VMware vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 Release Notes

vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 \| 07 FEB 2024 \| Build 23222951 Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 | 07 FEB 2024 | Build 23222951

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's New

The VMware vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 release contains various enhancements and bug fixes.

Re-branding all the supported vRealize product names

vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 introduces a re-branding of all the vRealize product names to the respective official Aria product names.
Photon OS Upgrade

vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 introduces an upgrade to the Photon OS system to Photon OS v.4 from v.3. that provides new infra capabilities and security updates.
TLS 1.3 Support

To ensure better confidentiality for sensitive information, vCloud Usage Meter now supports TLS 1.3.
Updates to the libraries used for the FIPS-compliance based mode

To maintain the highest standards of security for vCloud Usage Meter, the libraries used for the FIPS-compliance based mode are now upgraded to the latest verions.

Configuration Maximums

To view the tested scale and the VMware-recommended concurrency limits, see VMware Configuration Maximums.

Supported Browsers

The vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 Web application is compatible with the following Web browsers.

Apple Safari
Google Chrome
Microsoft Edge
Mozilla Firefox

vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 is tested against the following Web browser versions.

Windows 11 Enterprise
macOS Sonoma 14.3

Windows 11 Enterprise

Google Chrome 121.0.6167.140
Microsoft Edge (64-bit) 121.0.2277.98
Mozilla Firefox 122.0

macOS Sonoma 14.3

Google Chrome 121.0.6167.139
Apple Safari 17.3 (19617.2.4.11.8)
Mozilla Firefox 122.0

Product Support Notices

vCloud Usage Meter no longer supports the following functionalities.

registering and managing instances in offline mode
metering of Horizon and Horizon DaaS

Beginning with the next major release, we will be reducing the number of supported localization languages. The three supported languages will be:

Japanese
Spanish
French

The following languages will no longer be supported: German, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Simplified Chinese.

Impact:

Users who have been using the deprecated languages will no longer receive updates or support in these languages.
All user interfaces, help documentation, and customer support will be available only in English or in the three supported languages mentioned above.

Upgrading from Previous Releases

You can install vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 as an in-place upgrade on top of vCloud Usage Meter 4.4 and later. For information, see Upgrading the vCloud Usage Meter Appliance.

If you are upgrading from vCloud Usage Meter 4.x to version 4.8, in the vCloud Usage Meter Web interface, you must manually accept the certificates for all metered product servers.

To ensure the automatic aggregation and reporting of the monthly product consumption data, after a successful upgrade from version 4.4 or later to version 4.8, VMware recommends that you do not revert to the snapshot of the source vCloud Usage Meter appliance.

Resolved Issues

vCloud Usage Meter reports data inaccurately for the registered VMware Cloud Director instances that use NSX Advanced Load Balancer with Service Engine Groups tagged as Standard

For VMware Cloud Director versions 10.4.1 and higher, when the registered instances use NSX Advanced Load Balancer with Service Engine Groups that have the Standard feature set, the collected data from vCloud Usage Meter is inaccurate. The issue affects the calculated VMware Cloud Director related usage in the Vritual Machine History report.
Unable to access a newly deployed appliance with deactivated FIPS-compliance mode

When trying to access the Web Interface for a vCloud Usage Meter appliance with deactivated FIPS-compliance mode during the deployment, you encounter a Server Error error message. Also, all the services for the appliance are offline.
The reported usage of a registered NSX-T Manager instance utilizes the Multi-VC feature

vCloud Usage Meter 4.7 detects the Multi-VC feature incorrectly and reports product consumption data for the registered NSX-T Manager instance inaccurately. The issue occurs when one or more of the vCenter Server instances are linked with both an IP address and FQDN to the NSX-T Manager instance.
The vmware-um-journal service is in an inconsistent state after configuring, resetting, and re-configuring the local email notifications

After you configure, reset, and then re-configure the local email notifications for a vCloud Usage Meter appliance, the vmware-um-journal service becomes in an inconsistent state.
When editing or auditing a customer rule, all objects that are part of the rule appear as Not Found

If you delete an object from an inventory of a registered vCenter Server instance and that object is part of a customer rule, when editing or auditing the rule, all objects that are part of the rule appear as Not Found. vCloud Usage Meter displays all the selected objects with their MoRef IDs. Moreover, when auditing the rule, all the objects appear in the Missing Target Objects tab even though not all of them are deleted.
vCloud Usage Meter displays vRealize Network Insight instead of VMware Aria Operations for Networks

