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Updated 30 June 2020

vRealize Automation 8.0.1

  • vRA Easy Installer (ISO) build 15336196
  • vRA product (appliance) build 15294185

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's in the Release Notes

New vRealize Automation 8.0.1 Patch 5

vRealize Automation 8.0.1 Patch 5 is now available and includes bug fixes in different areas. This is a cumulative update. Existing vRealize Automation 8.0 users should update to Patch 5. 

Prerequisite: Customers on vRealize Automation 8.0 must first update to vRealize Automation 8.0.1, and then apply the 8.0.1 Patch 5.

It is recommended to install vRealize Suite Manager 8.0.1 Patch 1 before you install the vRealize Automation 8.0.1 Patch 5 patch. For information on installing the vRealize Suite Manager 8.0.1 Patch 1, see vRealize Suite Manager 8.0.1 Patch 1.

For more information and installation instructions, see KB 76805.  Consider applying KB 78235 beforehand.

Version 8.0.1 Patch 5 is the last patch that VMware plans to deliver for vRealize Automation 8.0.1. To continue to receive feature updates and resolved issues, it is recommended that you upgrade to the latest version of 8.x. The process to upgrade to the latest version is similar in time and effort to installing the patch.  

New Installations of vRealize Automation 8.0 and 8.0.1 might fail to install.

  • New installations of vRealize Automation 8.0 and 8.0.1 fail to install 
  • Upgrade to 8.0.1 or installation of hotfixes is failing
  • A 404 page not found error is displayed after restarting vRealize Automation 8.0.1

For information and workaround steps see KB 78235.

About vRealize Automation 8.0.1

vRealize Automation 8.0 brings the vRealize Automation Cloud capabilities to the on-premises form factor, opening up the possibility of consuming vRealize Automation in SaaS or on-premises. This release modernizes the vRA 8 architecture and capability set to enable enhanced agility, efficiency, and governance in the enterprise.

The many benefits of vRealize Automation 8.0.1 include: 

  • Modern Platform using Kubernetes based micro-services architecture that provides
    • Simple install footprint for both non-HA and HA configurations
    • Scalable to meet modern workload challenges
  • Easy to set up and consume multi-cloud infrastructure surface
  • API-first approach to deliver cloud automation
  • Deliver Infrastructure-as-Code using a declarative YAML syntax
  • Iterative development of blueprints 
  • Cloud agnostic blueprints
  • Collaboration across teams via sharing of objects
  • Self-service catalog coupled with agile governance
  • Simple policies
  • Native support for SPBM policies 
  • Deploy IPv6 workloads on dual-stack IP (IPv4/ IPv6) networks in vSphere 
  • CI/CD pipeline and automated application release management
  • Kubernetes/container management
  • New action-based extensibility (ABX), which allows you to write lightweight scripts, using Node.js and Python
  • Git integration to manage all blueprints, workflows, actions, and pipelines
  • Workload on-boarding with existing data center VMs

What's New

This is the next release of vRealize Automation focusing on performance and security improvements.

The new release continues the modern approach to delivering hybrid cloud management, extending cloud management to public clouds, delivering applications with DevOps, and managing Kubernetes-based workloads.

  • Migration from vRealize Automation 7.5 or 7.6 assessment
    • The ability to upgrade or migrate from vRealize Automation 7.5 or 7.6 to vRealize Automation 8.0 is not available in vRealize Automation 8.0.
    • You can only perform a migration assessment on your source environment and any embedded vRealize Orchestrator instances to determine the migration readiness of your vRealize Automation 7.5 or 7.6 source environment. The migration assessment alerts you to any system object and its dependencies that are not ready for migration. See System Objects.
  • Git Integrations
    • Includes support for GIT servers with self-signed certificates
    • When you add a GitLab Integration or GitHub Integration and provide a GIT server with self-signed certificate, you will now get a popup with the certificate info and the user can verify the certificate info and accept it. Once the self-signed certificate is accepted, the user will be able to create an Integration for that GIT endpoint with a valid token and then start syncing Blueprint or ABX Scripts from the repository.
  • Blueprint Properties Editor
    • The blueprint editor now includes a GUI for objects properties. The GUI reflects what is present on the canvas and in the code view in real time and can be used to add properties or edit existing properties. The GUI includes helpful and relevant signpost help for all fields.
  • API enhancements for Networking and Deployments
  • Extensibility VA and ABX resiliency enhancements
  • vRO based catalog services now support array/number as inputs parameters
  • Custom forms enhancements

In-Product User Assistance

VMware vRealize Automation 8.0.1 includes in-product user assistance.

