We’re comfortable to announce the overall availability of VMware Cloud Supplier Lifecycle Supervisor (VCPLCM) model 1.6 as of nineteenth October, 2023. 

With VCPLCM, we intention to scale back the complexities and simplify the operational efforts of administration and upkeep of VMware merchandise for our Cloud Supplier Companions. Our focus has been to dump as a lot efforts of our companions on redundant duties like upgrading, product administration and day-2 operations. Our strategy is to automate these course of to rule out human errors and decrease upkeep downtimes.

We’ve been increasing the assist for added merchandise all through our model releases and have consistently added options that profit our companions.

In our earlier model (VCPLCM 1.5), we introduced the auto registration of Utilization Meter and Interop Reporting together with enhancements round job execution. On this launch we deliver you some nice additions with the principle deal with: 

•  Enhancing the Consumer Expertise  
• Increasing product and upkeep assist 

Allow us to briefly see what these are earlier than we delve deeper into every of those additional within the weblog.  

Enhanced Consumer Expertise:  

To start out, the brand new model permits extra controls for the person. We’ve launched the brand new “Administration” choice that helps Suppliers to securely delegate and management upkeep and administration operations to the respective personas every with separate login credentials. 

One other large change is the introduction of the brand new UI for product registration – making it easier and straight ahead to deploy or register new merchandise on VCPLCM.   

Prolonged Product Assist: 

Customers can now register NSX Superior Load Balancer on VCPLCM and combine it with VMware Cloud Director and Utilization Meter.  

The addition on the Information Backup and Restoration entrance an extended waited ask, is now out there. Customers can now again up knowledge and guarantee efficient restoration of the VCPLCM equipment in whole minimizing knowledge loss in case of system failures or course of disasters.

Subsequent, we’ve got launched a ‘upkeep mode’ change for product parts. This can be a important introduction as many occasions, when upgrading, merchandise must be restarted, stopped or labored on for numerous causes, say a patch replace on a node. The node can be unavailable in these conditions with out the operators discover. This change would mark nodes as ‘ in upkeep mode’ in order that customers know the standing of the product / element.

Let’s now discover these options intimately:    

Improved person expertise 

We’ve enhanced the Consumer Interface, and considerably simplified operations like deployment and registration of an present product.

Fig 1 – New UI for Product registrations

 We’ve additionally launched an choice the place customers can view the prevailing binaries within the repository from UI and deploy/improve merchandise accordingly. 

There isn’t any must login through ssh to the equipment and verify the binaries. 

Fig 1.1 – view product binary repository via UI

Position-based entry administration

Position-based entry has been launched with model 1.6, customers can now carry out the next:

• Configuration of exterior authentication sources (LDAP/AD)
• Definition and task of roles with permissions for various operations
• Login with completely different customers and duties assigned to requesting customers.

Fig 1.2 – Consumer administration airplane

Fig 1.3 – Outline position based mostly permission

Day-2 Operations: Upkeep mode for VMware Cloud Director

Customers can now allow/disable the upkeep mode of VCD cells.

That is helpful when performing any patching or upkeep exercise on VCD cells and to have a seamless operation. With this superior UI, one can  uncover the state of every VCD cell from the VCPLCM portal itself.

Fig 1.4 – Upkeep mode

Backup and restore VCPLCM

This has been a long-awaited function and we’ve got obtained many requests concerning the backup and restore function of the VCPLCM equipment.

Now customers can backup and restore VCPLCM home equipment of the identical model and the backup file is password protected which customers have to offer whereas taking the backup.

Under are the parts that may be restored utilizing the backup file.

•  Deployed/Registered Merchandise
•  Registered Infrastructure parts
•  Latest Duties and Logs.
• Authentication sources, roles and customers
• Vault content material (secrets and techniques resembling passwords and personal keys)
• Certificates and keys for the VCP LCM equipment

Nevertheless, the product binaries inside /cplemrepo of the equipment received’t be backed up and one has to manually backup these recordsdata.

Fig 1.5 – Backup & Restore

Fig 1.6 – Safe backup

Fig 1.7 – Safe restore

Registration of NSXALB with VCD and Utilization Meter

Now you can register NSX ALB as an infrastructure element and combine it with VMware Cloud Director and Utilization Meter. This integration will be carried out whereas deploying VMware Cloud Director and Utilization Meter.

Fig 1.8 – Registering NSX ALB

API Enhancements 

Under are the important thing API Enhancements 

• VCPLCM REST API has been up to date with model 4. 
• Model 1, 2 and three of API are nonetheless accessible, however it is suggested to make use of model 4. 
• Extra API operations for restarting, resuming, and rolling again duties. 
• Extra API operation to retrieve the request payload of a job, generate an interop report, and archive/learn notifications. 
• CLI and GUI are utilizing v4. Nevertheless, CLI has an choice to work with older API variations as properly (must be particularly specified). 
• An up to date Postman assortment with corresponding pattern payloads for each API variations will be accessed right here. 

We hope this was useful to you. And, please be happy to contact us on our VCPLCM group slack channel. Or write to us if you’re not a member already. For extra info on product and assets, go to our VMware Cloud Supplier Lifecycle Supervisor Product web page. You may as well consult with the Launch Notes for extra particulars on the discharge. For extra info on the product and operation procedures go to the Product Documentation web page.

We’ve printed the VMware Cloud Supplier Lifecycle Supervisor arms on labs for a first-hand expertise of the product. Don’t forget to Strive Our Arms on Labs.