As a result of a rebranding, vRealize Network Insight is now VMware Aria Operations for Networks. However, in the vCloud Usage Meter Web interface, the Virtual Machine History, and the Monthly Usage reports, the name is still vRealize Network Insight. The discrepancy in the naming does not affect the metering of the registered VMware Aria Operations for Networks instances.
vCloud Usage Meter displays vRealize Operations instead of VMware Aria Operations

As a result of a rebranding, vRealize Operations is now VMware Aria Operations. However, in the vCloud Usage Meter Web interface, the Virtual Machine History, and the Monthly Usage reports, the name is still vRealize Operations.

Known Issues

Unable to edit or delete customer rules that contain special characters

If a customer rule contains special characters like the # & + symbols, you are unable to edit or delete the customer rule. When trying to edit the rule, the object no longer appears in the object inventory. When trying to delete the rule, you receive a The rule is successfully deleted message, but the rule still appears in the object inventory.
Workaround: To delete the rules, use the vCloud Usage Meter API.
1. Get the session ID for login. The session id becomes part of the header in the next requests.
  
  POST https://<UM IP>/api/v1/login
2. Get the corresponding customer label.
  
  GET https://<UM IP>/api/v1/rules?name=test%26test
  
  The special character symbol gets URL-encoded. In this example, & becomes %26.
3. To rename the rule, use the body in the response from the previous step and change the current name to a new one. The new name should not contain special characters.
  
  PATCH https://<UM IP>/api/v1/rules
4. To delete the rule, enter:
  
  DELETE https://<UM IP>/api/v1/rules?name=test%26test
New - In the Audit tab, an exclamation mark appears next to the customer rules linked to vCenter Server or VMware Cloud Director servers

In the Audit tab, a red sign with an exclamation mark appears next to the customer rules linked to vCenter Server or VMware Cloud Director servers.

Workaround: None. You can ignore the warning - vCloud Usage Meter collects and reports the data under the customer rules.
New - The syslog server does not receive logs from any other system services than the CAP based system services

After configuring a syslog server through the vCloud Usage Meter VAMI, the syslog server only receives logs from the CAP based system services. vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 fails to send logs from other system services.

Workaround: Follow the steps provided in the KB article: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/96509.
New - vCloud Usage Meter still reports a deleted customer rule mapped to a VMware Cloud Director instance

A configured and then deleted customer rule mapped to a registered VMware Cloud Director instance is still part of the reported data by vCloud Usage Meter.
Workaround: Execute the following steps.
1. Add a new customer rule.
  1. On the Customer Label page, enter the same name as the name of the deleted rule.
  2. From the Product drop-down menu, select the same VMware Cloud Director endpoint as the endpoint for the deleted rule.
  3. From the Object Type drop-down menu, select Organization.
  4. From Available Objects table, select only System.
2. Wait until the data collection for the VMware Cloud Director instance finishes successfully.
3. Delete the newly added customer rule.
After upgrading to vCloud Usage Meter 4.8, an Error in FIPS compliance settings error message appears in the Web interface

If you gradually upgrade vCloud Usage Meter from 4.2 to 4.8, you might encounter the following error message in the Web interface.

Error in FIPS compliance settings. Please open technical support ticket.

A similar error message appears when trying to enable or deactivate the FIPS-compliance mode in Settings > Security.

FIPS is not configured correctly on the appliance. Click Enable or Disable to resolve it. If the problem persists, raise a technical support ticket.

The issue occurs because the fips parameter has been incorrectly set in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file during the upgrade.

Workaround: Follow the provided steps in the following KB: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/96023.
vCloud Usage Meter reports data for the virtual machines of a registered vCenter Server instance after migrating all the virtual machines associated with the instance

If you migrate all the virtual machines associated with a registered vCenter Server instance to another vCenter Server instance, vCloud Usage Meter might still collect and report data for the virtual machines no longer associated with the instance.

Workaround: After you migrate the virtual machines, delete the registered vCenter Server instance from the vCloud Usage Meter Web interface. For more information, see Delete Product Servers in vCloud Usage Meter.
When installing vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 as an in-place upgrade, the vCloud Usage Meter VM becomes unresponsive

When you attempt to install vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 as an in-place upgrade, the VM on which you install the new appliance, becomes unresponsive. The process might fail with an error message.

