VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4 Release Notes

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4 \| 23 JUN 2022 \| Build 19925810 (Product version: 4.4.0.4187943-d9ddad1830) Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4 | 23 JUN 2022 | Build 19925810 (Product version: 4.4.0.4187943-d9ddad1830)

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's new

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4 now supports the following new functionality.

vSphere DR and migration: VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4 can now replicate tenant vSphere workloads between an on-premises vCenter Server instance and a provider-hosted vCenter Server instance or between provider-hosted vCenter Server instances. These setups require a new deployment topology. For information about deploying and pairing the new appliances, see the Installation and Configuration Guide On-Premises.
- For information about the new deployment architecture and the required open network ports on the firewalls, see Deployment Architecture and Requirements.
  
  Architecture for vSphere DR and migration.
  
  Network ports for vSphere DR and migration.
- After meeting the prerequisites, for information about deploying the new appliances in each vCenter Server instance, see Deploy both appliances.
- For information about completing the configuration and pairing of the new appliances, see Configure and pair both appliances.
RPO compliance: The providers can now generate and export Recovery Point Objective (RPO) compliance reports, grouped on an organization level, listing any RPO violations of the protections replicating during a specified period. The reports show whether, in the given period, any protection to the site and from it to on-premises sites meets or violates its RPO. The currently generated report can be viewed either in the interface, or in an HTML format and optionally exported as a TSV file.
Recovery plans execution reports: You can now view live step execution progress and see a detailed HTML report for the recovery plan execution that contains replication details and the result of each plan step execution.
Replication alignment with the destination storage profile: When creating new replications, now the disk type is provisioned depending on whether the storage policy allows thin provisioning in the VMware Cloud Director organization VDC. After creating a replication, the disk provisioning type never changes.
Evacuate the replications from a datastore in a datastore cluster: The providers can now evacuate replicas from individual members of datastore clusters.
Cloud collection of support bundles: You can now allow log collection from the cloud site backed by VMware Cloud Director during the initial configuration and pairing of theOn-Premises to Cloud Director Replication Applianceand during re-pairing with a cloud site. To simplify troubleshooting, activate log collection from the cloud site. This allows the providers to easily obtain new on-premises support bundles.
One-click migration: You can now create a fast migration with one-click, skipping the advanced replication settings configuration.
Remote site compatibility pre-upgrade check: When upgrading the cloud site, in the Update wizard, you can now see which paired on-premises appliances are incompatible with the upgrade version. After upgrading, in the Peer Sites page you can also filter them by compatibility status.
Endpoints resource capacity filter: VMware Cloud Director Availability now shows the destination required resources of the replications provisioned on a failover. For information about monitoring the required resources, see: Monitor the required resources as a tenant andMonitor the required resources as a provider.
Managed service replication assignment: You can now select the tenant organization as a default owner for new replications or leave the system administrator as a default owner.
Network extension to VMware Cloud on AWS: You can now also stretch an L2 network to an SDDC in the VMware Cloud™ on AWS, by using the procedures for stretching an L2 network in the cloud. For information about the required additional Organization Administrator role rights for Organization vDC Gateway: View L2 VPN and Configure L2 VPN in VMware Cloud Director service, see Users roles rights.
Preserve the original vApp network settings after reversing the replication: Reversing a cloud to cloud replication now preserves the protected vApp configuration for connection to target networks.
Migrating vApp templates: When migrating vApp templates between cloud sites backed by VMware Cloud Director, you can now migrate the vApp networks with their connectivity and migrate the statuses of General > "Gold_Master" and of Customize VM settings.
Improved control over the network settings: In the Network Settings window for replications with cloud sites backed by VMware Cloud Director, now you have more options to select or deselect: all connected, all reset MAC, and all guest customization settings when modifying the replications network settings.
In-product feedback: On the Dashboard page or in the top navigation bar, now you can directly submit product feedback by clicking Feedback.
This VMware Cloud Director Availability release also includes important resolved issues and updates of third-party libraries that provide security fixes.

Upgrade

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4 supports an in-place upgrade directly from versions 4.2.1 and 4.3.1. When upgrading from versions 4.0.x or 4.1.x, first upgrade to version 4.2.1, then upgrade to version 4.4.

For more information, see Upgrading in the cloud and Upgrading on-premises.

Configuration maximums

For the tested uptime, concurrency, and scale limits, see VMware configuration maximums.

