VMware HCX delivers secure and seamless application mobility and infrastructure hybridity across both on-premises and in the cloud. HCX abstracts the distinct private or public vSphere resources and presents a Service Mesh as an end-to-end entity. HCX Interconnect can then provide high-performance, secure, and optimized multi-site connectivity to achieve infrastructure hybridity and present multiple options for bi-directional virtual machine mobility with technologies that facilitate the modernization of legacy data centers.
| Updated on: 15 Dec 2021 VMware HCX 4.3.0 | 15 DEC 2021 | Build 19068550 (Connector), Build 19068565 (Cloud) Check for additions and updates to these release notes. |
What's in the Release Notes
The release notes cover the following topics:- About VMware HCX
- Before You Begin
- What's New in this Release
- Resolved Issues
- Known Issues
- Security Issues
- Deprecation Notices
About VMware HCX
For more information, see the VMware HCX User Guide in the VMware Documentation Center.
Before You Begin
Upgrading to HCX 4.3.0
Review the following information prior to upgrading from R-based releases to HCX 4.3.0:
- Upgrading to HCX 4.3.0 is supported only from HCX 4.0.x or later.
- HCX 4.0.0 is the oldest version suitable for upgrade. Customers running older releases are required to upgrade to HCX 4.0.x first before upgrading to HCX 4.3.0.
- Assistance with upgrading from out-of-support releases is on a best-effort basis.
- VMware sends administrative messages to HCX systems that are running out of support and require upgrade.
Upgrade compatibility information is available as a table in VMware Product Interoperability Matrix - Upgrade Path.
Early Adoption Features
Early Adoption (EA) denotes an initial release phase of a critical service feature with limited field exposure. While the feature has completed its entire development cycle and it is fully supported in production, due to strong dependencies on the deployment environment, thorough validation and qualification is recommended before activating it.
What's New in this Release
VMware HCX 4.3.0 is a minor release that provides system and compatibility changes, feature enhancements, and fixed issues.
Network Extension Service Enhancements
- Network Extension High Availability (EA)
The Network Extension service is enhanced to protect extended networks from disruptions in the network infrastructure, appliance failure, or service maintenance events. Network Extension High Availability uses additional Network Extension appliances to create HA Groups and provide data path and appliance redundancy in an Active/Standby mode.
Refer to Understanding Network Extension High Availability for more information and additional resources required to activate this feature.
System Database Conversion
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Transition to PostgresSQL
To support future development and enhance security, the HCX system database has transitioned to PostgreSQL. For existing customers, the content of the database will be converted during the upgrade to HCX 4.3.0.
Important: Although this transition has no operational impact on existing HCX deployments, a reversal procedure is available. Refer to KB 87041.
VMware Product Interoperability
- Interoperability with NSX-T 3.2
With this HCX release, all networking and migration features are compatible with vSphere environments running NSX-T 3.2.
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Compatibility of vRealize Operations Management Pack for HCX
VMware HCX 4.3 is compatible with vRealize Operations when used with Management Pack 5.3 (or later). For the latest information, refer to Management Packs for vRealize Operations Documentation and VMware Product Interoperability Matrix. -
Interoperability with VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts
The HCX 4.3.0 release adds compatibility with VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts. Customers can leverage all of the HCX workload mobility technologies they are familiar with to migrate on-premises or cloud virtual machines into an Outpost. For more information, see VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts.
OS Assisted Migration Enhancements for Guest OS Support
OSAM now supports migration of the following Operating Systems:
- RHEL/CentOS 8.x (64-bit) on KVM
- RHEL/CentOS 8.x (BIOS/GEN-1 & UEFI/GEN-2) on Hyper-V
- Windows Server 2019 Guest OS on KVM and Hyper-V hypervisors.
For a detailed list of supported operating systems and OSAM requirements, see Understanding VMware HCX OS Assisted Migration.
OSAM Interoperability with VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 3
- With this release, HCX OS Assisted Migration is available in vSphere environments running VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 3.
User Interface Enhancements
- This release removes the 15-character host name limit for Microsoft Windows virtual machines for Guest OS customization.
- For OSAM, creating or editing the Compute Profile no longer requires setting the target datastore. HCX now identifies the list of datastores available for replication disk allocation from the deployment cluster. HCX validates whether the Sentinel Data Receiver (SDR) has access to the user selected datastore during the migration.
- The Redeploy selection in the Service Mesh > View Appliances page now supports specific deployment options for each appliance when selecting multiple appliances for re-deployment. Previously, selections were limited to a single option for all selected appliances.
Improvements in the PowerCLI 12.4 Module for HCX
- The PowerCLI 12.4 release resolves issues with the Start-HCXReplication and GET-HCXMigration cmdlets. For more information about this release, please see the VMware PowerCLI 12.4 Release Notes.
Note: It is a best practice to use the latest PowerCLI release with VMware HCX deployments. For a list of PowerCLI releases, see VMware PowerCLI Change Log.
Resolved Issues
Resolved Interconnect Issues
- PR/2820661 – Resolved an issue that causes Connector or Cloud Manager to get out-of-memory.
- PR/2850015 – Service Mesh diagnostics tests shown as “aborted/canceled” for some ESXi hosts.
- PR/2850763 – Enhance error message when the vSphere Distributed Switch does not connect to all ESXi hosts in the Compute cluster.
- PR/2871290 – Service Mesh diagnostics test for communication between Network Extension appliances (HCX-NET-EXT) and vCenter over TCP 443 is not required.
- PR/2822163 – During Service Mesh creation, the WAN Optimization appliance (WAN-OPT) status is inaccurately reported as DOWN.
- PR/2818281 – Incorrect error message for network backing changes for the stretched network after editing the Service Mesh to increase the Network Extension appliance scale and enabling Application Path Resiliency.
Resolved Migration Issues
- PR/2849754 – RAV migration of a VM having a disk of exactly 2 TB size fails with the error - "Operation timed out".
- PR/2807538 – During Bulk migration switchover, Power OFF task failed as the virtual machine was already powered OFF due to delayed shutdown, resulting in migration failure.
Resolved OS Assisted Migration Issues
- PR/2848442 – The Guest OS version for CentOS 6.x 32/64bit migrated virtual machines are incorrectly set to CentOS 4/5.
Known Issues
- PR/2890922 – Appliance Upgrade option may not be available in the HCX UI.
Workaround: Use Appliance Redeploy option instead. When a new version is available, it will upgrade the appliance upon redeployment as an equivalent process. In-Service Redeploy for Network Extension appliances is also available.
Security Issues
This HCX release is not impacted by CVE-2021-44228 or CVE-2021-45046. For more information, see VMSA-2021-0028 in the VMware Security Advisories.
Deprecation Notices
Deprecated features receive no further development or code fixes, and will be removed in a future release. The following is a summary list of deprecated features in HCX 4.x releases:
- HCX Site Recovery Manager Integration – In HCX 4.3, SRM Integration is no longer functional due to the database conversion to PostgreSQL. Existing deployments using the feature must disable it before upgrading. For the initial deprecation notification, see the HCX 4.0.2 Release Note.
