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VMware Cloud Provider Pod - Release 1.1 (minor or major)

by

Yves Sandfort

By
Yves Sandfort
and

Today VMware released the first minor release not patch of VMware Cloud Provider Pod. After the initial launch of Version 1.0 in 2018 and a patch release 1.0.1 in November this is the first feature release. This release features massive list of product updates, improvements on the Designer, the Documents, Fibre-Channel support and also a complete rewritten network design with higher flexibility.

What's new in Cloud Provider Pod 1.1

First let's look at product release changes, VMware upgraded nearly every product to the newest release, details below:

  • vSphere - Updated from 6.5 to 6.7U1
  • NSX - Updated to 6.4.4
  • vCloud Director - Updated from 9.1 to 9.5.0.1
  • vCloud Extender - Updated to 1.1.0.2
  • vRealize Log Insight - Updated to 4.7.1
  • vRealize Operations Tenant App - Updated to 2.1
  • vRealize Network Insight - Updated to 4.0
  • PostgreSQL - Updated from 9.5 to 10

This shows VMware's clear commitment to keep the products in Cloud Provider Pod always on latest compatible release, read below on another interesting change which will future versions even easier.

Designer v1.1

VMware has introduced a set of new customization options. One which is the first obvious changes is the new network design, instead of having a very flat network structure the new Version 1.1 has a much more flexible multilayer design which gives flexibility to choose between VLAN and VXLAN for many networks, leverages now North and South Edge design and the ability to easily attach a admin workstation design.

And by the way it is easy to upgrade the configuration file and design from Version 1.0 to 1.1, just upload and generate new files and of you go.

Deployer / Initiator v1.1

The new deployer has been massively reduced in size from over 30 GB to around 10 GB, how did VMware make this possible? This is very simple, the new appliance has a new VM called cpod-download which is used to either download all sources automatic from my.vmware.com or allows you to upload files to be used.

Boot allows now to use UEFI instead of legacy BIOS.

Storage allows now Fibre Channel on top of the existing systems iSCSI, NFS and VSAN.

Network changes:

  • Management Networks can now be VLAN or VXLAN
  • Changed from one ESG device which provides all services into:
  • North ESG - Inbound and DMZ traffic
  • South ESG - Management traffic and allowance to add admin workstations
  • vCD LBS - Load Balancer for vCloud Director
  • RabbitMQ LBS - Load Balancer for RabbitMQ
  • DHCP ESGs - DHCP for VTEPs

Many other bugfixes and optimisations on the deployment.

Questions?

Questions?

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Yves

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