We are delighted to share the exciting news that VMware Cloud Director 10.5 is now Generally Available, starting from July 18th, 2023.
This highly anticipated yearly major release brings a multitude of thrilling new features and enhancements that will propel your cloud-based services to new heights. With a strong emphasis on networking advancements, we have introduced new capabilities and enhanced existing ones, empowering you with greater flexibility and control. Additionally, we have streamlined core management features and implemented updates to optimize storage efficiency.
In line with our dedication to ongoing improvement, we have further enhanced the features related to the interoperability of our solutions. This ensures seamless integration with advanced features and updates, allowing for a more streamlined and efficient experience. This milestone release signifies a significant step forward in the evolution of VMware Cloud Director.
NSX Federation with VDC Groups
Provider Administrator Task.
VMware Cloud Director now offers support for NSX Federation, enabling you to register an NSX Global Manager instance that effectively coordinates security policies across local NSX Manager instances within your VMware Cloud Director environment. With the capability to include up to 4 NSX Manager instances in a single VDC Group, you gain enhanced flexibility. It’s important to note that the utilization of NSX Federation with VMware Cloud Director is specifically limited to Stretched Tier 0 and Tier 1 Gateways. In practical terms, this means that the provider gateway, associated with both your global NSX Manager instance and a data center group, establishes the boundaries of that data center group. By leveraging NSX Federation, you are empowered with greater options in establishing networking availability zones, as you can now distribute NSX Manager instances across different regional data centers, allowing for increased flexibility and scalability.
IP Spaces Migration UI Wizard
Provider Administrator Task.
Experience the power of seamless migration with the remarkable IP Spaces Migration UI wizard! This extraordinary tool empowers you to effortlessly migrate any provider gateway in your environment from outdated legacy IP blocks to cutting-edge IP spaces. The IP Spaces Migration UI wizard is your key to unlocking a smoother transition and unlocking the full potential of your network infrastructure.
NSX Advanced Load Balancer HTTP Policies
Provider Administrator Task or Tenant Administrator Task.
VMware Cloud Director 10.5 introduces a tenant self-service UI for configuring NSX Advanced Load Balancer HTTP policies. This includes HTTP requests, responses, and security policies. With HTTP request policies, you can modify requests before forwarding them, enabling content switching or discarding. HTTP response policies allow the evaluation and modification of virtual application responses and attributes. Additionally, HTTP security policies offer control over request allowances, TCP connection closure, HTTPS redirection, rate limiting, and static page responses during outages. Elevate your virtual services with enhanced configuration capabilities in VMware Cloud Director 10.5
vApp Network (routed) Enhancements
Provider Administrator Task.
vApp Network NAT rules can now be configured at the VDC level by the provider to be created using Reflexive NAT and Standby Network Relocation.
BGP Enhancements
Provider Administrator Task or Tenant Administrator Task (Depends if IP Space is configured or not).
The new BGP enhancements include the addition of a “Community List” and “Route Maps” tabs. Customers now have the ability to define extra configurations for route redistribution through the newly introduced BGP route maps tab. These route maps are exclusively accessible to provider gateways employing IP spaces. By utilizing the other BGP tabs, users can establish route maps containing IP prefixes and community lists, which are defined on the provider gateway.
Firewall Rule Management
Tenant Administrator Task.
Experience an enhanced user interface in VMware Cloud Director 10.5 for firewall rule expressions. Enjoy the convenience of creating and positioning individual firewall rules within the list without the need to edit the entire rule set. Seamlessly reordered specific firewall rules for improved management. Additionally, easily add IP ranges and individual addresses directly into the Source and Destination text boxes. Gain greater visibility with the new ‘loggingId’ element that aligns firewall rules with NSX ‘rule_ids’. Elevate your firewall rule management with VMware Cloud Director 10.5’s enhanced user experience.
IP Space – Network Topology Config
Autoconfigured Default NAT and Firewall Rules
Provider Administrator Task.
When utilizing IP spaces, you have the ability to generate and apply automatically configured default SNAT, NO SNAT, and firewall rules on edge gateways and provider gateways within your environment. VMware Cloud Director handles the automatic configuration of SNAT, DNAT, and firewall rules based on the topology of the corresponding IP spaces, as well as their external and internal scopes.
Example for Edge Gateway 
Content Hub – Enhanced Catalog and Content Management
Provider Administrator configures the repositories. The tenant Administrator creates the catalog and owns the catalog objects.
Content Hub is the new all-in-one management solution that empowers you to effortlessly create and oversee Catalogs and Application Images. Seamlessly access and retrieve content from multiple sources, including the VMware Marketplace, Helm chart repositories, locally uploaded OVF files, and even import from vCenter or other published catalogs within VCD. Experience the ultimate efficiency and versatility with Content Hub, revolutionizing your content management experience in VMware Cloud Director.
Provider View 
Tenant view
Support Shortcuts
Root User Task (CLI).
Starting with VMware Cloud Director 10.5, you can use the following shortcuts for troubleshooting the VMware Cloud Director appliance, VMware Cloud Director on Linux and Bash environment variables to simplify frequently used directory paths.
Upgrade Solution Add-Ons and Publish Solution Add-Ons to Tenants
Provider Administrator Task.
