VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5 | 11 OCT 2022 | Build 20612863

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's New

The VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 4.5 on Dell EMC VxRail release includes the following:

  • Support for VCF+: This release introduces support for subscription cloud services including vSphere+ and vSAN+.

  • Improvements to using VCF at scale: Users can now add clusters in parallel and add/remove hosts at scale.

  • Improvements to upgrade prechecks: Upgrade prechecks have been expanded to verify license and NSX-T edge cluster password validation, file permissions checks, password and certification rotation failed workflows validation, and also noisy vSAN health checks can be silenced.

  • Operational improvements: Users can now rename clusters and apply user-defined tags to objects. 

  • SDDC Manager Onboarding Workflow: The SDDC Manager UI provides an easy, wizard-like interface for new users to configure their VCF deployment.

  • Accessibility improvements: This release resolves critical accessibility issues to provide a fully accessible interface.

  • Migration enablement: This release introduces support for Mixed Mode migrations and supports new topologies for migration from VCF 3.x through 4.x.

  • VxRail UI improvements: Support for workload domain creation and add cluster operations using the SDDC Manager UI.

  • LCM enhancements: Cluster retry operations are improved. 

  • VMware Validated Solutions: All existing solutions updated to support VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5, including the use of the vRealize Automation Cloud service with the VMware Cloud Foundation platform. See VMware Validated Solutions – October 2022 Update.

  • 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

4.5

11 OCT 2022

20612863

SDDC Manager

4.5

11 OCT 2022

20612863

VxRail Manager

7.0.400

11 OCT 2022

NA

VMware vCenter Server Appliance

7.0 Update 3h

13 SEP 2022

20395099

VMware vSAN Witness Appliance

7.0 Update 3c

27 JAN 2022

19193900

VMware NSX-T

3.2.1.2

04 OCT 2022

20541212

VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager

8.8.2

12 JUL 2022

20080494

  • 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.

  • VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5 also supports VxRail Manager 7.0.410. See the Dell VxRail 7.0.x Release Notes for more information about the 7.0.410 release.

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

When you deploy the management domain, VxRail Manager 7.0.400 deploys vCenter Server 7.0 Update 3g (build 20150588). However, the VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5 BOM requires vCenter Server 7.0 Update 3h (build 20395099). Until you upgrade vCenter Server, you will not be able to deploy a VI workload domain. To upgrade vCenter Server, download and apply the upgrade bundle.

There is a known issue that can occur when upgrading from VxRail Manager 7.0.37x to VxRail Manager 7.0.37x or 7.0.40x. Before you upgrade VxRail Manager, refer to Dell KB 000200622 for details about detecting and remediating potential issues.

If you deployed VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5 with VxRail Manager 7.0.400, you can upgrade VxRail Manager to 7.0.410. See Dell VxRail: How to support VxRail 7.0.410 with VCF 4.5 for more information.

You can perform a sequential or skip level upgrade to VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5 on Dell EMC VxRail from VMware Cloud Foundation 4.2.1 or later. If your environment is at a version earlier than 4.2.1, you must upgrade the management domain and all VI workload domains to VMware Cloud Foundation 4.2.1 and then upgrade to VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5.

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 4.5, since VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5 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 plugin will not load in vSphere Client and displays the error "The provided vCenter credentials are not valid."

  • VxRail bundle is available for an upgrade even though the NSX-T upgrade is still in-progress on VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail 4.x environment.

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

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

Known Issues

For VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5 known issues, see VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5 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 4.5 on Dell EMC VxRail known issues appear below:

  • VxRail Manager upgrade bundle 7.0.400 does not appear as available for upgrade

    If you are upgrading from VxRail Manager 7.0.372 to VxRail Manager 7.0.400, the bundle for 7.0.400 may not be available for upgrade due to an issue with partnerBundleMetadata.json.

    Workaround: See KB 89852.

  • 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.

  • VxRail parallel cluster upgrade fails for one or more clusters

    Parallel cluster upgrade may fail for one or more clusters due to a VxRail Manager docker reinstallation time out. You are not able to retry the upgrade since the cluster upgrade is marked as completed in the SDDC Manager UI.

    Workaround: See Dell KB 000200622.

  • VxRail bundle is available for an upgrade even though the NSX-T upgrade is still in-progress on VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail 4.x environment.

    VxRail bundle is available for upgrade in SDDC Manager UI Bundles page and Update/Patches tab even though NSX-T upgrade is still in-progress on VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail 4.x environment.

    Both NSX-T bundle and VxRail bundle can become available for upgrade in SDDC Manager UI Bundles page.

    Workaround: Once you complete the NSX-T upgrade, the VxRail upgrade can be triggered. See VMware Knowledge Base article 88847 for more information.

  • VxRail Manager system precheck does not provide error information in /v1/system/prechecks/ API

    The /v1/system/prechecks/ API does not populate the errors attribute in cases where the precheck status is marked as WARNING. For example:

    {            
     'name': 'VXM_SYSTEM_PRECHECK',            
     'description': 'Perform Stage - Perform VxRail System Precheck',            
     'status': 'WARNING',            
     'creationTimestamp': '2022-09-21T09:34:55.044Z',            
     'completionTimestamp': '2022-09-21T09:45:20.283Z',            
     'errors': []        
}

    Workaround: None

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