VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4 | 10 FEB 2022 | Build 19312029

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's New

The VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 4.4 on Dell EMC VxRail release includes the following:

  • Flexible vRealize Suite product upgrades: Starting with VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4 and vRealize Lifecycle Manager 8.6.2, upgrade and deployment of the vRealize Suite products is managed by vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. You can upgrade vRealize Suite products as new versions become available in your vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager will only allow upgrades to compatible and supported versions of vRealize Suite products. Specific vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations, vRealize Log Insight, and Workspace ONE Access versions will no longer be listed in the VMware Cloud Foundation BOM.

  • Improvements to upgrade prechecks: Upgrade prechecks have been expanded to verify filesystem capacity and passwords. These improved prechecks help identify issues that you need to resolve to ensure a smooth upgrade.

  • SSH disabled on ESXi hosts: This release disables the SSH service on ESXi hosts by default, following the vSphere security configuration guide recommendation. This applies to new and upgraded VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4 deployments.

  • User Activity Logging: New activity logs capture all the VMware Cloud Foundation API invocation calls, along with user context. The new logs will also capture user logins and logouts to the SDDC Manager UI.

  • SDDC Manager UI workflow to manage DNS and NTP configurations: This feature provides a guided workflow to validate and apply DNS and NTP configuration changes to all components in a VMware Cloud Foundation deployment, including VxRail Manager.

  • Security fixes: This release includes fixes for the following security vulnerabilities:

    • Apache Log4j Remote Code Execution Vulnerability: This release fixes CVE-2021-44228 and CVE-2021-45046. See VMSA-2021-0028.

    • Apache HTTP Server: This release fixes CVE-2021-40438. See CVE-2021-40438.

  • Improvements to reduce SDDC Manager service CPU and Memory usage and decrease inventory load times: Reduces the overall SDDC Manager service resource usage and improves service stability in scaled deployments. Decreases the load times for inventory objects (for example, ESXi hosts, workload domains, and so on) in the SDDC Manager UI.

  • Multi-Instance Management is deprecated: The Multi-Instance Management Dashboard is no longer available in the SDDC Manager UI.

  • BOM updates: Updated Bill of Materials with new product versions.

VMware Cloud Foundation Bill of Materials (BOM)

The VMware Cloud Foundation software product is comprised of the following software Bill-of-Materials (BOM). The components in the BOM are interoperable and compatible.

Software Component

Version

Date

Build Number

Cloud Builder VM

4.4

10 FEB 2022

19312029

SDDC Manager

4.4

10 FEB 2022

19312029

VxRail Manager

7.0.320

01 FEB 2022

n/a

VMware vCenter Server Appliance

7.0 Update 3c

27 JAN 2022

19234570

VMware Virtual SAN Witness Appliance

7.0 Update 3c

27 JAN 2022

19193900

VMware NSX-T Data Center

3.1.3.5

21 DEC 2021

19068434

VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager

8.6.2

18 JAN 2022

19221692

  • VMware ESXi and VMware vSAN are part of the VxRail BOM.

  • You can use vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager to deploy vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations Manager, vRealize Log Insight, and Workspace ONE Access (formerly known as VMware Identity Manager). vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager determines which versions of these products are compatible and only allows you to install/upgrade to supported versions. See vRealize Suite Upgrade Paths on VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4.x +.

  • vRealize Log Insight content packs are installed when you deploy vRealize Log Insight.

  • The vRealize Operations Manager management pack is installed when you deploy vRealize Operations Manager.

  • You can access the latest versions of the content packs for vRealize Log Insight from the VMware Solution Exchange and the vRealize Log Insight in-product marketplace store.

Limitations

The following limitations apply to this release:

  • vSphere Lifecycle Manager images are not supported on VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail.

  • Customer-supplied vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) is a new feature supported by VxRail Manager 7.0.010 that allows customers to create their own vDS and provide it as an input to be utilized by the clusters they build using VxRail Manager. VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail does not support clusters that utilize a customer-supplied vDS.