Caveats and limitations

The VMware Cloud Director Availability vSphere Client Plug-In requires vSphere Client support. When using an earlier vSphere version:
- To configure replications, use the VMware Cloud Director Availability Tenant Portal.
- Alternatively, in VMware Cloud Director use the VMware Cloud Director Availability plug-in.
In sites backed by VMware Cloud Director, users only members of the VRADMINISTRATOR group in vSphere cannot use the VMware Cloud Director Availability vSphere Client Plug-In.
- To use the plug-in, the users must be members of the Administrators group in vSphere.

For interoperability between paired sites with mismatching VMware Cloud Director Availability versions, see Managing pairing withcloud sites backed by VMware Cloud Director.

For interoperability between VMware Cloud Director Availability and other VMware products, see the VMware product interoperability matrix.

Supported browsers

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4 supports the following browsers:

Google Chrome 102 and later
Microsoft Edge 101 and later
Mozilla Firefox 100 and later
Safari 15 and later

Resolved issues

The following issues have been resolved in this release.

Cannot open OpenAPI Client in the VMware Cloud Director plug-in

When using the VMware Cloud Director plug-in, clicking the OpenAPI Client does not correctly open the page and the loading progress keeps spinning indefinitely.
Starting a replication might time out or take longer for larger vCenter Server inventories

Starting a replication queries most of the source vCenter Server inventory. This operation might either time out or take a long time to complete on a vCenter Server with thousands of virtual machines.

Known issues

The following known issues are currently identified in this release.

Creating outgoing vSphere DR and migration allows selecting already replicated virtual machines
This issue only applies to outgoing vSphere DR and migration between vCenter sites.

After creating an outgoing replication, for example, from site A to site B, selecting the already replicated virtual machine is allowed, instead of being dimmed when creating another outgoing replication from site A.

As a result, attempting to replicate the same virtual machine in a second replication from site A:
- to site B, produces the following error message: The virtual machine has an active replication activated. The original replication to site B continues uninterrupted and the second replication does not get created to site B.
- to site C, starts replicating to site C without any errors. Because one workload can replicate to a single destination, you must manually delete the inactivated outgoing replication from site A to site B. However, this inactive replication has no effect on the new replication from site A to site C.
Cannot select source vCenter Server instances in outgoing replications for vSphere DR and migration

For vSphere DR and migration, when creating a replication from a source site with multiple vCenter Server instances, the Outgoing Replication wizard shows no source vCenter Server inventory selection. As a result, the wizard only shows the virtual machines from a single of the source vCenter Server instances.
- Go to the destination site and create the same replication by using the Incoming Replication wizard to select a source vCenter Server instance.
- Alternatively, upgrade to VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4.1.
Upgrading to 4.4 and skipping 4.3.1 after upgrading from 3.5 does not show the appliance console in vSphere
After the 4.4 upgrade finishes and the appliance reboots, in vSphere, the virtual machine does not show a blue console that displays the appliance IP, service status, and other information. Instead, the virtual machine console outputs only a blank screen with a blinking cursor.

This behavior is only visual and does not affect the appliance and its services.

This issue only occurs when both: this appliance was upgraded once from version 3.0.x or 3.5.x, and then by skipping version 4.3.1 is upgraded to version 4.4. For example, upgrading from:
- 3.5 -> 4.0.0.2 -> 4.2.1 -> 4.4 does not display the blue console.
- 3.5 -> 4.0.0.2 -> 4.2.1 -> 4.3.1 -> 4.4 is not affected.
- 4.0.0.2 -> 4.2.1 -> 4.4 is not affected.
- After the upgrade, to show the blue console, open an SSH connection to the appliance, then execute the following commands:
```
/usr/bin/rm -rf /usr/lib/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d
/usr/bin/systemctl enable getty@tty1.service
/usr/bin/systemctl start getty@tty1.service
```
- Alternatively, upgrade directly to VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4.1.
Datastore selection slows down when authenticated as a System Organization user

When you log in with a user that is a member of the System Organization in VMware Cloud Director, the list of datastores populates slowly, cannot be filtered, and has no pagination.

Upgrade to VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4.1.
Changing the root password with a dictionary word errors out but changes the password

Changing the root user password with one that contains a dictionary word successfully changes it but shows an error message: Could not change password. Try again with a strong password that hasn't been used before.

A second attempt at changing the password by not entering a dictionary word results in an error message: The provided current password is not valid since the password is already changed.

After using a password with a dictionary word, to change it, enter the initially rejected password in the Current Password text box then enter the new password without a dictionary word in the New Password and Confirm Password text boxes.