Release notes for VMware Solutions

The following updates are applied to newly deployed VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic instances, clusters, and hosts:

• VMware vCenter Server® Appliance
  • 8.0 Update 3b (build 24262322)
  • 7.0 Update 3s (build 24201990)

VMware vSphere® 8.0 is available for new NFS clusters (consolidated and workload), for new gateway clusters, and for new hosts that belong to NFS clusters. For instances with VMware vCenter Server 8, you can use either vSphere 8 or vSphere 7 for new clusters and hosts. For instances with vCenter Server® 7, you can use only vSphere 7. For more information about upgrading your vCenter Server software and upgrading your existing vSphere 7 clusters, see Upgrading to vCenter Server 8.0.

The following updates are applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts:

• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 8.0 Update 2d (build 23929136)
• VMware vSphere ESXi™ 8.0 Update 2b (build 23305546)
• VMware NSX® 4.1.2.4 (build 23786733)

The following service versions are now available for deployment:

• F5® BIG-IP® v17.1.1.3
• Juniper® vSRX v3.0 (23.4R1)
• Red Hat® OpenShift® v4.15
• VMware Aria® Operations™ v8.17.1 and VMware Aria Operations™ for Logs v8.17

Veeam Backup and Replication 12.1.2 (Veeam 12.1.2) is now available for deployment with the VMware Shared offering.

When you select the instance type in the Create a resource section, the text on the card might overflow out of the card margins. This issue happens on some browsers when the font size setting for the browser is set to Large or Very large. To resolve the issue, view the console with the font size set to Medium.

The following features are now available:

• Server backup: You can do regular backups of management components, such as SDDC Manager, VMware vCenter Server®, and NSX Manager. For more information, see Management domain backup.
• Contact form: You can now use a form to contact an IBM representative through the 1-year and 3-year subscription options.
• The following BOM updates are applied to newly deployed instances:
  • Cloud Builder VM 5.1.1 (build 23480823)
  • SDDC Manager 5.1.1 (build 23480823)
  • VMware vCenter Server Appliance 8.0 Update 2b (build 23319993)
  • VMware ESXi™ 8.0 Update 2b (build 23305546)
  • VMware Virtual SAN Witness Appliance 8.0 Update 2 (build 22443122)
  • VMware NSX-T™ 4.1.2.4 (build 23786733)
  • VMware Aria® Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.16 (build 23377566)

Existing IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions offerings are no longer available as separate components and are replaced by VMware Cloud Foundation. The following offering name changes are available across the portfolio, including the documentation and REST API.

• VMware as a Service is now called VMware Cloud Foundation as a Service or VCF as a Service.
• VMware vCenter Server, VMware vSphere, Cyber Recovery, and Regulated Workloads are merged into VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic or VCF for Classic.
• VMware Cloud Foundation is now called VMware Cloud Foundation for VPC or VCF for VPC.

For more information, see Packaging and naming for offerings.

Some documentation, including, but not limited to, tutorials, solutions architectures, solution guides, videos, and diagrams might still be using the old offering names. This information will be gradually updated to the new offering names in future releases.

The VMware® licensing model is changed. You are now entitled to the VMware software products that are included in the VMware Cloud Foundation™ bundle. To request VMware NSX® license upgrades and other licensing changes, open an IBM Support ticket by following the steps in Getting help and support.

As a result of the new VMware Cloud Foundation bundle and the new VMware licensing model, you must order separately a number of VMware add-ons. For more information, see VMware add-ons for VMware Cloud Foundation.

The following updates are applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts:

• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 8.0 Update 2b (build 23319993)
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 Update 3p (build 23307199)
• VMware NSX 4.1.2.3 (build 23382408)

The following service versions are available for deployment:

• FortiGate® Virtual Appliance v7.4.3
• F5 BIG-IP v17.1.1

vCenter Server with Hybridity Bundle is no longer available. This offering is now integrated into VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Automated.

The following enhancements are available on the UI (user interface):

• The behavior of the Add button for clusters, hosts, storage, and add-on services is changed for a better user experience. If you are not allowed to add an item, the button is no longer disabled. Instead, when you click it, you get a message that explains why you cannot add the item.
• When you order new Automated and Flexible instances, or add clusters and hosts, the Licensing section is available only for Bring Your Own License (BYOL) users.
• The UI is updated with various messages and tooltips.

The following updates are available for the VMware Solutions API:

• Support for adding new instances and clusters with BYOL is removed. If you want to use BYOL, you must add these instances and clusters through the UI.
• Support for deleting licenses for VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Flexible is removed.
• Method descriptions are updated for consistency.
• Outdated information is removed.

The following features are now available:

• Async Patch tool: You can apply critical patches for VMware Cloud Foundation components, such as VMware NSX Manager, VMware vCenter Server®, and VMware ESXi by using the Async Patch tool. For more information, see Viewing VMware Cloud Foundation instances.
• New regions available: VMware Cloud Foundation is now available for use in Tokyo and London.
• BOM updates: ESXi 7.0 Update 3p (build 23307199) is applied to newly deployed instances.

