| VMware HCX 4.6 | 17 FEB 2023 | Build 21296643 (Connector), 21296644 (Cloud), 21352015 (GovCloud Connector), 21352013 (GovCloud Cloud) Check for additions and updates to these release notes. |
| VMware HCX 4.6 | 17 FEB 2023 | Build 21296643 (Connector), 21296644 (Cloud), 21352015 (GovCloud Connector), 21352013 (GovCloud Cloud) Check for additions and updates to these release notes. |
This release supports both HCX commercial deployments and HCX for VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud deployments.
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.
For more information, see the VMware HCX User Guide in the VMware Documentation Center.
For HCX deployment requirements, see Preparing for HCX Installation.
The following resources provide information related to HCX deployments:
For information regarding VMware product compatibility by version, see Product Interoperability Matrix.
For appliance limit information, see VMware Configurations Maximums.
For more information on where you can view port and protocol information for various VMware products in a single dashboard and to export an offline copy of the selected data, see VMware Ports and Protocols.
For information about General Availability (GA), End of Support (EoS), End of Technical Guidance (EoTG) for VMware software, see VMware Product Lifecycle Matrix.
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.
Installing HCX 4.6.0
For sample installation workflows by deployment type, see Installing the HCX Manager Appliance.
Upgrading to HCX 4.6
Requirements for HCX deployments:
Upgrading to HCX 4.6.0 from HCX 4.2 and above is supported.
Upgrading to HCX 4.6.0 from all versions less than 4.2 requires a full upgrade to 4.3.3 first.
All site paired systems must be upgraded.
All Service Mesh appliances must be upgraded to 4.6.
Requirements for HCX for VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud deployments:
Upgrading to HCX 4.6.0 GovCloud from HCX GovCloud 4.3.9 and above is supported.
All site paired systems must be upgraded.
All Service Mesh appliances must be upgraded to 4.6.
Upgrade snapshots:
During upgrades to HCX 4.6, HCX Manager snapshots are taken automatically.
Upgrade snapshots are only taken when an HCX Manager is deployed on the same vCenter Server registered to it. For other deployments, manual snapshots can be taken.
HCX retains automatic snapshots for 24 hours before deleting them.
Note: To restore the HCX Manager from a snapshot, contact VMware Support.
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.
HCX 4.5.0 and later releases have new security requirements for OS Assisted Migration (OSAM). If you use OSAM in your environment, you must upgrade HCX Connector, HCX Cloud Manager, and HCX OSAM data plane appliances (Sentinel Gateway, Sentinel Data Receiver) to HCX 4.5.0 or later. Additionally, you must upgrade Sentinel agents running on the source workloads. For compatibility with HCX 4.6.0, the Sentinel agents, Sentinel Gateway, and Sentinel Data Receiver must be running HCX 4.5.0 or later. If not all appliances compatible, migrations can stall and must be started again after upgrade.
VMware HCX 4.6.0 is a minor release that provides feature and usability enhancements, improved platform security, HCX for VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud feature alignment, and resolved issues.
Migration Enhancements
Retry Canceled or Failed Migrations
HCX 4.6 introduces the Retry option for failed or canceled migrations. You can select Retry from the Migration Management or Tracking screen.
Migration Management:
Migration Tracking:
For more information, refer to Managing Failed or Canceled Migrations.
HCX Support for IPv6 – Phase1
HCX 4.6 brings migration support for IPv6 workload VMs with following guidelines:
Dual Stack support for migration.
Support for migration of both IPv4 and IPv6 workload VMs.
HCX Network Extension and Mobility Optimized Networking (MON) will not be supported for IPv6 GW.
Note: Migrated IPv6 workload VMs can be able to communicate OnPrem IPv6 GW over existing IPv4 network extended datapath.
HCX for VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (4.6.0)
HCX for VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud provides feature alignment with HCX 4.6.0, and complies with the FedRAMP High baseline requirements.
Note: HCX for VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud does not support WAN Optimization and OS Assisted Migration.
For more information, see HCX for VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud.
Usability Enhancements
Using Force Cleanup for Multiple Failed or Canceled Migrations
The Force Cleanup option clears failed or canceled migration processes that were not automatically cleaned up by the system. With this release, you can use Force Cleanup in cases where multiple migrations require clean up. Previously, Force Cleanup applied only to one migration at a time. For more information, refer to Force Cleanup for a Failed or Canceled Migration.
