VMware Aria Operations SaaS Release Notes

VMware Aria Operations VMware Aria Operations (SaaS) is now at End of Availability. See announcement here: https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2024/01/22/vmware-end-of-availability-of-perpetual-licensing-and-saas-services/ Reach out to your account or sales team for further details and assistance.

VMware Aria Operations

VMware Aria Operations (SaaS) is now at End of Availability. See announcement here: https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2024/01/22/vmware-end-of-availability-of-perpetual-licensing-and-saas-services/

Reach out to your account or sales team for further details and assistance.

What's New February 2024

What's New in This Release

This update is a maintenance release for better resiliency.

What's New October 2023

Upgrade to Photon OS v4.0

Both VMware Aria Operations and Cloud Proxy appliances are upgraded to Photon OS v4.0.

vSAN Oversubscription Metrics

Addition of two new metrics, 'vSAN Oversubscription Capacity' and 'vSAN Oversubscription Ratio' for the vSAN Cluster object. For more information, see Metrics for vSAN Cluster.

Green Score for Physical Data Centers

Ability to add/edit physical data centers under the Organization level.
Ability to define green score for a physical data center. You can enter all the details (Power Source, Virtualization Ratio, and Hardware Age) for the physical data center and obtain the respective green score.
Ability to view physical data centers as per geography. The green scores of the respective physical data centers have been added in the Sustainability Overview page. You can navigate to individual physical data centers from the Sustainability Overview page and see all the relevant sustainability metrics.

For more information, see Configuring Green Score Sustainability Data for Physical Data Centers.

Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)

The Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) is turned on if you upgrade to this release. You can manage this setting in the Global Settings page.

Alert Notification Forensics

Ability to simulate alert notification to any end point and verify if the configuration is correct.
Resilient extensibility from VMware Aria Operations to any external systems in your organization.

For more information, see Creating Notification Rules for Alerts.

Credential management

All credentials need to have a user assigned to it.
Credentials which do not have any user assigned will be found in the Orphaned and Unassigned page. For security reasons it is highly recommended that the credentials be used only when they are assigned to a user.

Note: After VMware Aria Operations is upgraded to a new version, all existing credentials will become unassigned as a result of this change.

For more information, see Managing Orphaned and Unassigned Content.

Native Content Cleanup

The Deprecated, VOA, and Getting Started dashboards have been deleted.
Views that are not used in any dashboard or report have been deleted.
All VOA reports have been deleted.
Cloud Management Assessments has been deactivated.

Application Monitoring

Ability to configure monitoring for remote and physical end points from the UI with the packaged Telegraf agent
- The product-managed Telegraf agent now allows UI based plugin enablement for the new 'Endpoint' object type representing physical servers and remote end points (objects that are not managed by VMware Aria Operations).
  
  Notes:
  - New installation of user-managed Telegraf agents has been deprecated.
  - Upgrade the existing user-managed agents to this newer version of the product-managed agent.
  - Ability to keep the user-managed agent if needed. To keep the user-managed agent, do not upgrade VMware Aria Operations.
For more information, see OS and Application Monitoring, Monitoring Physical Servers, and Additional Operations from the Manage Telegraf Agents Page.

Ability to configure Telegraf content at scale for workloads and hence allowing bulk Telegraf plugin configurations from the UI
- Ability to configure Telegraf plugins for multiple end point objects from the UI.
For more information, see Monitoring Physical Servers.

Technical consolidation of the current application monitoring adapters
- Simple and intuitive configuration with a single adapter called the 'Application Monitoring Adapter."
- Ability to enable application monitoring of > 3000 VMs per vCenter Server by allowing the mapping of more than one cloud proxy to the vCenter Server.

REST API calls for the Application Monitoring Adapter
- REST API calls such as /api/applications/vcenter/add and /api/applications/vcenter/remove, for the creation and removal of the Application Monitoring adapter is deprecated and the user does not need to create/delete Application Monitoring adapter/s. Instead, new suite-API calls are introduced for mappings between collector or collector groups and vCenter Servers. The new suite-API calls are: POST /api/applications/vccpmappings, DELETE /api/applications/vccpmappings, and POST /api/applications/vccpmappings/query.

New Dashboards for Application Monitoring
- Introduction of a new native dashboard called Linux OS discovered by Telegraf for Linux OS metrics.
- Introduction of a new native dashboard called Windows OS discovered by Telegraf for Windows OS metrics.
For more information, see Linux OS discovered by Telegraf Dashboard and Windows OS discovered by Telegraf Dashboard.

New Dashboards for the NSX Management Pack

Addition of new native dashboards for NSX Manager.
The new dashboards are accessible from the NSX Launchpad.

For more information, see: NSX Inventory Dashboard, NSX System Dashboard, NSX Edge Dashboard , NSX Switch Dashboard, NSX Transport Node Performance Dashboard, NSX Edge Performance Dashboard, NSX Switch Performance Dashboard and NSX Load Balancer Performance Dashboard.