VMware vCenter Server® 8.0 is available for newly deployed instances. For new instances with vCenter Server 8 and existing instances or clusters with vCenter Server 7, you can add only vCenter Server 7 clusters or hosts. For more information, see Upgrading to vCenter Server 8.0.

The following updates are applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts:

• VMware vCenter Server Appliance
  • 8.0 Update 2a (build 22617221)
  • 7.0 Update 3p (build 22837322)
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 Update 3o (build 22348816)
• VMware NSX 4.1.2.1 (build 22667789)

The following service versions are now available for deployment:

• VMware Aria Operations v8.14.1 and VMware Aria Operations for Logs v8.14
• Red Hat® OpenShift® v4.14
• Zerto v9.7u4

The following enhancements are available on the UI:

• The ordering flow of Cyber Recovery is simplified to remove the optional add-on services.
• The UI (user interface) is updated with various messages and tooltips.

The following technical documents are now available or updated:

• Architecture pattern for integrating IBM Cloud Security and Compliance Center Workload Protection with vCenter Server
• Caveonix RiskForesight Security and Compliance Center integration
• Architecture patterns for integrating IBM Cloud Security and Compliance Center Workload Protection with VMware as a Service
• VMware Cloud Foundation architecture patterns
• Veeam backup guide

(Updated on 12 January 2024) The VMware Cloud Foundation offering is simplified to a single edition. All new deployments of VMware Cloud Foundation include Enterprise Edition software.

The following updates are applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts:

• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7.0 Update 3o (build 22357613)
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 Update 3o (build 22348816)
• VMware NSX 4.1.0.2 (build 21761695)

To upgrade your Microsoft® Active Directory™ server, open an IBM Support ticket by following the steps in Getting help and support. Before you proceed with a new server installation, ensure that you back up all domain controllers and vCenter Server instances.

The following service versions are now available for deployment:

• Caveonix RiskForesight™ v5.0
• FortiGate Virtual Appliance v7.4.1

The KMIP™ for VMware service is now available for use in the Madrid region.

You can order a maximum of 500 VMs under a single license key for Veeam®. If you need a single license key for more than 500 VMs, you must order a stand-alone license separately.

The following updates are available for the VMware Solutions API:

• The check_price parameter is deprecated. Beginning with this release, the verify_only parameter performs a price check regardless of whether check_price is indicated.
• The disks parameter used to order vSAN storage can now also be defined as an object (size and quantity), in addition to an array of disk types.
• Outdated endpoints, such as v2/supported_config_options are removed.
• Performance improvements are made to the API calls.

The customerroot user is no longer created by the VMware Solutions automation for newly deployed instances, clusters, hosts, and new vCenter Server VMs. The root user is used instead. Existing instances, clusters, hosts, and vCenter Server VMs might still use the customerroot credentials.

A number of tutorials are now available from the user documentation. These solution tutorials provide step-by-step instructions about using VMware as a Service to implement common patterns based on best practices.

(Updated on 3 November 2023) The IBM Cloud® for VMware Cloud Foundation offering is a full-stack Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) solution that is built on VMware Cloud Edition. It delivers compute, storage, networking, management automation, and security in a single platform on IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers for Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). For more information, see Cloud Foundation overview.

(Updated on 17 November 2023) The following updates are applied to newly deployed instances:

• Cloud Builder VM 4.5.2 (build 22223457)
• SDDC Manager 4.5.2 (build 22223457)
• VMware ESXi 7.0 Update 3n (build 21930508)
• VMware NSX-T 3.2.3.1. (build 22104592)
• VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.12.0.9 (build 22652426)

You can now choose a new bare metal server configuration when you add a host to your existing instances. For more information, see Adding ESXi servers to VMware vSphere instances.

The following update is applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts:

• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7.0 Update 3n (build 21958406)

For vCenter Server with NFS storage, mirrored M.2 boot drives are provisioned with your order when you add new NFS clusters or when you add new ESXi servers to existing NFS clusters and select a new bare metal server configuration.

The following service versions are now available for deployment:

• Juniper vSRX v3.0 (23.2R1)
• Red Hat OpenShift v4.13.10
• VMware Aria Operations v8.12.1

ProtectIO is now available as a data migration and resiliency service from the VMware Solutions console.

The UI (user interface) is updated with various messages and tooltips, and provides the following enhancements:

• The VMware instance configuration manager is enhanced with extra details and tooltips to differentiate and help you choose from the available saved configurations.
• The checkbox Maintenance mode in the Add ESXi server window is changed to a switch, for consistency with other similar UI options.
• The contents of the Add ESXi server and Add NFS storage windows is better structured and organized for a more streamlined user experience.
• For gateway and edge clusters, the uplink speed setting is now included in the CPU model table when you choose your servers.

