more information, see KB 68131

System Requirements

Review this section before you install or update VMware Aria Operations.

Sizing and Scaling

The CPU, memory, and disk requirements that meet the needs of a particular environment depend on the number and type of objects in your environment and data collected. This includes the number and type of adapters installed, the use of HA (High Availability) and CA (Continuous Availability), the duration of data retention, and the quantity of specific data points of interest. VMware updates Knowledge Base article 2093783 with the most current information about sizing and scaling. The Knowledge Base article includes overall maximums and spreadsheet calculations that provide a recommendation based on the number of objects and metrics you expect to monitor.

Deployment Formats

You can deploy VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1 with VMware virtual appliance.

If you are deploying a VMware Aria Operations virtual appliance and VMware Aria Operations Cloud Appliance (cloud proxy), use a VMware vSphere Client to connect to a VMware vCenter Server, and deploy the virtual appliance through the vCenter Server instance. The VMware Aria Operations virtual appliance and VMware Aria Operations Cloud Appliance (cloud proxy) must be deployed on hosts that are:

ESX/ESXi 6.5 Update 1 or later and managed by VMware vCenter Server 6.5 or later.
If you have VMware Aria Operations virtual appliance deployed on ESXi 6.0 or older hosts, you must first upgrade vCenter Server and ESXi to version 6.5 Update 1 or later, and then upgrade to VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1.

Hardware Versions, Cipher Suites and Protocols, and Log4j

Hardware Versions

The minimum hardware version required for VMware Aria Operations 8.x releases is version 11. If your VMware Aria Operations virtual appliance had a hardware version earlier than 11, you must first upgrade to hardware version 11 on VMware Aria Operations virtual appliance and then upgrade to VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1.

Cipher Suites and Protocols

For information about cipher suite lists and relevant protocols, see Cipher Suites and Protocols.

Log4j version is at 2.17.2.

VMware Product Compatibility

Note: The VMware Product Interoperability Matrix provides details about the compatibility of VMware Aria Operations with VMware products.

Note: For FIPS mode compatibility details, see the footnotes in the interoperability matrix. The product will not work in FIPS mode if there are footnotes that state that it will not work in FIPS mode.

Solutions and Browser Support

Solutions Support

In addition to the VMware solutions (vSphere, VMware Aria Operations for Logs, vSAN, Service Discovery, NSX-T, and many more), see the VMware Marketplace for many more solutions. These solutions work with Virtual Appliance single or multiple nodes.

Browser Support

This VMware Aria Operations release supports all current Web browsers, although only the following browsers were tested with this release:

Google Chrome: Versions 119 and 120
Mozilla Firefox: Versions 120.0.1 and 121
Microsoft Edge: Versions 119 and 120
Safari: 16.6 and 17.2

Note: Support for Internet Explorer has been dropped from vRealize Operations 8.4 onwards.

SDDC Compliance

Ensure compliance of your vSphere, vSAN, and NSX-T resources deployed across private data centers, and other VMware managed clouds such as VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure VMware Solution, Google Cloud VMware Engine, Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, and VMware Cloud on Dell EMC using various compliance packs in VMware Aria Operations. For information about supported versions of vSphere, vSAN, and NSX, see VMware SDDC Benchmark Details.

Installing and Upgrading VMware Aria Operations

Upgrading to VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1 or upgrading any Management Pack (MP), resets out-of-the-box content as part of the software upgrade process. This implies that the user modifications made to default content such as alert definitions, symptom definitions, recommendations, policies, views, dashboards, widgets, and reports are overwritten. You need to clone or backup the content before you upgrade to VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1.

Notes:

To see the supported direct upgrade path, refer to the Product Interoperability Matrix.
While upgrading to VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1, the expected size of the /dev/sda for Photon OS is 20 GB (hard disk 1). For information about this requirement, see KB 75298.
It is always recommended to run the Pre-Upgrade Assessment tool before an upgrade. A pre-upgrade assessment report that is generated will provide you with the recommended replacements. This tool provides you with an impact analysis following the reduction of metrics in various versions of the product. For more details on using the Pre-Upgrade Assessment Tool, see KB 96200.
It is mandatory to create a snapshot of each node in a cluster before you update a VMware Aria Operations cluster. Once the update is complete, you must delete the snapshot to avoid performance degradation.

VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle 8.16.1 supports the installation of VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1. For more information, see the VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle 8.16 Release Notes.

Refer to the VMware Aria Operations Upgrade Center that has information about upgrading VMware Aria Operations. Refer to the VMware Lifecycle Product Matrix for information about supported versions of VMware Aria Operations.

The VMware Aria Operations Information Center has detailed information about installation and software updates.

Refer to the Getting Started with VMware Aria Operations Guide that provides guidance for a VMware Aria Operations virtual appliance, before you install or update VMware Aria Operations.

Deploy vSphere with Operations Management (any edition) and VMware Aria Operations Standard together in one deployment.

Deploy vCloud Suite/VMware Aria Suite Standard, Advanced, or Enterprise and VMware Aria Operations Advanced or Enterprise edition together in one deployment.

Note: You can also install VMware Aria Operations by using VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager. For more information, see the VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle Installation, Upgrade, and Management Guide.

Resolved Issues

For details on resolved issues, see KB 96635.

Installation and Upgrade Issues

Upgrade to VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1 will impact some management packs

When you upgrade to VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1, some management packs might not be compatible with JDK11 and would require an upgrade to a JDK11 compatible version. Contact the vendor to confirm if the management pack is compatible with VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1.

Workaround: See KB 89675 for more details.
The PAK file upload process is slower in VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1

The VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1 upgrade PAK file may take longer to upload and may sometimes not complete uploading if you are using Firefox as a browser through a high latency network.

Workaround: Use another supported browser to upload the PAK file and start upgrading to VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1.
After you upgrade vRealize Operations from 8.4 to a later release, content upgrade and agent management actions fail

After you upgrade from a previous release, content upgrade and agent management actions fail on on-prem and SaaS when you also upgrade cloud proxy.
Workaround:

Complete the following steps:
1. SSH to the Cloud Proxy VM.
2. Run the following command: /rpm-content/ucp/subsequentboot.sh
You can view the log from the following location: /opt/vmware/var/log/ucp-subsequentboot
Upgrade might fail if any of the nodes are running on VMs with US/Pacific-New timezone

PostgreSQL database systems no longer support the US/Pacific-New timezone, which was just an alias for America/Los_Angeles timezone. If any of the VMware Aria Operations nodes are running on VMs with US/Pacific-New timezone, upgrade might fail.

Workaround: Change VM timezones from US/Pacific-New to America/Los_Angeles, and then upgrade.

General Issues

Inappropriate message on the Launchpad page after adding VVF/VCF permanent licensed vCenter adapter instances

Ignore the following message displayed in the Launchpad and the corresponding recommended action when you use VVF/VCF permanent licenses: "VMware Aria Operations is currently in subscription licensing. Track & manage licenses by logging into VMware Aria Hub Subscription."

Workaround: Apply the following Hot Fix as described in KB 96868.
VC Pricing Policies migration must be run with an "admin" user

While migrating from VC Pricing card to VMware Aria Operations policies, you must run the migration with an "admin" user.

Workaround: None
VMware Chargeback migration must be run with an "admin" user

While migrating from VMware Chargeback to VMware Aria Operations, you must run the migration with an "admin" user.

Workaround: None
Side-details panel for the collector group fails to load if many cloud proxies are configured

The side-details panel for the collector group fails to load if more than 90 cloud proxies are configured.

Workaround: Configure less than 90 cloud proxies.
The Total Cost of Ownership value is negative in some cases

Sometimes, when accounts are added, in the Cost Overview section, Total Cost of Ownership appears as a negative value.

Workaround: Ensure that all the private and VCF cloud adapters are up and running (in the green state) and manually click on Run Cost Calculation. The negative cost disappears.
vSAN Oversubscription Capacity and Oversubscription Ratio metrics are incorrect

Oversubscription Capacity and Oversubscription Ratio metrics calculation is incorrect for the vSAN ESA environment. The Oversubscription metrics are applicable only for the vSAN OSA clusters.