With the introduction of VMware Cloud Director 10.5, you now have the capability to upgrade your solution add-on instances whenever a new version is released. Additionally, you have the flexibility to publish solution add-ons to selected or all of your tenants, giving you greater control and customization options. Enjoy the enhanced capabilities of VMware Cloud Director 10.5 in managing and upgrading solution add-ons within your environment.
VM Discovery Configuration (API Only)
Provider Administrator Task.
From VCD 10.5 onwards, VM discovery has the capability to be disabled globally while still being selectively enabled at both the Organization and Organization VDC levels. It is important to prioritize the most specific setting over the global configuration.
Previously, VM discovery in VCD could be set up globally, at the organization level, and at the OVDC level. However, priority was given in the following order: global level, organization level, and then OVDC level. If VM discovery was disabled at the global level, it couldn’t be changed at the organization or OVDC level. Similarly, if it was disabled at the organization level, it couldn’t be modified at the OVDC level.
From this release onwards, here is the updated combination of capabilities that will be effective.
API to enable new behaviour
https://
Catalog Publish & Subscribe Performance Improvements
Provider Administrator Task or Tenant Administrator Task.
Experience fast syncing of content during catalog publish-subscribe across Cloud Director instances with an exceptional reduction in time. This incredible improvement was achieved by breaking data into smaller chunks and introducing concurrent data transfer. Enjoy the benefits of rapid content synchronization, saving you valuable time and enhancing your workflow efficiency. Upgrade now to VMware Cloud Director and witness the impressive speed and performance boost in syncing content across instances
vCenter Server backing both a provider VDC and a dedicated vCenter Server instance
Provider Administrator Task.
In VMware Cloud Director 10.5 and onwards, provider administrators have the ability to activate two advanced settings, enabling a vCenter Server instance to support both a provider VDC and a dedicated vCenter Server instance. It’s important to note that this configuration is advanced and carries potential risks and, therefore should only be activated by skilled and experienced VMware Cloud Director administrators.
Note: Enabling a vCenter Server to support both a provider VDC and a dedicated vCenter Server instance poses a potential risk of violating tenancy boundaries. It is crucial to carefully evaluate these settings before enabling them. You can activate them selectively for particular use cases or for testing and proof of concept scenarios.
For information, see Managing Dedicated vCenter Server Instances in VMware Cloud Director.
Storage
Shared Datastores Across Multiple vCenter Servers
Provider Administrator Task.
In earlier releases, during a VM migration across different vCenters, the Placement Logic did not take shared datastores between vCenters into account. This resulted in a copy operation that involved exporting and importing the OVF. However, starting from VMware Cloud Director 10.5, the Placement Engine provides recommendations for shared datastores. This prevents the need for the export/import workflow and optimizes the move operation, resulting in a faster process.
Tenant Migration
Provider Administrator Task.
VMware Cloud Director 10.5 revolutionizes how VM’s are relocated during tenant migrations. When migrating VMs using VMware Cloud Director, if Migrate Entire Virtual Machine option is enabled, then all VMs with components on the chosen datastores are migrated as a whole. For instance, if a VM has two disks and you select only one disk for migration, VMware Cloud Director will still migrate the inventory from the other disk to the new datastore. However, if the option Migrate Entire Virtual Machine is deactivated (default setting), VMware Cloud Director will only migrate the components located on the selected datastore.
Solutions
CDs (SaaS) updates
Some of the updates:
- Allow NSX Advance Load balancer (Avi) Controller communication through proxy.
- Performance improvement in CDS while listing vApps that have a large number of links.
- Reduced downtime upgrades when there are Database changes (maintenance).
Terraform 3.10.0 (Coming Soon)
Some of the updates:
- Full support for service accounts (creation and management)
- NSX-T: VCD 10.4.1+ IP space management
- NSX-T Edge Gateway DHCP Forwarding
- NSX-T IPv6 support catchup within Org VDCs
- NSX-T Edge Gateway DHCPv6
- VCD 10.4+ Static routing resource and data source
Container Service Extension 4.1
Some of the updates:
- Securing sensitive data in RDE
- Ability to view clusters in UI that are created by CAPVCD directly
- Self-healing upon Node Failure using K8s MachineHealthCheck
- Air-Gapped Stack
Container Service Extension 4.1 download link.
VMware Aria Operations Management Pack for VMware Cloud Director 8.12.1
Improved Performance:
- Optimization in the Adapter to reduce the collection time.
- Reduced the number of VCD API calls for resource collection by 24%.
VMware Aria Operations Management Pack for VMware Cloud Director 8.12.1 download link.
These were some of the update highlights of the VMware Cloud Director 10.5 release.
Kindly note that the information provided here is our best effort for informational purposes only. For detailed information please look at the product documentation.
Other Useful Resources:
To learn more about VMware Cloud Director 10.5 and for comprehensive and accurate information, please use the following resources: Release Notes, Product Documentation and the Web Page.
Remember, to get the latest updates, check this blog regularly. You also can find us on Slack, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as many demo videos and enablement on YouTube, especially our Feature Fridays series.
You can download VMware Cloud Director 10.5 binaries from here.
You can download Container Service Extension 4.1 binaries from here.
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