The Veeam backup guide provides information about expanding backup storage as a day-2 operation, the deployment of proxy and repository servers, and recommendations for sizing and performance. For more information, see Veeam backup guide.

(Updated on 25 September 2023) IBM does not support VMware vSphere 8.x on Intel® Cascade Lake hardware due to RAID Controller incompatibility and because IBM licenses for vSphere 8.x, VMware vCenter Server 8.x, and VMware vSAN™ 8.x are not available currently.

Do not upgrade to vSphere 8.x on Cascade Lake servers. If you upgrade to vSphere 8.x, your environment configuration becomes unsupported by IBM and VMware.

Veeam Backup and Replication 12 (Veeam 12) is now available for deployment with the VMware Shared offering.

The following updates are applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts:

• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7.0 Update 3m (build 21784236)
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 Update 3n (build 21930508)

For vCenter Server with vSAN storage and for VMware vSphere instances with vSAN disks, mirrored M.2 boot drives are provisioned with your order when you add new vSAN clusters or when you add new ESXi servers to existing vSAN clusters and select a new bare metal server configuration.

New installations of Entrust CloudControl™ are no longer supported for new or existing deployments of vCenter Server instances. You can still use or delete existing Entrust CloudControl installations on your existing instances.

The FortiGate Virtual Appliance v7.4 add-on service is available for deployment.

The PrimaryIO add-on service name is changed to PrimaryIO Migrations and its About page is updated with the most recent feature information.

The UI is updated with various messages and tooltips, and provides the following enhancements:

• For VMware vSphere, the term cluster is updated to instance throughout the UI, user documentation, and REST APIs.
• For VMware vSphere instances, the Instance configuration name field is changed to a side panel. You can manage your configuration templates from a list of saved configurations in the side panel.

The following updates are available:

• The VMware Shared metrics are updated with metadata details.
• New documentation is available to assist with expanding ordered endurance storage after ordering the Veeam add-on service.

You can view or delete VMware vSphere instances from the VMware Solutions console. You can also add or delete VMware ESXi servers, and add or delete licenses for vSphere instances from the VMware Solutions console.

New deployments of VMware Regulated Workloads multizone instances are no longer supported. You can still add or delete clusters, add or remove ESXi servers or NFS storage, and add or remove services for existing multizone instances.

The following upgrades are applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts:

• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7.0 Update 3l (build 21477706)
• VMware vSAN Witness 7.0 Update 3l (build 21424296)

The following service versions are now available for deployment:

• Caveonix RiskForesight v4.1
• FortiGate Virtual Appliance v7.2.5
• F5 BIG-IP v17.1
• Juniper vSRX v3.0 (23.1R1)
• Red Hat OpenShift v4.12
• VMware Aria Operations and VMware Aria Operations for Logs v8.12
• Zerto v9.7u3

VMware changed the vRealize® Suite Lifecycle Manager product name to VMware Aria® Suite Lifecycle. All vRealize products that are managed by vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager are now referred as VMware Aria. The names are updated throughout the VMware Solutions documentation. The following products are rebranded:

• vRealize Operations and Log Insight is renamed to VMware Aria Operations and VMware Aria Operations for Logs.
• vRealize Automation is renamed to VMware Aria® Automation™.
• vRealize Operations (vROps) is renamed to VMware Aria Operations.
• vRealize Log Insight™ (vRLI) is renamed to VMware Aria Operations for Logs.
• vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) is renamed to VMware Aria Operations™ for Networks.

The following updates are available:

• The VMware Solutions API provides support for viewing and deleting VMware vSphere instances. You can also add or delete ESXi servers, and add or delete licenses for vSphere instances.
• Also for the VMware Solutions API, you can specify either quantity or host_names for the number of new hosts to be added in the hosts_order_data object.

The UI is updated with various messages and tooltips, and provides the following enhancements:

• For VMware vSphere, vCenter Server, Cyber Recovery, and Regulated Workloads instances, the Instance configuration name field is changed to a side panel. You can manage your configuration templates from a list of saved configurations in the side panel.
• The checkbox Select a different cluster location is changed to a switch, for consistency with other similar UI options.
• The SAP-certified Cascade Lake selections (NetWeaver and HANA) are merged into a single option for a more streamlined user experience when you choose the CPU model for your servers.
• The process to set up your environment for your first order is simplified on the UI.

(Updated on 22 June 2023) The IBM Cloud data centers Madrid 02, Madrid 04, and Madrid 05 are now available for deployment.

BYOL is now disabled in the Licensing section for VMware vCenter Server® instances, VMware vSphere clusters, adding hosts and clusters, and vRealize Operations and Log Insight service.

VMware NSX-T version 4.0.1.1 is now available if you want to upgrade your existing NSX-T instances manually. All newly deployed VMware NSX-T instances are still provisioned with NSX-T version 3.2.0.1.