  • Use the signpost help to learn about a setting.
  • Use the help panel to get more information about a feature or configuration process.

vRealize Automation Migration Assessment Offline Capture Utility 1.0.0

To collect data from your vRealize Automation, vRealize Orchestrator, or external vRealize Orchestrator source environment offline, use the data capture utility. You can upload the collected data bundle into the assessment workflow.

Before You Begin

Familiarize yourself with the supporting documents.

After installing vRealize Automation and setting up your users, you can use the Getting Started and Using and Managing guides for each of the included services. The Getting Started guides include an end-to-end proof of concept. The Using and Managing guides provide more in-depth information that supports your exploration of the available features. Additional information is also available in vRealize Automation 8.0 product documentation.

For information on vRealize Orchestrator 8.0 features and limitations, refer to the vRealize Orchestrator 8.0 Release Notes.

Upgrade

vRealize Automation 8.0.1 supports upgrade from 8.0 by using vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager.

For information on upgrading to 8.0.1 using vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager, see Upgrade vRealize Automation 8.0 with vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager.

Before you upgrade to vRealize Automation 8.0.1, ensure that the disk space of the root partition and the data partition have at least 20 GB and 48 GB of free disk space, respectively. If it is an HA setup, you need to extend the VM disk in all vRealize Automation VA nodes.

  • To increase the vRealize Automation root partition disk to meet the above requirements, increase the vRealize Automation VM "Hard Disk 1" (/dev/sda4) size to 50 GB WITHOUT POWERING OFF THE VA in the vCenter server. Then, run the command “vracli disk-mgr resize” on the vRealize Automation VA from the command shell. Disk resize should be reflected within a few minutes.
     
  • To increase the vRealize Automation data partition disk to satisfy above requirements, increase the vRealize Automation VM "Hard Disk 2" (/dev/mapper/data_vg-data) size то 148 GB WITHOUT POWERING OFF THE VA in the vCenter Server. Then, run the command “vracli disk-mgr resize” on the vRealize Automation VA from the command shell. Disk resize should be reflected within few minutes.

    Note: If a VM snapshot is present, then you cannot expand the vRealize Automation VM disks.

 

Resolved Issues

  • API GET /iaas/api/fabric-images does not provide "description" property in results.

    A GET to API /iaas/api/fabric-images is defined to provide the "description" property, known as the "Notes" field in vCenter, of the fabric images available. This operates correctly, but the description field is not returned.

    Workaround: None

  • Deploying a blueprint with volume attached to a compute instance and an added count property to have multiple disks results in some disks being DETACHED. 

    When deploying such blueprint, post provisioning, for the created deployment (e.g. count: 2), one of the disks always remains DETACHED instead of ATTACHED. Ideally, only the latest syntax (map_to_object(resource.disk[*].id)), in the case of multiple disks as the value for "attachedDisks" property, should be allowed. Cost estimation is also not supported in the catalog UI and results in an error if such a blueprint gets published as a catalog item.

    Workaround: Add the count property with the required number of disks and then only create a link between the disk and the machine in the blueprint canvas. This method ensures that the yaml always gets the latest syntax for the attachedDisks property. Otherwise, you must manually update to a newer syntax when using the count property for adding multiple volumes after the disk is attached with a compute instance. The correct syntax to be updated in the blueprint manually is: attachedDisks: '${map_by(resource.Cloud_Volume_XYZ.id, id => {"source":id})}'

  • ABX might not work if Internet access sits behind a Proxy.

    vRealize Automation 8.0.1 supports remote access behind HTTP proxy for limited applications that have mandatory requirement for Internet access in all of their use cases. This includes ABX-based extensibility and AWS Cloud Accounts.

     

  • Cannot set wildcard certs for certain domain names, specifically those not using a Public Suffix.

    vRealize Automation 8.0 supports setting a wildcard certificate only for DNS names that match the content of the Public Suffix List ([https://publicsuffix.org/]) For example, a valid wildcard certificate: you can use a wildcard certificate with DNS name like "*.myorg.com". This is supported because "com" is part of the Public Suffix List. An invalid wildcard certificate example: you cannot use a wildcard certificate with DNS name like "*.myorg.local".This is not supported because "local" is not part of Public Suffix List. 

     

  • vRA 8.0 cluster fails to start after VAs have been reverted to a snapshot.

    Snapshot of 3-node vRealize Automation 8 cluster from within LCM is currently unavailable.

  • Provisioning fails with EBS topic not registered after stopping the primary db node.

    In a vRealize Automation 8 HA environment, after removing the primary db node, provisioning fails with following error: "Failed to publish event as EBS topics are not registered".