Workaround: None
Generated Reports
1. The generated report which contains a dashboard containing a metric chart is rendered empty when the widget metric charts fit in the metric chart grid perfectly (the scrollbar is being omitted).
  
  Workaround: Resize the Metric Chart widget or add a separate widget for each metric chart.
2. Generated reports that contain distribution and trend views will have their date ranges trimmed if the view's description exceeds 2 lines.
  
  Workaround: None
3. In a generated report, when the report template contains a dashboard of a specific length, its content is not separated between multiple pages and is trimmed instead.
  
  Workaround: Resize some widgets and make them slightly bigger for the dashboard to be fully rendered.
4. In a generated report, when the report template contains a distribution view, the distribution chart is split between two pages when the "Footer" layout option is chosen. In addition, a blank page is attached at the end of the generated report, when the distribution view mode is set to "Landscape".
  
  Workaround: None
5. The generated report content is rendered empty if the "Cost Optimization" dashboard is included in the report template and the "Footer" layout option is selected.
  
  Workaround: None
Addition of custom cloud providers or edit of IBM Cloud and Amazon Web Services cloud providers is not possible

You cannot add custom cloud providers from the Cloud Providers tab. You cannot edit IBM Cloud and Amazon Web Services cloud providers from the Cloud Providers tab.

Workaround: None
VMware Cloud Foundation Compliance

VMware Cloud Foundation Compliance based on VMware Cloud Foundation Audit Guides currently does not consider vSAN objects from the VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4 Audit Guide. Compliance Score % calculation currently excludes vSAN rules for VMware Cloud Foundation version 4.4.

Workaround: None
Agent install fails with the error: Connect to salt master

When you install an agent to monitor applications using Telegraf, the following error may occur: Connect to Salt Master. The error occurs because the end point VM is unable to connect with the salt master.
Workaround: Verify the ownership of the folders in /ucp/salt/pki/master in cloud proxy. The ownership must be admin/admin. If the ownership is not admin, reset permissions/ownership.
1. Run the /ucp/ucp-config-scripts/ucp-firstboot.sh script and verify the permissions of the folder.
2. Reinstall the agent after successful execution of the script.
Agent install should be successful.
VMware Aria Operations API (Suite-API) based Telegraf agent installation fails with an error
When you use an API end point for Telegraf agent installation in VMware Aria Operations API (Suite-API) using /api/applications/agents, the following error occurs:
```
VM with ID - id is not connected to any ARC or Cloud Proxy
Ex- VM with ID - 94b8e2eb-37fa-4a44-b241-b50e3a013bf7 is not connected to any ARC or Cloud Proxy
```
Workaround:
1. Move the vCenter adapter collector/group back to the same cloud proxy/collector group that was selected the during the first Telegraf agent installation of VMs for that vCenter.
2. Navigate to Data Sources > Integrations > Accounts > vCenter and select the vCenter where the endpoint is located.
3. Click Edit and under the Cloud Account Information, select the vCenter tab > Collector/Group and change collector/collector group from drop down options and then click Save.
4. After the Telegraf agent installation is successful, move the vCenter adapter collector/group back to the initial cloud proxy/collector group.
JBoss server running in domain mode does not support LCM using custom Telegraf

You cannot deploy jolokia.war across all the servers that run as a part of the JBoss domain mode and hence metrics cannot be collected.

Workaround: Monitoring domain mode configuration in JBoss is supported in open source Telegraf. You can deploy jolokia.war across multiple servers.
The Add button in the Manage Telegraf Agents page remains activated after the creation of an application service

While monitoring specific application services using Telegraf, the Add button in the Manage Telegraf Agents page is active after the creation of the second instance of the following application services: MSIIS, Active Directory, SharePoint, MSExchange, and Network Time Protocol.

Workaround: Delete the previous configurations of the specific application services and configure a new one.
Concurrent activation or deactivation of plugins during application monitoring using suite-api does not work

During application monitoring using suite-api, when you activate or deactivate plugins concurrently, plugin activation or deactivation does not work. An exception is logged in the ucpapi.log file.