The following upgrades are applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts.

• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7.0 Update 3k (build 21290409)
• VMware vSAN Witness 7.0 Update 3c (build 19193900)

Veeam Backup and Replication 12 (Veeam 12) is now available for deployment with VMware vCenter Server, Cyber Recovery, and VMware Regulated Workloads offerings. Veeam 12 allows you to write directly to IBM Cloud® Object Storage and it provides other features, such as data protection, improved Recovery Point Objective using Continuous Data Protection for disaster recovery purposes, and general operational efficiency.

The table of contents is updated for topic rearrangement and removal of outdated content.

The UI is updated with various messages and tooltips, and provides the following enhancements.

• The term edge gateway cluster is updated to gateway cluster throughout the UI, user documentation, and REST APIs.
• You can check the prices for VMware Solutions offerings without having to sign in to IBM Cloud. However, you might have limited access to some sections of the ordering pages. To place an order, or for a complete access to the ordering pages, you must log in to IBM Cloud.
• The page titles and labels for adding clusters, storage, and services are updated for consistency throughout the UI.
• The status of instances and clusters when they are ready to use is updated to Available.
• The UI controls for the separate workload cluster, gateway cluster, and file shares are changed to switches instead of checkboxes.
• Guidance is provided on the UI for the workload and gateway cluster configuration.
• A side panel is displayed when you add hosts to vCenter Server, Cyber Recovery, and VMware Regulated Workloads instances.

The VMware Shared infrastructure is upgraded to VMware Cloud Director v10.4.1. This release resolves various issues, includes several deprecations, and introduces new features, such as API tokens and edge static routes.

The IBM Cloud Secure Virtualization offering is no longer available for new deployments. Support for existing customers who are using the offering is still provided.

The following upgrades are applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts.

• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7.0 Update 3j (build 20990077)
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 Update 3k (build 21313628)

The following service versions are now available for deployment:

• Entrust CloudControl™ v6.6
• F5® BIG-IP® v17.0
• vRealize Operations and vRealize Log Insight v8.10
• Zerto v9.7u1

To migrate the F5 BIG-IP service from VMware NSX-V to VMware NSX-T, open an IBM Support ticket by following the steps in Getting help and support.

Documentation is available to assist with your custom cyber-recovery requirements.

The VMware Solutions API provides support for getting and canceling billing item IDs for VMware vSphere clusters, deleting hosts from vSphere clusters, and deleting vSphere clusters.

The UI is updated with various messages and tooltips, and provides the following enhancements.

• BYOL notification in the Licensing section for VMware vCenter Server instances, VMware vSphere clusters, add hosts and clusters, vRealize Operations and Log Insight, and VMware HCX services. Bring Your Own License (BYOL) is no longer supported, except for migrations or upgrades of existing BYOL clusters.
• The term edge services cluster is updated to edge gateway cluster throughout the UI, user documentation, and REST APIs.
• A side panel is now displayed when you add NFS storage to VMware vCenter Server, Cyber Recovery, and VMware Regulated Workloads instances.

• VMware Cloud Director API versions 31.0 and 32.0 are not supported.
• VMware Cloud Director API versions 33.0, 34.0, 35.0, and 35.2 are deprecated and are not supported starting with the next major release of VMware Cloud Director.

• FortiGate Virtual Appliance 7.2.2
• Juniper vSRX v21.4 (R2)

The V5.0 release offers a new Cyber Recovery instance. The instance can help you protect your systems and data from cyberthreats and attacks. It can assist you with handling ransomware and help you with other problems and threats.

The Cyber Recovery instance includes Veeam Backup and Replication 12, a Linux® hardened repository (LHR), and an edge gateway.

You can now edit the private network endpoints allowlisted IP addresses and subnets for your VMware Solutions Shared instance.

The Veeam self-service portal is now automatically enabled for existing and new VMware Cloud Director organizations.

(Updated on 14 November 2022) The Mexico 01 IBM Cloud data center is closing on 31 January 2023. This data center is no longer available for deployments.

(Updated on 14 November 2022) The vSphere 7.0u2 option is no longer available for adding hosts to vCenter Server instances and scaling existing vSphere clusters. For existing instances with vSphere 7.0u2, you can add only ESXi servers with vSphere 7.0u3.

Starting with 14 November 2022, the UI Dark mode is temporarily unavailable. Until it becomes enabled again, use Light mode.

You can now customize the hostnames prefix individually when you order VMware vCenter Server instances, order new VMware vSphere clusters, and add hosts and clusters to existing instances.

The following upgrades are applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts.

• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 Update 3f (build 20036589)
• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7 P08 (build 19997733)

Beginning with the V5.0 release, if you have a BYOL for VMware NSX-T that is not a Data Center SP license, you can now order NSX Data Center SP licenses to replace your licenses. You are responsible to select the appropriate NSX Data Center SP license edition based on your needs.

