VMware HCX 4.4.0 is a minor release that provides new features, improved platform security, compatibility updates and resolved issues.
Transport Analytics
- HCX 4.4 brings Transport Analytics to HCX. New capabilities enable on-demand testing and baselining transport performance based on the conditions of the underlay network. Understanding transport network performance can help in planning migration wave size and in analyzing data transfer and performance issues. See Understanding HCX Transport Analytics.
VMware HCX on Photon OS
- This release improves platform security, package management, and orchestration through the implementation of VMware Photon Operating System on the HCX Manager and Service Mesh appliances.
Network Extension Enhancements
Migration Enhancements
- Host-based Replication module update
Host-based Replication (HBR) server in HCX is updated to version 8.4. Version 8.4 modernizes the functionality, provides many fixes and improves migration performance. HBR is used during HCX Bulk migration, Replication Assisted vMotion, and HCX protection (DR) operations.
- Disk Size Alignment Validation
For Replication operations to a VSAN datastore, the source disk size must be a multiple of 512 KB. With this release, HCX checks the source disk size prior to initiating a migration and automatically adjusts the size, which can prevent errors related to misalignment of the source and datastore disk sizes.
Platform Updates
- HCX Remote Plug-in for vSphere Clients
The vSphere Remote Plug-in architecture was first released with vSphere 6.7 U1, and has several advantages over the legacy local plug-ins. This release adds HCX compatibility with the remote plug-in architecture.
For more information about the vSphere Client local plug-in deprecation, see VMware KB 87880.
- Self-signed Certificate Rotation
HCX uses self-signed certificates for the Appliance Management Interface (port 9443) and HCX Service UI (port 443) appliances. Going forward, HCX upgrades detect and rotate self-signed certificates nearing expiry. For more information, see Managing CA and Self-Signed Certificates.
- Virtual Machine Compatibility (HW Version 10)
New deployments of HCX 4.4 use compatibility set to Hardware Version 10. Existing deployments can be manually updated to version 10. See VMware KB 1010675.
- HCX Publisher Notifications
All HCX Connector and Cloud Manager deployments maintain a connection to the HCX Publisher, which is responsible for verifying licensing and supporting system upgrades. An enhancement to HCX Publisher now identifies systems that have reached End of General Support (EoGS). For systems that reach EoGS, HCX deployments receive a banner message similar to the following notice:
"The installed HCX version system with version number is running out of support and cannot be upgraded. Redeployment with the latest version is required."
User Interface Enhancements
- HCX Alerts
The HCX Manager UI includes a new selection for monitoring system alert messages. You can also view alert messages from the Alerts panel in the HCX Dashboard.
- Virtual Trusted Platform Module Validation
In HCX for VMware Cloud on AWS deployments, HCX migration operations involving encrypted virtual machines are currently not supported. This release adds a validation, preventing failed migrations of encrypted virtual machines.
Interoperability Enhancements
PowerCLI 12.7 Module for HCX
The PowerCLI 12.7 release improves the performance of GET-HCXMigration and includes bug fixes. For more information about this release, please find additional information in the PowerCLI 12.7 Release Blog and PowerCLI 12.7 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.