2019

VMware has released a new maintenance update to vRealize Operations 8.0 that includes performance and stability improvements. The list of resolved issues in vRealize Operations 8.0.1 includes: The rsyslog service does not run with vRealize Operations Manager parameters. After Service Discovery is configured, the Execute Script and Get Top Processes actions do not work from the Inventory > Objects page. The Set Memory of VM action does not work and the memory hot plug is not supported on virtual machines.

VMware has released a new update to vRealize Automation 8.0, bringing with it new features, as well as improvements and bug fixes. Unfortunately, vRealize Automation 8.0.1 still does not provide an upgrade/migration path from 7.x to 8.0. We likely will not see upgrade/migration functionality until version 8.1. New features in this release include: Migration from vRealize Automation 7.5 or 7.6 assessment vRealize Automation Migration Assessment Offline Capture Utility 1.0.0 allows you to collect data from your vRealize Automation, vRealize Orchestrator, or external vRealize Orchestrator source environment offline.

vRealize Automation 8.0 brought with it a completely new method for controlling access to resources within our cloud environments. In previous versions of vRealize Automation, the concept of a Reservation existed, which provided a clear contract as to what compute, storage, and network resources a particular Business Group had access to as well as limits on the amount of memory and storage resources that the Business Group could consume. Fast forward to vRealize Automation 8.

As a followup to my Deploying VMware vRealize Automation 8.0 walkthrough, we’ll now utilize our new vRealize Automation 8.0 deployment to configure a basic Blueprint and provision our first virtual machine using Cloud Assembly. vRealize Automation 8.0 includes a great “Getting Started” wizard that we’re provided when we access our deployment for the first time. While this option gets us up and running the fastest with Cloud Assembly, it obscures the task required to begin using Cloud Assembly.

On October 25, 2019, the Defense Information Systems Agency has made available the first updates to VMware vSphere 6.5 STIGs released earlier this year. VMware vSphere 6.5 STIG Version 1, Release 2 includes updates to both the ESXi and the Virtual Machine STIGs. Per the revision history provided in the updated STIG download, the following changes were made: VMware vSphere 6.5 ESXi STIG V-94491, V-94493, V-94495, V-94497, V94499, V-94501, V-94503, V-94513, V94515,V-94517, V-94519, V-94521, V94523, V-94525, V-94527, V-94537, V94539, V-94541, V-94551, V-94553, V94555, V-94557, V-94049 - Removed multiple duplicate requirements in ESXi STIG.