Also, beginning with this release, if you have a BYOL Data Center SP edition license, you can start renting NSX Data Center SP edition licenses from IBM. If you already rent an NSX Data Center SP edition license from IBM, you can upgrade and downgrade. If you have VMware HCX and an NSX Data Center Enterprise Plus license, you cannot downgrade your license. If you uninstall HCX, you can then downgrade your license.

The following service versions are now available to install on deployed instances.

• Caveonix RiskForesight v4.0
• FortiGate Virtual Appliance v7.2.1
• Red Hat OpenShift v4.11
• vRealize Log Insight v8.8
• Zerto v9.5u3

KMIP for VMware supports Key Protect key rings.

Starting with this release, if you order Veeam stand-alone licenses, the ordering process automatically starts. You get an email confirming what you ordered. A license key is generated for you. When the key is ready, it is emailed to you.

There is no limit to the number of licenses that you can order.

The following updates are available:

• For VMware Shared, the support date for the V1 API is being extended until 31 December 2022. To ensure smooth transition in the future, start using the V2 API.
• For VMware Solutions API, support is provided for Caveonix RiskForesight, Veeam, Zerto, and VMware HCX stand-alone licenses. Also, support for the 2U chassis types is added by using the new large_chassis_only parameter.

The left navigation pane on the VMware Solutions console now groups items as Resources and Licenses so that they are more aligned with the resource types and names.

(Updated on 20 September 2022) The Hong Kong 02 and Seoul 01 IBM Cloud data centers are no longer available for deployment.

Price calculations are now automatically generated when you access the order pages for IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions Shared offerings.

You can now access the vRealize Operations Tenant App for a VMware Cloud Director for new and existing organizations through the VMware Cloud Director tenant portal.

The Standard - Catalog storage policy is now available for storing vApp templates and media files in your VMware Cloud Director catalog.

Two private network endpoints are ordered to correspond with each VMware NSX Edge™ Service Gateway when you create a private network endpoint for VMware Solutions Shared multizone virtual data centers.

The vCPU and RAM limits for VMware Solutions Shared virtual data center orders are now increased. Beginning with the 4.9 release, the maximum vCPU limit is 1 - 2000 and the maximum RAM limit is 1 - 40 TBs for both on-demand and reserved virtual data center orders.

The following upgrades are applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts.

• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 Update 3e (build 19898904)
• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7 P07 (build 19898906)

Beginning with the V4.9 release, if your NSX-V instance is using BYOL licenses, you can now order legacy NSX licenses from IBM to replace your own license.

Also, beginning with this release, if your NSX-T instance is using legacy NSX licenses, you can now order NSX Data Center SP licenses to replace your legacy NSX licenses. You are responsible to select the appropriate NSX Data Center SP license edition based on your needs.

Zerto 9.5u1 is available to install on deployed instances.

Zerto v9.5u1 is not supported for vSphere 6.5 and 6.7. However, you can order stand-alone licenses for existing vSphere 6.x instances.

If you have a BYOL NSX Data Center Enterprise Plus license and you install VMware HCX, your NSX Data Center Enterprise Plus license key is now used to activate the HCX appliance.

When you order Veeam, you can order a Linux hardened repository for immutable storage.

The VMware Solutions API provides support for scaling existing VMware vSphere clusters.

The UI is updated with various error messages and tooltip enhancements and provides the following enhancements.

• A vertical progress indicator bar is now available on the ordering page for VMware Solutions Shared offerings. The progress indicator maps to each section and helps to quickly browse to different areas of the page.
• If you are running VMware NSX-V or a vSphere 6 version on the instances in your environment, you now receive notifications to update your environment to the most recent supported version of NSX or vSphere. You can go to the instance summary page to check the NSX solution type and the vSphere version that is most suitable for your environment.

The 4.8 release enables a new optional feature for the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions tenant portal. VMware vRealize Operations Tenant App V8.6 provides metering capabilities for tenants to monitor their virtual data centers, virtual applications, and virtual machines.

IBM Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM) is now enabled by default for new sites. You can optionally enable IAM for existing sites. After you integrate your site with IAM, you can use single sign-on to log in to the VMware Cloud Director console from the VMware Solutions console.

With the IAM integration, role-based access control now uses a site and organization IAM policy for VMware Solutions Shared resources.

You can now select the region where your virtual data center instance is hosted and the IBM Cloud data center site where the virtual data center is hosted.

New IAM platform management roles are available for VMware Solutions offerings.

VMware® support for all new VMware NSX-V deployments ended on 16 January 2022. However, VMware and IBM® worked closely to extend the existing NSX–V support until 15 January 2025. Ordering new VMware vCenter Server with NSX-V instances is not supported after 21 June 2022.