Enhanced notification for Canceled Migrations
For Bulk migrations, a request to cancel a migration invokes a rollback process that cancels the replication on the source site, deletes the replicated data from the destination site, and keeps the source VM in a powered-on state. If Seed Checkpoint is enabled, HCX retains the data at the destination site.
However, if a request to cancel a migration is made after the virtual machine has been powered on at target, the source virtual machine does not return to a powered-on state. This prevents duplicate active instances of a virtual machine on both the endpoints. The system now displays the following message notifying customers that the migration completed despite the cancelation request:
"VM migrated as Cancelation was requested post VM Power-On at target."
HCX Log Filtering Enhancements
From this release, Tunnel state logging has been improved to provide meaningful log entries, and the rate of log messages has been limited to avoid consumers from being overwhelmed.
Additionally, Logging format has also been improved to conform to RFC-5424 syntax for HCX-IX and HCX-NE fleet appliances.
Provider API Enhancement for Version Specific HCX Downloads (Hyperscalers)
From this release, Hyperscalers can use HCX REST APIs to download specific HCX versions for their customers when there is a relevant use case.
Interoperability Enhancements
Interoperability with VMware NSX 4.1.0
With this HCX release, all networking and migration features are compatible with vSphere environments running NSX 4.1.0.
Resolved Management Issues
PR/3030618 - When a Network Extension appliance (HCX-NE) is configured in HA mode, the latest HA group availability state and appliance roles may not be visible for HA Groups in Service Mesh > HA Management > HA Group Details window.
PR/3010710 - Kafka-DB log directory size in the HCX manager increases significantly after performing bulk/RAV migration of a large number of VMs deteriorating HCX manager performance and failing upgrades.
PR/3053735 - Viewing the HCX Network Extension High Availability (HA) APIs from the HCX API Explorer displays an error.
PR/3062905 - Using the In-Service Upgrade feature to upgrade a Network Extension appliance can cause a network loop.
PR/3063035 - HCX reports an error when running “/opt/vmware/tools/runHealthCheck.sh” in the HCX Manager CLI if the hostname is greater than 18 characters.
PR/3047926 - The Service Mesh activity logs show the wrong start and end times for the Service Mesh creation.
PR/3064681 - If the password for the NSX appliance registered with HCX expires, HCX generated error messages are not user friendly and do not reflect that expiration event.
PR/3070591 - The VMware Cloud on AWS setup which had the HCX deployed with NVDS was migrated to CVDS. After migration, edit Network profile operation fails for the network profile ‘for 'mgmt-app-network'.
PR/3088412 - Connection rules do not display when "Review Connection Rules" is clicked on Compute Profile page.
PR/3096319 - Log clean-up process can run out of disk space due to a logging issue found on OSAM SGW/SDR appliances.
Resolved Migration Issues
PR/3091760 - vMotion migrations fail with the message, "vMotion failed. System Error. Error while logging into Mobility Agent.. null." For more information, refer to Knowledge Base article 90666.
PR/3094000 - Canceling a Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) migration while the recovery point objective (RPO) cycle is active can cause the migration cancellation to get stuck.
PR/3051386 - Seed data will be retained in the database (MobilitySeed collection), which is not necessary; it occupies unnecessary space.
PR/2985131 - After a migration failure or cancellation, if VM has seed data present on the target datastore, then, initiating a new migration for the same VM fails with an error stating that the requested storage is not available.
Resolved Deployment Issues
PR/3018682 – OVA deployment does not support “comma” separation for multiple NTP/DNS/Domain Name.
This release includes important security enhancements and updates.
OSAM 32-Bit Guest OS Deprecation Notice
Support for 32-bit guest operating systems for OSAM (OS Assisted Migration) is deprecated. There will be no further enhancements or bug fixes in OSAM to support 32-bit guest operating systems. Support will be removed in HCX 4.7.0
About NSX for vSphere systems in Extended Support
NSX for vSphere General Support ended on January 16, 2022.
NSX for vSphere systems in Technical Guidance (under Extended Support contracts) are only supported at the evacuation site (source), with HCX Connector.
To determine the HCX Connector version for evacuation, refer to VMware KB articles 82702 and 71398.
Note that HCX Cloud installations require current (Generally Available) VMware software components. NSX for vSphere is not suitable or supported for HCX Cloud installations.