Compliance Pack Upgrades

vSphere Compliance Pack is updated to support the following benchmarks:
- VMware vSphere 7 Security Configuration Guide Update 3
- VMware vSphere 8 Security Configuration Guide
For more information, see VMware SDDC Benchmark Details.

New Compliance Pack

VMware Cloud Foundation Compliance Pack based on VCF Audit Guides
- VMware Cloud Foundation objects within VMware Aria Operations can now be evaluated for compliance adherence based on VMware Cloud Foundation compliance kits. This new compliance pack allows you to evaluate your VMware Cloud Foundation environment based on the VCF Audit Guide for both default and non-default configurations, instead of individual security configuration guides for vSphere, vSAN, and NSXT resources. VMware Cloud Foundation Compliance Pack supports the following versions of the VCF Audit Guides:
  - VMware Cloud Foundation 4.2 Audit Guide
  - VMware Cloud Foundation 4.3 Audit Guide
  - VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4 Audit Guide
For more information, see VMware Cloud Foundation Benchmarks based on VMware Cloud Foundation Compliance Kits.

AWS Management Pack

New authentication mechanisms have been added to connect to AWS accounts.

For more information, see Add a Cloud Account for AWS.

The TELEMETRY_ENABLED flag is deprecated for /globalsettings REST API.

Known Issues

Known Issues

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
Servers are not displayed while adding a host when you run the What-If Analysis

While adding hosts to the What-If Analysis for Infrastructure Planning: Traditional and Infrastructure Planning: Hyperconverged, sometimes server types are not displayed. This occurs if there is no match of the specific CPU or memory for a server in the reference database.

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 and above.

Workaround: None

What's New July 03 2023

Microsoft Azure Government

Added support for Azure Government subscriptions.
You can manage subscriptions through the native Microsoft Azure integration.
You can choose between commercial or government subscriptions with the respective services and regions.
If you use commercial subscriptions, you can leverage dashboards, alerts, and content available for commercial subscriptions and use them for government subscriptions without any additional configurations.

Cloud Proxy Command Line Interface

Cloud Proxy command line interface is enhanced to include connectivity checks. It includes capabilities to perform connectivity checks to predetermined end points such as Gateway, S3, and cluster nodes depending on whether the cluster is on-prem or SaaS. It also includes capabilities to check the trace route and view the environment details. For more details, see Using the Cloud Proxy Command-Line Interface.

Notification Heartbeat

Notification heartbeat allows you to leverage the Notification Rules to resend active alerts to desired end points repeatedly as long as they remain active. For more information, see Notification Rule.

Metric search in Troubleshooting Workbench

Enhanced capability to search for objects using queries.
- You can use metrics, properties, or super metrics associated with object types.
- You can add conditions using multiple metrics and conditions.
Addition of auto-complete options to help build queries.
Automatic syntax checks of the query.
Added a new page for search results:
- You can deep dive into the metric.
- You can perform roll ups.
- You can launch the Troubleshooting Workbench.
Search is saved automatically for the duration of the session.

For more information, see Discovering Potential Evidences Using the Troubleshooting Workbench.

Compliance Pack Upgrades

The CIS Compliance Pack is updated to support the following benchmarks:
- CIS_VMware_ESXi_6.7_Benchmark_V1.3.0
- CIS_VMware_ESXi_7.0_Benchmark_V1.2.0

The NSX-T Compliance pack is updated to support the following standards:
- NSX-T 3.2 Security Configuration Guide
- NSX-T 3.1 Security Configuration Guide
- NSX-T 3.0 Security Configuration Guide

Launchpad

You can now view videos that explain a feature when you click the Learn More option from some cards in the Launchpad.

New Availability Metric for Application Monitoring Objects

A new metric called 'Telegraf availability' is added for Application Monitoring objects to understand whether data is being received from the Telegraf agent. It is applicable for both curated and open source Telegraf agents. For more information, see Operating System Metrics.

PowerShell Scripts Collect Data for Credential-less Service Discovery

Service Discovery will now leverage PowerShell scripts to collect data from Windows VMs in credential-less scenarios. For more information, see Configure Service and Application Discovery.

What's New April 14 2023

Rebranding of vRealize Operations to VMware Aria Operations

In this release, we are excited to announce that vRealize Operations, VMware's powerful platform for intelligent IT operations management, has been rebranded to VMware Aria Operations. This rebranding reflects our commitment to delivering innovative solutions that help you optimize your IT operations and accelerate your digital transformation journey. With VMware Aria Operations, you can continue to rely on the same robust capabilities that vRealize Operations provided. Additionally, you can expect even more advanced features and functionality as we continue to invest in the platform. The rebranding will not impact your existing deployment of vRealize Operations. You will continue to receive the same level of support and service you have come to expect from VMware.

Simplified User Experience with Launchpad

Unified use-case based UI workflow to represent both existing and new capabilities.
Launchpad replaces the existing Quick Start Page.

For more information, see the topic: After You Log In

Multi-Cloud Overview

Easy access and visibility of all objects that are monitored in VMware Aria Operations.
Provides a list of all multi-cloud and public clouds that you can monitor with a summary view of each cloud.
The summary view provides insights into the capacity, cost, services, and sustainability score for the selected cloud.