VMware support for all new VMware vSphere 6.7 deployments ends on 15 October 2022.

vSphere 7.0 Update 3d is available for newly deployed instances. For existing vSphere 7.0u2 instances and clusters, you can add either a vSphere 7.0u2 or a vSphere 7.0u3 host or cluster.

The following upgrades are applied to newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts.

• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 Update 3d (build 19482537)
• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7.0 Update 3d (build 19480866)

The requirements for vSphere cluster names are changed.

IBM Cloud identified a problem with the VMware ESXi firewall configuration for NFS feature, which might cause some firewall rules to be lost during the update. This problem is now fixed.

Price calculations are now automatically generated when you access the order pages for IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions Dedicated and VMware Regulated Workloads offerings. For more information about the specific default selections, find the requirement information for each offering order.

This solution aims for VMware and IBM to accelerate and ensure the development, testing, and implementation of a secure cyber-recovery cloud solution that enables recovery against advanced cyberthreats like ransomware. Copies of critical data are protected with a multi-purpose cyber-recovery cloud solution: a copy target for cloud-native application data for existing cloud or on-premises systems. As an extra IBM Cloud option, you can add cyber-recovery sites to isolate copies of critical customer data and to validate data integrity while you also enable recovery from cyberattacks.

New deployments of Security and Compliance Readiness Bundle instances are no longer supported. You can still add or delete clusters, add or remove VMware ESXi servers or NFS storage, and add or remove services for existing instances. You can also view and delete your Security and Compliance Readiness Bundle instances.

The following service versions are now available to install on deployed instances.

• Entrust CloudControl v6.5 (formerly HyTrust® CloudControl)
• FortiGate Virtual Appliance v7.0.5
• Red Hat OpenShift v4.10
• Zerto v9.0u4

New installations of Entrust DataControl® are no longer supported for new or existing deployments of vCenter Server instances. You can still use or delete existing Entrust DataControl installations on your existing instances.

The following documentation updates are available.

• Upgrading VMware vSphere software from vSphere 6.5 or 6.7 to 7.0 with the supported upgrade paths.
• Managing IAM access for VMware Solutions.

New REST APIs are available.

• (Updated on 31 October 2022) For VMware Shared, a new V2 API is introduced, which includes the new site object. The V1 API is being deprecated and will be supported until 31 December 2022. To ensure smooth transition in the future, start using the V2 APIs.
• For the VMware Solutions API, support is provided for VMware vSphere cluster new deployments and for the KMIP for VMware stand-alone service.

Various error messages and tooltip enhancements are available to assist you in selecting the appropriate setting on the UI.

• You can now view site and virtual data center details from the Resources page for VMware Shared.
• The following enhancements are made to the ordering page for IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions offerings.
  • A vertical progress indicator bar is now available that maps each section on the ordering page and helps to quickly browse to different areas of the page. You can directly jump onto any specific section of the page by clicking the heading in the progress bar. When you scroll through the page, the progress bar also keeps a check on whether the data is entered or not.
  • The CPU model selection tile group is now changed to a list of items in a table. You can select the CPU model of your choice from the table.

(Updated on 8 May 2022) The VMware Shared infrastructure is upgraded to VMware Cloud Director v10.3.3.

You can now choose to enable a compute policy for a VMware Solutions Shared virtual data center. This feature provides a convenient option to choose a compute policy for your virtual machine (VM) from the list of policies that are available for that virtual data center.

vSAN™ support is now available for Dallas 10 and Dallas 12 VMware Solutions Shared virtual data centers.

The 4.7 release applies the following upgrades and improvements for newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts.

• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 Update 2e (build 19290878)
• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7 P06 (build 18828794)
• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.0 Update 3q (build 19300125)
• VMware NSX-T 3.2.0.1.0 (build 19232400)
• VMware NSX-V 6.4.13 (build 19307994)

(Updated on 7 June 2022) IBM Cloud® identified a problem with the following feature, which might cause some firewall rules to be lost during the update. This problem is now fixed.

VMware ESXi attempts to manage the outbound firewall for NFS traffic for you automatically. Under some circumstances, VMware ESXi might not discover all IP addresses for an NFS data store, sometimes resulting in loss of connectivity if the IBM Cloud Endurance servers are undergoing maintenance. VMware Solutions corrects the ESXi firewall configuration whenever adding hosts, clusters, or storage to your vCenter Server instance.

(Updated on 7 June 2022) For more information, see Why did my host lose connection to my NFS datastore?

You can now add more than one edge services cluster in the same data center pod.

Price calculations are now automatically generated when you access the VMware vCenter Server instance order page. Default selections include the Data Center SP Professional license for NSX-T, the Advanced license for NSX-V, the Dual Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8260 processor / 48 cores, 2.4 GHz CPU model, and 768 GB RAM.

Credits for the VMware Subscription Purchasing Program (SPP) are no longer available.

The following service versions are now available to install on deployed instances.