  • Link to Migration Guide on the Migration Assessment Getting Started page is invalid.

    The link to the migration guide in the Migration Assessment UI is incorrect and invalid.

  • Unable to see the error message for a content source in the last row of a table.

    Due to UI restrictions, the user was unable to see any error messages related to content in the last row of a table.

  • Provide an option to enable/disable Active Directory Policy Account.

    When disabled, a computer object is not created in the OU even if an Active Directory Policy is applied for the associated projects. The primary driver for this was that there are scenarios where an unhealthy ABX On prem Integration exists and this leads to errors during provisioning when creating  computer objects. In such a scenario a user can disable the Active Directory account and move forward with provisioning.

  • Package Action dependencies for Active Directory actions to work in a customer environment without access to internet.

    Package Action dependencies for Active Directory actions to work in a customer environment without access to internet.

  • Allow a user with Cloud Assembly user privileges to provision when an Active Directory Policy is enabled.

    Cloud assembly user has can initiate an Action run but can not get the status of Action runs, which caused an issue during a provisioning flow when an Active Directory policy is enabled. 

  • Add additional attributes to computer object that enables the machine to automatically join the domain in Active Directory during provisioning.

    Previously, the attribute samAccountName was not set on computer object created in Active directory, which can cause issues when machine is joined to the domain.

Known Issues

The following known issues are present in this release.
  • vRO represents Array types as complex types with only one column, rather than a field whose "type.isMultiple" is true.

    When adding a workflow with an array input and a customized form, do not change the ID of the column in the Values tab of the data grid. 

    Workaround: Use the default value of _column-0_. Conversely, you can change the label of the column (which is visible in the UI when adding values to the datagrid).

  • Document limitation/workaround for cost estimation using multiple disks(if using count property in blueprint).

    Currently, in vRA8.0, Day 0 provisioning of disks with count property is broken as the blueprint UI doesn't generate new syntax for the attached disk in yaml format. As a result, one of the mandatory property of disk cost estimation, i.e. vcUuid, is null and prevents costing estimation for the catalog item.

    Workaround: Manually update the syntax of the blueprint in yaml if using count property for disks:

    attachedDisks: ‘${map_by(resource.Cloud_Volume_1.id, id =>

{“source”:id}
)}’

     

  • Directed to Cloud.vmware.com for access.

    The No access error page is shown for logged in user with rights in organization.This only occurs in HA. 

    Workaround: Clear browser cache. 

  • vRO workflow with input from type 'properties' cannot be triggered. 

    If a vRealize Orchestrator workflow, with input from type properties is exposed in catalogSteps, and is then triggered from vRealize Automation catalogResult, the run fails.

    Workaround: None

  • vRealize Automation has limitations when running certain vRealize Orchestrator workflows from the catalog. 

    Currently supported workflow input and output types are: String, Boolean, Date, Number, SecureString, Array/String, Array/Number, Array/Date, Reference Type

    Workaround: Use vRealize Orchestrator workflows that include inputs/output parameters of the supported types.

  • License re-configuring is not supported.

    After configuring vRealize Automation with the Enterprise license, the system cannot be reconfigured to use the Advanced License.

    Workaround: None

  • vRealize Automation 8 does not support Internet Explorer 11

    You cannot use Internet Explorer 11 with vRealize Automation 8.

    Workaround: Use a different browser instead of Internet Explorer 11.

  • Undefined behavior when user sets timezone from vCenter Machine Console window.

    Setting the timezone from the vCenter Machine console window causes undefined behavior.

    Workaround: Do not change the timezone from vCenter machine console.

  • When a user deletes a deployment with a disk marked persistent, the disk is also deleted.

    When a disk is marked persistent, it should remain even if the VM it is attached to, is deleted. However, when a user deletes the whole deployment, the persistent disk is deleted along with the VM and other resources.

    Workaround: None

  • When a deployment is missing a resource and the user tries to update the deployment by applying a blueprint in generation of plan, the user might see the "Another request is already in progress on deployment" error message.

    The user will also see an additional "Day 2 Action - Delete" in the deployment history timeline. Also, when user tries to update the deployment via API they see "Another request in progress on deployment". 

    Workaround: Retry updating the deployment.

  • vRealize Automation 8 uses the user ID to send emails.

    Some users use a different email address other than the one associated with their user ID. This might result in missing or lost emails from vRealize Automation 8.

    Workaround: None

  • If incorrect information is entered on the Notification> Email server page, the page will appear to go blank.