For more information, see the topic: Monitoring Multiple Clouds Accounts in VMware Aria Operations

VMware Cloud on AWS Government Cloud Account

Manage and monitor VMware Cloud on AWS government cloud with a simplified and dedicated cloud account.
Discover VMware Cloud on AWS government cloud and configure the adapters to monitor vCenter, vSAN and NSX-T.
Traverse VMware Cloud on AWS government cloud objects, view summary pages, configuration maximums and get alerts for configuration maximums.
Plan workload migration using What-if migration scenario to migrate workload to VMware Cloud on AWS government cloud.
Run compliance analysis for virtual machines against various benchmarks, optimize and Rightsize workloads.
Assess and plan cost based on rate card costing.
View dashboards to gain additional insights in VMware Cloud on AWS government cloud environment.

For more information, see the topic: Configuring VMC on AWS Government Cloud Endpoint in VMware Aria Operations.

Compatibility with the Cluster Rename Feature in VMC on AWS

If resource pool names change due to renaming of clusters in VMC on AWS, the dashboard "VMC Management VM monitoring" has been made compatible with the new resource pool name and the jobs that are run through the automation central continues to exclude VMC on AWS management VMs.

Alerts Deactivation

An initiative is underway in Aria Operations to reduce Alert noise in customer’s environments. As part of this release, a set of vCenter alerts have been deactivated out-of the box. To know more about the list of deactivated alerts, the impact it has on your current environment, and how to activate them on specific resources within your environment, see the topic: Activating the Deactivated Alerts.

Transport Node State Metric Data Collection is Deactivated

In the current release of VMware Aria Operations, collecting the node state through API has been deactivated by default due to performance degradation in both VMware Aria Operations and VMware NSX. However, you can still activate this feature through the policy settings, but it is not recommended as it may impact performance. Alternatively, you can collect the node state data through NSX-T Direct Alerts. This feature is still available and can be used without any performance degradation. To import NSX-T Alerts, see the topic: Alerts in NSX-T.

Capacity Management

Ability to select pre-defined, custom VM profiles within a scenario for what-if analysis. Simplifies scenario creation by eliminating the need to manually input VM configuration details.
Ability to auto-select current date as start date on running a what-if scenario that has an outdated start date.

Note:
- End date remains unchanged.
- Not applicable for what-if scenarios with both start and end dates outdated.

Enhanced Logs experience

Log trend in log analysis: A new log trend feature has been added to help you better correlate metrics with logs. With this feature, you can view the trend of log messages over time, making it easier to identify patterns and anomalies.
Filters support for advanced troubleshooting: Added support for filters in log analysis, enabling you to quickly and easily find the relevant log messages. You can filter logs based on various criteria such as hostname, severity level, source, and time range.
Log fields support for log messages: Provides structure to unstructured log data by extracting key fields from log messages. You can use these fields to filter logs, as well as to create charts based on specific log fields.
Consistent experience on all logs screens: Experience the same log experience across all log screens such as Log Analysis, Logs tab in Object browser, Logs tab in Troubleshooting workbench, and Logs widget in Dashboards.

For more information, see the topic, Integration of VMware Aria Operations (SaaS) and VMware Aria Operations for Logs (SaaS).

Workload Placement Enhancements

Support for allocation model in Day 2 Operations has been added and will be available as a feature in this release.
Support for Cross Network has been added in Workload Placement as well. Now Day 2 operations will be able to move VMs as a part of rebalancing the workloads even if the clusters are in a separate network.

For more information, see the topics:

Google Cloud VMware Engine cloud account

Manage and monitor Google Cloud VMware Engine with a simplified and dedicated cloud account.
Discover Google Cloud VMware Engine and configure the adapters to monitor vCenter, vSAN, and NSX-T.
Traverse Google Cloud VMware Engine objects, view summary pages, configuration maximums, and get alerts for configuration maximums.
Plan workload migration using What-if migration scenario to migrate workload to Google Cloud VMware Engine.
Run compliance analysis for virtual machines against various benchmarks, optimize and Rightsize workloads.
Assess and plan cost based on either bill-based costing or rate card costing.
View dashboards to gain additional insights in Google Cloud VMware Engine environment.

For more information, see the following topics and the associated child topics:

Cost Analysis

Conduct a cost and price analysis for your objects or groups in various management layers such as vCenter, vCloud Director, Horizon, and CloudHealth.
Create a graphical representation and table to compare and evaluate the gathered data.
Save the analysis definition to avoid repeating the process in the future.
Export the analysis table for offline viewing purposes.

For more information, see the following topic and the associated child topics: Cost Analysis.

Consolidated script for Telegraf agent installation

One single script for all the installation flows - product-managed, user-managed, and open-source Telegraf agent.
Token based approach instead of username and password for all agent types.
New names of the agents:
- Product-managed agent (OS and basic services monitoring)
- User-managed agent (Physical hosts)
- Open-source agent (Advanced monitoring)