{"id":2127,"date":"2023-12-19T17:44:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T16:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vminded.com\/?p=2127"},"modified":"2024-05-07T10:39:03","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T09:39:03","slug":"whats-new-m24-for-vmware-cloud-on-aws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vminded.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/19\/whats-new-m24-for-vmware-cloud-on-aws\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s new M24 for VMware Cloud on AWS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

VMware Cloud on AWS BU have been pretty active this last quarter and after the release of M22<\/a> which came with lots of cool new features like certificate authentication for IPSec VPN or IPV6, it’s time to welcome M24!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This version has been released on the 14th of November 2023 and comes with lots of interesting new features that are going to be GA (Generally Available) for all brand new SDDC. Let’s have a look at what M24 offers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Networking<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

SDDC Group to Group connectivity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

SDDC Groups<\/strong> are an organization-level construct that can interconnect multiple SDDCs together with high bandwidth connectivity through a construct called Transit Connect<\/a><\/strong>TM<\/sup> (which falls under the responsibility of VMware).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far it was used to provide a highly performant, scalable and easy to use connectivity from SDDCs to SDDCs or from SDDCs to native VPCs or AWS Transit Gateway<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the release of M24, it is now possible to interconnect multiple SDDC Groups in the same Organization together. This will permits the connectivity not only between SDDC group members but also between members in different groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, interconnected SDDC Groups can leverage their existing external connections to a Direct Connect Gateway<\/a> and\/or a AWS VPC<\/a> and a Transit Gateways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can highly benefits customers who has split their SDDCs deployment based on region or business purpose. The SDDC Group to Group connectivity can be enabled through the same SDDC Group UI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Just pick an SDDC Group that has at least one SDDC deployed in it and it will interconnect the groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The process automatically peers the groups together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a couple of minutes it will appear as connected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NSX Alarms<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The new M24 release comes with a new version of NSX<\/a> equal to 4.1.2. This new version of NSX introduces some new alarm definitions like “Connectivity to LDAP server Lost” which is important when using it for Identity FW rules, or when the IDPS engine has a high memory usage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These alarms are automatically triggered each time a corresponding event happens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NSX new roles<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

VMware Cloud on AWS will come with 4 new NSX roles in addition to the existing ones providing a greater level of granularity when accessing certain features in NSX Manager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 4 new roles are NSX Security Admin, NSX Security Auditor, NSX Network Admin, NSX Network Auditor. The two new Security roles allows for managing the DFW rules and Advanced Security features independently from the other features in a VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new roles can be selected when creating a new user in the Org under the User and Access Management UI from the VMware Cloud Services Console.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Security Auditor role will allow users specific Read-only access to the Security configuration objects on the NSX Manager UI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a complete view on the privileges for the new roles have a look at this NSX-T documentation page that list the NSX roles and permissions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please note that for VMware Cloud on AWS, you cannot clone or create new role and you must rely on the existing roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IPV6 support for management<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Fore those who didn’t know we have had early availability to IPv6 for east-west traffic only for customers who were requesting it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later on IPv6 support has been announced in GA with version M22. In this version, it can not only be activated on segments connected inside the SDDC but also for North-South traffic via Direct Connect and Transit Connect as well as for DFW IPv6 traffic including Layer-7 App-ID. This permits also to create or migrate IPv6 workloads for DC migration or extension use cases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"IPv6<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

IPv6 support for East\/west in standard and custom T1 GW and for North\/South traffic over a Transit Connect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With M24, we are enhancing again IPv6 support and introduce the support of IPv6 for the management components such as vCenter, NSC manager or HCX using SRE-configured NAT64 FW rules. If you require communication with IPv6 to SDDC management appliances, contact Customer Success Manager or your account representative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enabling IPv6 in an SDDC is quite simple, it requires to select the option from the Actions Menu in the SDDC Summary page. This sets up the SDDC for dual stack networking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Each SDDC has to be enabled for IPv6 support and once it has enabled it cannot be disabled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Storage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

vSAN Express Storage Architecture<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) is providing a true evolution in the way storage is managed within an SDDC and it will replace the previous Original Storage Architecture (OSA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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vSAN ESA have been initially released with vSphere 8.0 in October last year. ESA available today on the VMware Cloud on AWS M24 version is the third iteration of ESA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESA comes with a lot of features that are going to optimize both the performance and the space efficiency of the storage used in each VMC SDDC and his supported on the new i4i.metal instance for new SDDCs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Features<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

vSAN ESA is providing performance and compression increase with more predictable I\/O latencies by leveraging a single tier HCI architecture model where each NVMe storage devices serves reads and writes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It provides the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n