VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure 3.0 | 15 JUN 2023

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's New

VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure OpenStack Edition Release 3.0 includes various new features, enhancements, and bug fixes of VMware Integrated Openstack (VIO) in the virtual infrastructure management area. This release also supports the latest features of vSphere and NSX in the workload management and networking areas respectively.

Vitual Infrastructure Management

VMware Integrated OpenStack 7.3  introduces the following key features and enhancements:

  • Support for vSphere 8.0U1: Helps create workloads based on the vCenter 8.0 infrastructure.

  • Support for NSX 4.1.0.2: Helps leverage new features supported in NSX.

  • Backward Compatibility: While VMware Integrated OpenStack 7.3 supports the latest versions of vSphere and NSX (vSphere 8.0U1 and NSX 4.1.0.2), you can upgrade VMware Integrated OpenStack to 7.3 at the VIM layer and continue to use earlier versions of vSphere and NSX (such as vSphere 7.0.x and NSX 3.2.x).

  • Virtual Hyperthreading: VMware Integrated OpenStack (VIO) leverages the Virtual Hyperthreading feature of vSphere 8.0 when the latency sensitivity of the VIO instance is set to "High with Hyperthreading". In other words, CPU pinning setting can be  "Latency Sensitivity= High+HT" for vSphere 8.0.

  • Additional features:

    • Storage migration option for live migration of VMs managed by VMware Integrated OpenStack

    • Cinder volume backup improvement, removed Cache for backing up cinder volumes

    • Support for the deployment of instances with SR-IOV ports in an anti-affinity server group.

      Note: All the instances in the server group must have SR-IOV ports.

    • B&R enhancement: Support backup in the "Not-Running" deployment state

For more information about these features, see the VMware Integrated OpenStack 7.3 Release Notes.

Workload Management, Storage, and Reliability Enhancements

VMware ESXi 8.0U1 introduces the following new features. This release also inherits features and enhancements from ESXi 8.0b:

  • vSphere Configuration Profiles:

    • Helps manage ESXi cluster configurations by specifying a host configuration at the cluster level

    • Helps automate the scanning of ESXi hosts for compliance with the specified configuration and remediate any host that is not compliant

  • Support for heterogenous virtual Graphics Processing Unit (vGPU) profiles on the same GPU hardware

  • HTTP/JSON-based wire protocol as an alternative to SOAP/XML

  • Distributed Services Engine (DSE) Support – DPU Offload:

    • Using a vSphere Distributed Switch version 8.0 and NSX, network services can be offloaded to the DPU, leading to improved network performance.

  • Life cycle management enhancements:

    • Automatically remediate the ESXi installation on a DPU in lock-step with the host ESXi version

    • Support for staging update/upgrade payloads to speed up remediation

    • LifeCycle Manager (LCM) can remediate multiple hosts in parallel

    • Standalone hosts can be managed using vSphere Lifecycle Manager through API. 

  • Configuration management at scale

  • Resource management enhancement

    • vSphere Green Metrics introduces new power consumption metrics for hosts and VMs.

  • vSAN enhancements

    • Performance enhancements

    • Resource and space efficiency

    • Availability and serviceability enhancements

  • vSphere scalability enhancements

    • Increased vGPU resources

    • 96 hosts per vSphere Lifecycle Manager cluster

    • 10K VMs per cluster

  • vSphere Distributed Services Engine supports the following:

    • NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPUs to server designs from Lenovo (Lenovo ThinkSystem SR650 V2)

    • 100G NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPUs to server designs from Dell

    • UPTv2 for NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPUs

    • AMD Genoa CPU based server designs from Dell

  • Supports up to 8 GPUs with NVSwitch connections between them on a single ESXi host

For more information about all these features, see the VMware ESXi 8.0U1 Release Notes and VMware ESXi 8.0b Release Notes.

vCenter Server 8.0U1 includes new features and improvements. For more information, see the VMware vCenter Server 8.0U1 Release Notes.

VMware vSAN 8.0U1 introduces the following features and enhancements:

  • Disaggregated Storage:

    • Disaggregation with vSAN Express Storage Architecture

    • Disaggregation for vSAN stretched clusters (vSAN OSA)

    • Disaggregation across clusters using multiple vCenter Servers (vSAN OSA)

  • Optimized Performance, Durability, and Flexibility

    • Improved performance with new Adaptive Write Path

    • Optimized I/O processing for single VMDK/objects (vSAN ESA)

    • Enhanced durability in maintenance mode scenarios

    • Increased administrative storage capacity on vSAN datastores using customizable namespace objects

    • Witness appliance certification

  • Other key features

    • Simplified management and cloud native storage

For more information about these features and enhancements, see the VMware vSAN 8.0U1 Release Notes.