Workaround: Provide a gap of one second between each thread during activation or deactivation of the plugins using suite-api.
When you get an application instance's configuration status using a Rest-API call, a wrong status is returned when the same configuration was installed or uninstalled previously

If you installed or uninstalled an application instance and then uninstalled or installed it respectively, the API returns "SUBMITTING" when you try to get the application instance install or uninstall configuration status using "GET /api/applications/agents/services/{taskId}/status".

Workaround: While getting the application instance configuration status using the "GET /api/applications/agents/services/{taskId}/status" API, ensure that you use the latest performed task ID. The result of calls with older IDs is undefined.
When you upgrade from vRealize Operations 8.1 to VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1, the Cassandra application service is displayed as Java Application in the Services Discovered/Configured column of the Manage Telegraf Agents tab

During application monitoring, after you upgrade from vRealize Operations 8.1 to VMware Aria Operations 8.16.1, the Cassandra application service is displayed as Java Application in the Services Discovered/Configured column of the Manage Telegraf Agents tab. This happens if the Cassandra application service is configured for monitoring in vRealize Operations 8.1, using the vRealize Application Remote Collector generic Java plugin.

Workaround: Deactivate the Java plugin before you upgrade the vRealize Application Remote Collector agent on the VM. After upgrading the vRealize Application Remote Collector agent, the Cassandra plugin will be discovered and can then be activated.
System language settings affects service discovery

Service discovery might not work if the system language is different from English. For languages different from English, network connection state values might be different from constants defined in standard RFCs.

Workaround: None
Reconfigure the Project Price widget if the VMware Aria Automation integration is deactivated and then reactivated

There is data missing in the Project Price widget of the Cloud Automation Project Price Overview dashboard when you deactivate and then reactivate an existing VMware Aria Automation integration.
Workaround: Reconfigure the Project Price widget by completing the following steps:
1. After you deactivate and then reactivate the VMware Aria Automation integration, navigate to Dashboards > VMware Aria Automation > Cloud Automation Project Price Overview dashboard.
2. Edit the Project Price widget.
3. Navigate to the Input data section.
4. Select the '+' (Add Object) button and select the CAS World object from VMware Aria Automation > CAS World.
5. Click OK.
6. Navigate to the Output data in the same widget configuration mode. Search for and select the CAS Project Price View object from the list.
7. Save the widget.
While monitoring applications, you cannot activate a plugin with the same fields till the plugin configuration is deleted

An error message is displayed in the user interface of VMware Aria Operations that states the following: 'Failed to update resource: Resource with same key already exists'.

Workaround: Manually delete the existing plugin configuration and then continue with the activation of the plugin. If the problem persists, delete the corresponding resource from the inventory.
Alerts from the vSAN adapter that correspond to vSAN health check tests are not canceled if the test is removed from the vSAN Health Service.

VMware Aria Operations cannot detect and cancel deleted alerts.

Workaround: Manually cancel the alert from the user interface of VMware Aria Operations.
Despite deleting ucp-adapter instance certificates, users can run actions

If users delete ucp-adapter instance certificates, they can still run actions such as, start and stop an agent, configure remote checks, and so on.

Workaround: None
The compliance score for a user with limited object visibility is the same as for a user with complete object visibility

The compliance score is calculated for objects that are not visible (not assigned) to the current user.
Workaround: Complete the following steps:
1. Create a custom group with objects visible (assigned) to the user.
2. For that group, apply a policy in which the needed set of compliance alert definitions is activated.
  
  If that set is activated only in one active policy (the one that is applied to the custom group), the compliance benchmark based on those alert definitions will display the correct score.

User Interface Issues

After upgrading cloud proxy and VMware Aria Operations to 8.16.1, the VM name is not appended to the MSSQL instance

After upgrading cloud proxy and VMware Aria Operations to 8.16.1, the VM name is not appended to the MSSQL instance for existing or newly activated plugins.

Workaround: None
The Last Year option in the date picker is not intuitive

The Last Year option in the date picker indicates that the time range starts from the end of the previous month and goes back a year. It does not indicate a time range that spans one year from the current date or the whole previous year.

Workaround: None
A PDF report file might not include all data from a widget that has a scrollbar

When you generate a report that contains a custom dashboard with a widget that has a scrollbar, the downloaded PDF file might not include all the data in the widget.

Workaround: Increase the height of the widget in the dashboard to fit all the data.