Installation and Upgrade Information

You can perform a sequential or skip level upgrade to VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4 on Dell EMC VxRail from VMware Cloud Foundation 4.3.1, 4.3, 4.2.1, 4.2, 4.1.0.1, or 4.1. If your environment is at a version earlier than 4.1, you must upgrade the management domain and all VI workload domains to VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1 and then upgrade to VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4.

IMPORTANT: Before you upgrade a vCenter Server, take a file-based backup. See Manually Back Up vCenter Server.

NOTE: Scripts that rely on SSH being activated on ESXi hosts will not work after upgrading to VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4, since VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4 deactivates the SSH service by default. Update your scripts to account for this new behavior. See KB 86230 for information about activating and deactivating the SSH service on ESXi hosts.

Resolved Issues

The following issues have been resolved:

  • VxRail upgrade task in SDDC Manager displays incorrect status.

  • You cannot reuse an existing static IP pool when adding a VxRail cluster to the management domain from the SDDC Manager UI.

  • Using the Workflow Optimization script to create a VI workload domain or add a VxRail cluster fails.

  • Upgrading the Supervisor Cluster on a Workload Management VI workload domain fails.

  • Adding a new ESXi node using the VxRail Manager plugin for vCenter Server fails.

Known Issues

For VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4 known issues, see VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4 known issues. Some of the known issues may be for features that are not available on VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail.

VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4 on Dell EMC VxRail known issues appear below:

  • vSAN/vMotion network disruption can occur when using the workflow optimization script

    When you use the workflow optimization script to create a new VI workload domain or add a new cluster to an existing workload domain, you can cause a network disruption on existing vSAN/vMotion networks if:

    • The IP range for the new vSAN network overlaps with the IP range for an existing vSAN network.

    • The IP range for the new vMotion network overlaps with the IP range for an existing vMotion network.

    Workaround: None. Make sure to provide vSAN/vMotion IP ranges that do not overlap with existing vSAN/vMotion networks.

  • The API does not support adding a host to a cluster with dead hosts or removing dead hosts from a cluster

    The following flags appear in the API Reference Guide and API Explorer, but are not supported with VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail.

    • forceHostAdditionInPresenceofDeadHosts: Use to add host to a cluster with dead hosts. Bypasses validation of disconnected hosts and vSAN cluster health.

    • forceByPassingSafeMinSize: Remove dead hosts from cluster, bypassing validations.

    Workaround: None.

  • vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) VMs are moved to remote storage after a VxRail cluster with HCI Mesh storage is imported to VMware Cloud Foundation

    When you configure HCI Mesh storage on a VxRail cluster and then import it to VMware Cloud Foundation, vCLS VMs are moved to the remote storage instead of being placed on the cluster's primary storage. This can result in errors when you unmount the remote storage for the cluster.

    Workaround:

    1. Login to vCenter UI.

    2. Retrieve the cluster MorfId.

      In the Hosts and Clusters tab, click the Cluster entity and check the URL.

      For example:

      https://dr26avc-1.rainpole.local/ui/app/cluster;nav=h/urn:vmomi:ClusterComputeResource:domain-c10:373acc41-be7e-4f12-855d-094e5f135a67/configure/plugin/com.vmware.vsphere.client.h5vsan/com.vmware.vsan.client.h5vsanui.cluster.configure.vsan.csd

      The cluster morfId for this URL is 'domain-c10'.

    3. Click the vCenter entity.

    4. Navigate to Configure -> Advanced Setting.

      Be default, vCLS property set to true:

      config.vcls.clusters..enabled

    5. Deactivate vCLS on the cluster.

      Click Edit Settings, set the flag to 'false', and click Save.

    6. Wait 2 minutes for the vCLS VMs to be deleted.

    7. Unmount the remote storage.

    8. Repeat steps 3 and 4.

    9. Enable vCLS on the cluster.

      Click Edit Settings, set the flag to 'true', and click Save.

    10. Wait 2-3 minutes for the vCLS VMs to be deployed.

      Three vCLS VMs are displayed in the VMs and Templates tab.

check-circle-line exclamation-circle-line close-line
Scroll to top icon