Carrier-Grade Resilient Networking

VMware NSX 4.1.0.2 (formerly VMware NSX-T Data Center) introduces the following new features. This release inherits features and enhancements from NSX 4.0.1.1.

  • IPv6 support in the Control and Management Planes

  • Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) support for IPv6 Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) neighbors and IPv6 static routes

  • Ethernet VPN (EVPN) Route Server Mode Enhancements

  • Support for upgrading the Edge node Operating System to Ubuntu 20.04

  • Support for DPU-based acceleration through NVIDIA and AMD Pensando SmartNICs

  • Antrea and NSX integration enhancements:

    • Usability and functionality improvements of using NSX to manage Antrea clusters, dynamic groups, and firewall rules with both Kubernetes and NSX objects.  

  • Enhancements to Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF)

  • NVIDIA ConnectX-6 support for Bare Metal Edge

For more information, see the VMware NSX 4.1.0.2 Release Notes and VMware NSX 4.0.1.1 Release Notes.

Components

Mandatory Add-On Components

Note: Additional license is required.

Optional Add-On Components

Note: Additional license is required.

Validated Patches

End of General Support Guidance

VMware Product Lifecycle Matrix outlines the End of General Support (EoGS) dates for VMware products. Lifecycle planning is required to keep each component of the VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure solution in a supported state. Plan the component updates and upgrades according to the EoGS dates. To ensure that the component versions are supported, you may need to update the Telco Cloud Infrastructure solution to its latest maintenance release.

VMware pre-approval is required to use a product past its EoGS date. To discuss the extended support of products, contact your VMware representative.

Resolved Issues

  • DHCPV6 Relay Fails to Provide IPv6 addresses from the DHCPv6 Server

    In NSX-T Data Center, the DHCPV6 relay fails to provide IPv6 addresses from the DHCPv6 server.

    This issue is fixed in NSX 4.1.0.2.

  • PSOD with Exception 14 Error Occurs on ESXi Hosts when Network I/O Control is Enabled

    When NSX-T prepared hosts are configured for N-VDS (E) and Network I/O Control is enabled, PSOD occurs on the ESXi host with the following error:

    error exception 14 in world 9444461

    This issue is fixed in NSX-T Data Center 3.2.2.

  • VM Network Not Changing in vCenter Server After Importing a VM to VMware Integrated OpenStack using DCLI

    If you select a new network while importing a VM from vCenter Server to VMware Integrated OpenStack using the Data Center Command Line Interface (DCLI), the selected network does not reflect in vCenter Server after the import.

    This issue is fixed in VMware Integrated OpenStack 7.3.

  • Unable to Retrieve Load Balancers After Clicking Load Balancer in the Horizon UI of VMware Integrated OpenStack

    If a user that does not have the Load Balancer role clicks Load Balancer in the Horizon UI, the following error occurs:

    Unable to retrieve load balancer

    This issue is fixed in VMware Integrated OpenStack 7.3.

Known Issues

  • Status of NSX Transport Node Changes to "Install Failed" in NSX Manager After Upgrading the Node

    After upgrading an NSX transport node from ESXi 7.0U3 to ESXi 8.0, the status of the transport node changes to "Install Failed" in the NSX Manager.

    Workaround: In the NSX Manager, resolve the error manually or re-configure NSX for the upgraded ESXi host.

  • ESXi Hosts Receive an Install Task Error When Upgrading ESXi or vCenter Server with vSphere Replication 8.7 GA Build Installed in the Telco Cloud Infrastructure Environment

    When ESXi or vCenter Server is upgraded from 7.0U3 to 8.0 in the Telco Cloud Infrastructure environment installed with the vSphere Replication 8.7 GA build, all the hosts receive an Install task error in the vCenter task list:

    An error occurred during host configuration.

    Workaround: Disable HMS appliance to auto-push the hbr-agent VIBs by following these steps:

    1. Log in to HMS VM using SSH.

    2. Modify the VR config file using the following command:

      /opt/vmware/hms/bin/hms-configtool -cmd reconfig -property hms-auto-install-hbragent-vib=false

    3. Restart the HMS appliance:

      service hms restart

  • Unable to Use Existing Image to Create a Nova Instance with HW version 20 After Upgrading vSphere and VIO

    After upgrading vSphere to 8.0 and VIO to 7.3, a nova instance with hardware (HW) version 20 cannot be created using an existing image. Hence, new VIO features such as Create instance with vHT enablement cannot be leveraged.

    Workaround: After upgrading vSphere to 8.0, create a new image in VIO 7.3 and use this new image to create nova instances of HW 20.

Release Notes Change Log

Date

Change

Oct 11, 2023

VMware NSX 4.1.1 is added to the Validated Patches section.

Support Resources

For additional support resources, see the VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure documentation page.

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