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Con l’annuncio della nuova VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 probabilmente la maggior attenzione si è focalizzata sulla parte relativa a VMware vSphere 5.5 e sui nuovi prodotti (NSX e VSAN in primis).

Ma in realtà vi sono comunque delle novità interessanti anche sul nuovo vCloud Director 5.5, descritte ampiamente nel documento What’s New with VMware vCloud Director® 5.5 e nel blog ufficiale.

Una delle novità più interessanti è (finalmente) il supporto pieno alla distribuzione CentOS per realizzare un vCloud Director Cell (non che prima non funzionasse… è che era non supportato). Magari era meglio supportare direttamente anche il virtual appliance (che già esiste ma solo per trial), ma è comunque un’opzione in più nelle scelte di design di una simile infrastruttura.

Dal punto di vista dell’usabilità e compatibilità ora anche Google Chrome è pienamente supportato come browser per l’accesso e le gestione, sia su Windows che Linux e Mac OS X. Oltrettutto Mac OS X diviene ora completamente supporto anche per quanto riguarda la console di accesso alle virtual machine.

Le altre novità sono invece sintetizzate in questi punti:

  • Limit Access to Shared Catalogs: with vCloud Director 5.5 you can now limit the organizations that are allowed to access shared catalogs.  This provides added security by enabling organizational admins to restrict access to their shared content.
  • Catalog Publish and Subscribe: vCloud Director 5.5 introduces the ability to publish catalogs, allowing them to be shared with external vCloud Director instances.  Published catalogs can also be password protected for additional security.  Once published, catalogs can be subscribed to by remote vCloud Director instances.  When a catalog is subscribed to the vApp templates and media files are copied from the publisher to the subscriber where they are made available, in a read-only capacity, to organizations at the remote location.
  • Catalog Versioning: starting with vCloud Director 5.5 all vApp templates and media files stored in the catalog are assigned a version number that is readily visible when viewing the catalog.  This version number is automatically incremented each time the item is updated.  This helps users track updates to items in the catalog without having to rely on creative file naming.
  • Support for uploading any type of file: along with the automatic versioning, users can now upload any type of file to the catalog.  This includes things like spreadsheets, XML files, PowerCLI scripts, vCenter Orchestrator workflows and vFabric Application Director blueprints.  This facilitates the sharing of files between organizations as well as across vCloud director instances.
  • Customize Hardware Settings: with vCloud Director 5.5 you can now customize the CPU, memory and hard disk settings during vApp deployment.  This helps reduce the number of vApp templates that need to be maintained in the catalog by allowing a a single vApp template to be used to deploy common vApps with unique hardware settings.
  • NIC Hot Add and Remove : with vCloud Director 5.5 you can now add and remove Network Interface Cards to and from running vApps.  This feature compliments the disk hot add/remove feature available in vCloud director 5.1 by eliminating downtime associated with adding and removing hard disk and NICs to and from your running VMs.
  • vApp Clone with Memory State: with vCloud Director 5.5 you can now clone running and suspended vApps to include capturing the memory state of the active VMs.  These cloned templates can be saved in the catalog and used to quickly reproduce workflows and duplicate error conditions.
  • Deploy vApps Directly to/From the VDC: vCloud Director 5.5 allows you to import OVA/OVF templates directly into the Virtual Datacenter (VDC) without having to first instantiate an interim vApp template in the catalog.  This helps improve disk space utilization in the catalog by eliminating the need to create temporary vApp templates when importing and exporting vApps.
  • OVA File Support: vCloud Director 5.5 now recognizes OVA files as a valid format when importing and exporting vApp templates.  You no longer need to use the ‘ovftool’ to first convert the OVA to OVF, or have to first import the OVA into vCenter before you can import into vCloud Director.

Vi è poi un’ultima novità (non prettamente tecnica, ma significativa dal punto di vista commerciale) che è descritta nel blog post: vCloud Director Convergence and Transition Plan. VMware vCloud Director 5.5 sarà distribuito solo come parte integrante della vCloud Suite 5.5 (o come VSPP vCloud bundle) e non più come prodotto a sé stante.

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Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-24. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-23. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.