The guest operating system has locked the CD-ROM door and is probably using the CD-ROM, which can prevent the guest from recognizing media changes.

Workaround: Follow the steps in the https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2144053?lang=en_us KB
Downloading the product consumption data for a vCloud Usage Meter appliance that runs in an offline mode returns an Alert: No usage data to download error message

If a vCloud Usage Meter appliance runs in an offline mode and contains registered product server instances, an attempt to download the product consumption report results in an error message:

Alert: No usage data to download.

The issue occurs when the collected product consumption data is not ready for download yet.

Workaround: Wait for several minutes and then download the product consumption report.
After upgrade to vCloud Usage Meter 4.8, SSH to the vCloud Usage Meter console results in a WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! error message

After upgrading from vCloud Usage Meter version 4.4 to this release, when you SSH for the first time to the vCloud Usage Meter console, you receive an error message.

WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! This happens because after upgrading, the vCloud Usage Meter host ID is changed in the library.

Workaround: To delete the old host ID, run the following command.

ssh-keygen -R <IP-of-the-UM>
Adding a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid management cluster deployed through Container Service Extension for metering results in a Collection Error: APIError status and notification alert
Adding a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid management cluster deployed through Container Service Extension for metering results in a Collection Error: APIError status. You also recieve a Collection Error: APIError alert in the Notifications tab of the vCloud Usage Meter Web interface. The collection data failure occurs because vCloud Usage Meter does not support the metering of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid management clusters deployed through Container Service Extension.

You might observe the following error in the tkgm_main.log.
```
ERROR --- [TKGM collector thread] c.v.um.tkgmcollector.api.TkgmClient : GET https://ip-address/apis/infrastructure.cluster.x-k8s.io/v1beta1/vspheremachines failed for endpoint '16' with 404
```
Workaround: None.
Creating a customer rule for a registered VMware Cloud Director or a vCenter Server instance before accepting the product certificates results in an Unable to process requests error message

If the status for a registered VMware Cloud Director or a vCenter Server instance is displaying a Please Accept Certificate message and you attempt to create a customer rule for an object on the instance, you receive an error message such as:

Unable to process requests. Error: Failed to get VCD searched objects for VMware Cloud Director.Unable to process requests. Error: Failed to get VC searched objects for vCenter Server.

Workaround: First accept the product certificate and then create the customer rule.
Upgrading to vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 can result in a Failed to process journal=>read error message in the vCloud Usage Meter Web interface

If the host name is incorrectly set when generating the self-signed certificate, upgrading to vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 results in an error message in the vCloud Usage Meter Web interface.

Failed to process journal=>read. Error:com.vmware.um.common.err.UmException: Hostname localhost not verified: certificate: sha256/t0k44cGiczDyGyzA/xuXcP6arPXzCiYjKeLM0pNG8LU= DN: CN=photon-machine,ST=Some-State,C=US subjectAltNames: []. Check the appliance logs for more details

Also, the Notifications page does not load.

Workaround: Ensure that you set the correct host name. Then you can either generate a new self-signed certificate or import an internal Certification Authority (CA) - Signed Certificate. The certificate CN must match the hostname of the vCloud Usage Meter appliance. For information, see vCloud Usage Meter Certificate Management.
Site Recovery Manager consumption data is missing from the product consumption report

If you configure Storage Profile Protection Groups (SPPG) on a Site Revovery Manager instance, vCloud Usage Meter cannot collect product consumption data from the virtual machines associated with the SPPG.

Workaround: There is no workaround at this time.
vCloud Usage Meter reports twice the product consumption for a re-registered Horizon DaaS instance

If you remove a Horizon DaaS instance from vCloud Usage Meter and re-register it again in the same month, vCloud Usage Meter reports twice the product consumption for this instance.

This happens because Horizon DaaS does not have unique ID and after every registration, the instance is assigned a new ID. As a result, vCloud Usage Meter considers the re-registered Horizon DaaS instance as a new instance.

Workaround: None. After removing a Horizon DaaS instance, if you want to re-register it in the same month, contact VMware Global Support.
vCloud Usage Meter does not send email notifications in case of partial collection failure for vSAN and SRM

vCloud Usage Meter does not send email notifications in case of partial collection failure for vSAN and SRM. Partial collection failure issues are displayed as error messages in the Notifications window of the vCloud Usage Meter Web interface.

Workaround: None.