• FortiGate Virtual Appliance v7.0.4
• Entrust DataControl® v5.5 (formerly HyTrust® DataControl)
• Red Hat OpenShift v4.9.27
• Zerto v9.0u3

Dizzion is now available as a featured service from the VMware Solutions console.

The company Entrust acquired the HyTrust company. The names of the following services are updated.

• Entrust CloudControl™
• Entrust DataControl
• Entrust KeyControl™, which is deprecated

Beginning with the 4.7 release, the Veeam VSI, Veeam bare metal, and Zerto services are not configured with an IBM Cloud Infrastructure portable IP address or with a NAT connection to the public network, even if you have public interfaces in your instance. This update helps to avoid the possibility of asymmetric routing when you use a network gateway appliance.

The following technical documents are now available or updated:

• VMware Solutions architecture patterns
• VMware NSX-V to NSX-T migration

The VMware Solutions documentation now has a landing page where you can get oriented with the content available for the offering.

(Updated on 15 March 2022) The VMware Shared infrastructure is upgraded to VMware Cloud Director v10.3.2.

The following upgrades and improvements are available for newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts.

• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7.0 Update 3c (build 19234570)
• VMware NSX-T 3.1.3.5.0 (build 19068434)
• VMware NSX-V 6.4.12 (build 19066632)
• VMware vSAN 7.0 Update 2c (build 18426014)

For the VMware vSAN component, the 7.68 TB SSD disk type is now supported for VMware vSphere 7.0 or 6.7 instances with 10 Gb uplink speed.

For Cascade Lake servers, non-SED vSAN storage disks now replace the option for SSD SED disks for newly deployed instances and when you add hosts and clusters to existing instances. If your initial cluster has vSAN storage, SSD SED disks are no longer available. Non-SED storage disks are ordered.

SSD SED disks are supported for Skylake servers.

The following service versions are now available to install on deployed instances.

• FortiGate Virtual Appliance v7.0.3
• vRealize Log Insight v8.6
• Zerto v9.0u2

New installations of the IBM Spectrum® Protect Plus service are no longer supported for new or existing deployments of vCenter Server instances. You can still use or delete existing IBM Spectrum Protect Plus installations on your existing instances. If you want to install IBM Spectrum Protect Plus yourself, search the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus documentation.

The following API updates are available:

• The /v2/supported_config_options REST API displays a list of supported configuration versions.
• The /v2/disk_types REST API is updated to show that SED disks are only for Skylake servers.
• A number of REST APIs, such as /v1/vcenters/nsxt include the parameters disks and vsan_cache_disks. For these APIs and for Cascade Lake servers only, do not specify SED disks types.

The following technical documents are now available:

• VMware RYO architecture on VPC
• Interconnectivity for VMware workloads on VPC
• Fortinet FortiGate solution architecture

Various error messages and tooltip enhancements are available to assist you in selecting the appropriate setting on the UI.

VMware NSX-T Data Center SP license editions are available for new instances for the following VMware Solutions offerings. Existing instances continue to use the previous NSX licenses for all new clusters and hosts.

• VMware Solutions Dedicated instances offer Data Center SP Base, Data Center SP Professional, Data Center SP Advanced, or Data Center SP Enterprise Plus.
• Security and Compliance Readiness Bundle instances offer Data Center SP Professional, Data Center SP Advanced, or Data Center SP Enterprise Plus.
• VMware Regulated Workloads offer Data Center SP Advanced or Data Center SP Enterprise Plus.

NSX-T Data Center SP license restrictions

• License upgrade is not available for NSX-T Data Center SP license edition.
• Automated deployment of the VMware HCX service is not supported for VMware vCenter Server instances with the NSX-T Data Center SP Enterprise Plus license edition. However, you can manually deploy HCX outside of the VMware Solutions console.

You can now select the data center pod for your resource deployment. By using this feature, you can deploy new resources to the same pod where you have existing resources.

Dual Intel® Xeon® Gold 6250 / 16 cores, 3.9 GHz bare metal servers are available for deployment for vCenter Server instances and VMware vSphere clusters with VMware vSphere 7, and for VMware Regulated Workloads and Security and Compliance Bundle instances.

VMware Solutions Shared now offers multizone VMware virtual data centers. Multizone is offered for new on-demand and reserved virtual data centers and includes support for Dallas 10 and Dallas 12 IBM Cloud data centers.

The following service versions are now available to install on deployed instances.

• Caveonix RiskForesight v3.1.0
• Entrust DataControl v5.4
• IBM Spectrum Protect Plus v10.1.8
• Red Hat OpenShift v4.7.34
• vRealize Operations v8.6

You can now access overview information about a service from the first page of the VMware Solutions console. From each overview, you can install the service on a new or existing instance.

Two new endpoints are now available in the Sao Paulo location for the KMIP for VMware service.

Zerto is now supported on vCenter Server instances with vSphere 7 and NSX-T 3.1. Zerto is still supported on vCenter Server instances with NSX-V.

