VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 Release Notes

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 | 15 JUN 2023 | Build 21891963 (Product version: 4.6.0.6869101-29b03ba46f) Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's new

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 now supports the following new functionality:

• vSphere to vSphere Recovery Plans

  • Recovery plans can now also be created and run for vSphere DR and migration between vCenter Server sites.

• Audit Logs

  • Events and notifications now allow auditing the VMware Cloud Director Availability events by using the Cloud Director delivery channel. VMware Cloud Director automatically marks all external events, like the ones received from VMware Cloud Director Availability, as audit events, subject to audit persistence, retention, and export capabilities by using the audit trail system in VMware Cloud Director.

• Recovery Settings Enhancements

  • Now you can map the source and the destination networks per selected replications for on-premises to cloud replications, similarly to the ones from cloud to cloud. For more information, see Configure the network settings for on-premises to cloud replications.

  • vSphere DR and migration now validates the recovery settings (data center, VM folder, compute, and others) based on the replication settings (datastore). The network settings now are similar to Cloud Director sites, and the source and destination network mappings allow per-virtual machine network mapping. For more information, see Configure recovery settings for vSphere DR and migration.

• vSphere to vSphere DR and Migration Public API

  • Now VMware Cloud Director Availability provides a step-by-step guide to configure a deployed appliance by using the VMware Cloud Director Availability API:

  • API Reference

    • New: VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 - vSphere DR and Migration API Reference

    • VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 - Cloud Director DR and Migration API Reference

  • Program Guide

    • New: VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 - vSphere DR and Migration API Guide

    • VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 - Cloud Director DR and Migration API Guide

  • In the left pane, under Configuration, click OpenApi Client then select an API and see the Program Guide.

• NSX-T vApp Edges Support

  VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6, backed by VMware Cloud Director 10.3 or later, now supports:

  • Replicates routed vApp networks and vApp network services to virtual data centers backed by NSX with error-free automatic destination network mapping.

  • Replicates the DHCP service on vApp isolated networks, bringing parity with NSX for vSphere.

  • To configure a routed vApp network and use any vApp network services, like DHCP in isolated vApp networks, the containing organization's virtual data center must be configured with an edge cluster.

  • For more information, see Configuring the network settings of replications to the cloud and Configure the network settings for cloud to cloud replications.

• Guest Customization Global Setting

  • A global setting that affects all replications - whether the users need to manually activate or deactivate guest customization on failover. For more information, see Replicate source VM guest customization settings.

• Tunnel Appliance High Availability

  • In Cloud Director sites, now a second Tunnel Appliance can operate in an active-active mode for high availability of the Tunnel Service, both for new deployments and for upgraded ones. For more information, see Add a second Tunnel Appliance for HA in the Cloud Director site. For information about the two active-active Tunnel Appliance instances, see Deployment architecture in the Cloud Director site.

• vApp Template Replication

  • Replicating vApp templates between Cloud Director sites now includes protecting the vApp templates that permit tracking the source for changes, allowing either creating new destination template versions when the source changes or overwriting the destination.

• Improved Event Notifications

  • Events and notifications can now also send replication management events by using the email delivery channel. For more information, see Configure provider event notifications in the Cloud Director site and Configure provider event notifications for vSphere DR and migration.

  • Now with the email delivery channel configured, tenants and providers can subscribe to a weekly summary email. The subscribers can remain informed about what is happening with their replications without logging in to VMware Cloud Director Availability. For more information, see Subscribe for weekly summary email.

  • In Cloud Director sites, as a provider, you can now see an activity summary report in the management interface. For more information, see View the activity summary report in the Cloud Director site as a provider.

• vSphere to vSphere Bandwidth Throttling

  • Bandwidth throttling can now also apply throttle for vSphere DR and migration. Note: Applying the limit requires one or more external Replicator Appliance instances. For information about configuring the provider site throttle limit, see Configure bandwidth throttling to the cloud site.

• VMC data engine now allows creating migrations back to the On-premises vCenter Server. For information about all the use cases, see Replicating workloads.

Upgrade

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 supports an in-place upgrade directly from versions :

• 4.4.x or 4.5.x in Cloud Director sites. To upgrade to version 4.6 from earlier versions, first upgrade to either version 4.4.x, or 4.5.x.

• 4.5.x in vSphere DR and migration sites. To upgrade to version 4.6 from version 4.4.x, first upgrade to version 4.5.x.

For information about the upgrade process, see Upgrading in the Cloud Director site and Upgrading on-premises and provider site.

Interoperability

• For the interoperability between paired sites that run mismatching VMware Cloud Director Availability versions, see Managing pairing with Cloud Director sites in the Administration Guide.

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

Legacy migrations

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 continues to support migrations from legacy vCenter Server versions 5.5, 6.0, 6.5, and 6.7. Note: vCenter Server 6.5 and 6.7 are now legacy versions for VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 and later.

For information about the legacy migrations, see KB 89181.

Configuration maximums

For information about the tested and verified uptime, concurrency, and scale limits, see VMware Configuration Maximums.

Caveats and limitations

For replications using the Classic data engine, VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 uses vSphere Replication module called Host-based Replication (HBR) version 8.7. For information about its inherited caveats and limitations, see vSphere Replication 8.7 Release Notes.

Supported browsers

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6 supports the following browsers:

• Google Chrome 113 and later

• Microsoft Edge 113 and later

• Mozilla Firefox 113 and later

• Apple Safari 16 and later

Resolved issues

The following issues have been resolved in this release.

• Error when attempting to Sync with cloud policies with an organization that has a comma in the name

  Attempting clicking Sync with cloud when a tenant organization is named with a comma, results in an error message.

  For example, the error message for an organization named 'abc,def' is: Unexpected vCloud Director error. Bad request: Expression 'def' is not a comparison expression.

• L2 Stretch does not list any organization edges when an edge uses IP space

  VMware Cloud Director 10.4.1 introduces IP spaces. In VMware Cloud Director Availability, on the L2 Stretch page no organization edges show when any of the them uses IP space, including the ones that do not use IP space. 

Known issues

The following known issues are currently identified in this release.

• New - When using the default online repository, upgrading VMware Cloud Director Availability might fail

  The default online repository of VMware Cloud Director Availability changed to https://packages-prod.broadcom.com/vcav/. When VMware Cloud Director Availability tries to access the legacy repository, the upgrade process might fail. 

  Workaround: Perform one of the following tasks.

  • When upgrading in an on-premises and provider site, upgrade by using a specified repository.

  • When upgrading in a Cloud Director site, upgrade by using a specified repository. 

• In Cloud Director sites with dual Tunnel appliances, the administrative sessions access cannot be restricted

  When using two Tunnel Appliance instances in an active-active mode, if Security settings > Restrict Admin APIs by source IP is set to Allow admin access from anywhere, the restriction would not apply.

  Workaround: Upgrade to VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.6.1.

• RPO interval filtering in VM perspective status tab ignores the max value with no min value entered

  By not entering a minimum value, the RPO interval filtering in the VM perspective status tab does not respect the maximum value.