    The page appears to go blank while vRealize Automation Cloud attempts to verify the entered information.

    Workaround: Once the verification process is complete, the page reloads with the user enter information indicating whether the operation was successful or not.

  • OVF provisioning creates a temporary vm with the name ${###}-ovf-backing.

    The ${###}-ovf-backing vm is not applying the storage constraints and it is randomly created on any available datastore. In case of when the other datastores do not have space or permission restrictions, the ${###}-ovf-backing vm will fail to create.

    This issue is happening only when the SDRS datastore cluster is selected in storage policies.

    Workaround: Do not select the SDRS datastore cluster in storage policies.

  • Unable to deploy VMs with using both vSphere and NSX network from different network profiles.

    When deploying VMs from different network profiles, the user receives an error:

    "Allocation filter error: Unable to find a common placement for compute 'Cloud_vSphere_Machine_1' and its associated network resources on region '/provisioning/resources/provisioning-regions/82caf58d876e46755997f33352ec8'. Reason: network filter: host does not conform with the network configuration based on the networks of the blueprint and the selected network profile 'net1'Original Task Error: Allocation filter error: Unable to find a common placement for compute 'Cloud_vSphere_Machine_1' and its associated network resources on region '/provisioning/resources/provisioning-regions/82caf58d876e46755997f33352ec8'. Reason: network filter: host does not conform with the network configuration based on the networks of the blueprint and the selected network profile 'net1'"

    This occurs only when networks from two different network profiles are used in the same blueprint.These networks can be either only vSphere networks or both vSphere and NSX networks.

    Workaround: Use networks from the same network profile.

  • Powershell script task is in running state and does not complete in expected time.

    This behavior is seen because the Powershell process responsible to run the user script is held by Windows system process WmiPrvSE.

    Workaround: If the username used to connect to WinRM via CodeStream has no active session, log in to the system and keep an active session. Lock the screen instead of completely logging out.

     

  • Jenkins task does not list available jobs when the endpoint is configured with a folder path.

    Jenkins task does not list available jobs when the endpoint is configured with a folder path.

    Workaround: Edit the Jenkins endpoint and change the folder path from "/job/FOLDER" to "/FOLDER".

  • Dollar expressions are not resolved in Notifications unless all of the variables can be resolved.

    If a notification configuration has one or more dollar expressions with values not available at runtime, the notification sent will have all the expressions unresolved. Shorthand variables, such as resultsText, results JSON, do not resolve.

    Workaround: Identify the expressions that might not be available and remove them from the notification configuration. Replace shorthand variables with descriptive ones.

  • GIT Webhooks with a PULL request used in combination with Workspace fail to auto-clone source code.

    When a GIT Webhook is configured to use a PULL request on a pipeline with Workspace, the git clone step fails due to a missing clone url supplied as an input property (GIT_REPO_HTTP_URL).

    Workaround: Add a CI task in the pipeline and use an explicit git clone command to pull the source first before executing other tasks that operate on the source (For example, build/test). 

  • Symptom: Saved NSX-V or NSX-T cloud account and vSphere cannot be associated after being saved.

    If you create a vSphere cloud account and keep the NSX endpoint field unselected (dropdown), and then create an NSX-T or NSX-V cloud account without selecting the vSphere endpoint (dropdown), when you edit any of those cloud account and perform the selection, the SAVE button is not enabled.

    Create a vSphere cloud account. Create the corresponding NSX cloud account and perform the vSphere endpoint selection before you save the cloud account.

  • Migration Assessment service restarts repeatedly.

    Migration Assessment service restarts repeatedly.

    Workaround: See KB 51501. 

  • NEW REST API fails single factor authentication with message "User doesn't have projects"

    Single factor authentication was supported for vRealize Automation 8.0, but is not supported for vRealize Automation 8.0.1.

    Workaround: The vRealize Automation API Programming Guide has been updated to reflect the change. Use two factor authentication as described in Get Your Access Token for the vRealize Automation API.

  • NEW When filtering a list of load balancers by name, the same vRA-deployed NSX load balancer appears twice with slightly different names - once as "Deployed" and again as "Discovered".

    When vRA deploys an NSX load balancer, the load balancer is created in NSX using a different ID and name than vRA uses in its internal database. As a result, vRA creates and subsequently updates a new, duplicate load balancer record when it data collects the associated NSX cloud account instead of updating the load balancer record it originally created. This results in the confusing appearance of near-duplicate pairs of load balancers in screens where load balancers are listed.

    Workaround: When adding a vRA-deployed NSX load balancer to a network profile, select the one that is "Deployed" instead of the one that is "Discovered".

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