Zerto is not supported for instances that are upgraded from vSphere 6.7 to vSphere 7.

Added support for the following features:

• Zerto for vSphere 7 with NSX-T instances and for NSX-V instances
• Ordering new NSX-T instances with NSX-T Data Center SP licenses
• Selecting the data center pod location for resource deployment

The release notes have been consolidated to one location for you to review the latest and previous offering updates.

IBM Cloud support for ordering all update levels of VMware vSphere 6.5 ended on 10 October 2021. Ordering new VMware vCenter Server instances with vSphere 6.5 is not supported after this date. Your existing vCenter Server instances with vSphere 6.5 are read–only in the VMware Solutions console and through the public REST API.

The 4.4 release applies the following upgrades and improvements for newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts.

• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 Update 2d (build 18538813)
• VMware vCenter Server Appliance
  • 7.0 Update 2d (build 18455184)
  • 6.7 Update 3o (build 18485166)
• VMware NSX-T 3.1.1.0.0 (build 17483185)

The following service versions are now available to install on deployed instances.

• F5 BIG-IP v16.1
• FortiGate Virtual Appliance v7.0.1
• HyTrust CloudControl v6.4.1
• Red Hat OpenShift v4.7.24
• Zerto v9.0u1

For VMware Regulated Workloads, you can deploy FortiGate Virtual Appliance on edge services clusters for multizone instances. You can deploy FortiGate Virtual Appliance when you first order the instance or as part of Day 2 operations.

The deployment type for Veeam is displayed on the service details page. The possible deployment types are VM, VSI, or Bare metal.

You can now order Zerto license without associating it to any vCenter Server instance. When you submit your order, IBM Support requests a license key from Zerto that is then delivered to the email address that is associated with your order.

You can use the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions console to view license details and delete the license.

As a result of End of Support for instance deployments with vSphere 6.5, REST APIs for the following tasks for instances with vSphere 6.5 are no longer provided:

• Adding and deleting clusters
• Adding and removing ESXi servers
• Adding and removing storage
• Adding and deleting services

The 4.3 release provides VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 2a for newly deployed instances. For existing vSphere 7.0u1 instances and clusters, you can either add a 7.0u1 or 7.0u2 host or cluster.

For the VMware vSAN component, the 7.68 TB SSD SED capacity disk is now available for IBM Cloud bare metal servers for newly deployed instances and when you add hosts and clusters to existing instances. The 7.68 TB SSD SED disk type is supported for only VMware vSphere 7.0 or 6.7 instances with 25 Gb uplink speed.

(Updated on 1 October 2021) The Microsoft Windows pricing metric is now hourly for VMware Solutions Shared instances.

The 4.3 release applies the following upgrades and improvements for newly deployed instances, clusters, and hosts.

• VMware vSphere ESXi
  • 7.0 Update 2a (build 17867351)
  • 6.7 P05 (build 17700523)
  • 6.5 P06 (build 17477841)
• VMware vCenter Server Appliance
  • 7.0 Update 2b (build 17958471/17958471)
  • 6.7 Update 3n (build 18010531/18010599)
• VMware NSX-T 3.1.0.0.0 (build 17107167)
• VMware NSX-V 6.4.10 (build 17626462)
• VMware vSAN 7.0 Update 2 (build 17630552) or 6.7 P05

New deployments of vCenter Server multizone instances are no longer supported.

You can still add and delete clusters, add and remove ESXi servers, and add and delete storage for existing multizone instances.

Rather than requiring that the VMware Regulated Workloads solution deploys a separate management cluster and separate clusters for workloads, now you can start with a smaller footprint by deploying a consolidated management and workload cluster.

A new Save configuration button is added to the Summary pane of the ordering page for VMware Regulated Workloads. Use this option to save your instance settings as a configuration template without placing an order. You can manage the configuration templates by further editing or deleting them as well.

A new Save configuration button is added to the Summary pane of the ordering page for Security and Compliance Readiness Bundle instances. Use this option to save your instance settings as a configuration template without placing an order. You can manage the configuration templates by further editing or deleting them as well.

The following service versions are now available to install on deployed instances.

• Caveonix RiskForesight v3.0.1
• FortiGate Virtual Appliance v6.4.6
• Juniper vSRX v20.4 (R2)
• Red Hat OpenShift v4.7

FortiGate Virtual Appliance adds the following features.

• 25 Gb uplink speed on vSphere 7 and NSX-T
• High-performance deployment size of Fortigate-VM32

The uplink speed and deployment size require Cascade Lake 5218 or higher.

You can install Juniper vSRX on 25 Gb uplink speed consolidated and edge services clusters on vSphere 7 with NSX-T. On 25 Gb uplink speed clusters, only the Content Security Bundle license is available.

REST API support for vCenter Server multizone instances is no longer provided as a result of feature deprecation.