6 Important Updates and Changes to Expect in VMware Cloud Foundation 4.3

Transitioning to hybrid cloud has numerous benefits, including data protection, reliability, optimized workflows and resources, and scalability. However, the transition to hybrid cloud can feel overwhelming. With the right solutions, it doesn’t have to be. 

VMware Cloud Foundation provides the “simplest path to hybrid cloud through an integrated software platform that is the foundation for both private and public cloud environments. Cloud Foundation provides a complete set of software-defined services for compute, storage, network, and security, along with cloud management capabilities.”  

While we’ve been familiar with VMware Cloud Foundation 4.2 since March 2021, the latest release is now here. 

VMware Cloud Foundation 4.3 was released at the end of August 2021 and we’ve put together a list to highlight the most important updates, so you’ll know what to expect. 

1. Enhanced Workload Domain Deployment and Lifecycle Management 

VCF 4.3 supports large scale VM and container architectures with robust pre-checks for vLCM for faster time to value.  

2. Integration with vSphere 7.0 U2 

This includes VM Service support, AVI load balancer, security enhancements through a native key provider, and confidential containers. In addition, prechecks will proactively identify issues that may affect upgrade operations. This will enable concurrent upgrades for NSX-T Data Center components and provide/upgrade Workload Management.  

Users can add up to 10 vSphere clusters to a workload domain in parallel, improving performance and speed. 

VMware ESXI 7.0 Update 2 was just released with several new features, including: 

  • Enhanced debugging with VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes statistics:

You can now track performance statistics for vSphere Virtual Volumes to quickly identify issues, such as latency in third-party VASA provider responses.  

  • NVIDIA Ampere architecture support:  

This adds support for the NVIDIA Ampere architecture that enables you to perform high end AI/ML training and ML inference workloads by using the accelerated capacity of the A100 GPU.  

  • Performance improvements for AMD Zen CPUs: 

Out-of-the-box optimizations can increase AMD Zen CPU performance by up to 30% in various benchmarks, taking full advantage of the AMD NUMA architecture to make the most appropriate placement decisions for virtual machines and containers.  

  • Confidential vSphere Pods on a Supervisor Cluster in vSphere with Tanzu: 

You can now run confidential vSphere Pods, keeping guest memory encrypted and protected against access from the hypervisor. You can also configure confidential vSphere Pods by adding Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State (SEV-ES).  

  • vSphere Lifecycle Manager fast upgrades:  

You can now significantly reduce upgrade time, system downtime, and minimize system boot time by suspending virtual machines to memory and using the Quick Books functionality.  

3. Integration with vSAN 7.0 U2 

This provides enhancements to the vSAN Data Persistence Platform for improved cloud native storage. It also affords persistent services support to the vSAN file system. 

4. Enhanced Multi-Cloud Management 

VMware Cloud Foundation 4.3 supports vRealize Suite 8.4, including the ability to automate deployment of vRSLCM and provide a more complete cloud management experience. 

vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager can be used to deploy vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations Manager, vRealize Log Insight, and WorkSpace ONE Access. This delivers and manages infrastructure and applications to increase business agility while maintaining IT control.  

5. Networking Automation 

The new 4.3 version provides faster expansion and better scaling of NSX Edge Clusters with enhanced guidance for federated multi-site networking deployments. This provides flexibility in Application Virtual Networks (AVN), as the NSX Edge Cluster and NSX network segments are implemented as a Day-N operation in SDDC Manager.  

6. Enhanced Security Operations  

New, stronger security mechanisms improve the management and administration of security settings within VMware Cloud Foundation and add new support for FIPS 140-2 within SDDC Manager.  

With VMware Advanced Security for Cloud Foundation, users can expect world-class protection, intrusion detection/prevention, advanced load balancing, and web application firewall for public and private clouds. This includes VMware Carbon Black technology, NSX Distributed IDS/IPS, and VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer with WAF capabilities.  

Next Steps: Increase Your Hybrid Cloud Capabilities with VCF 4.3  

With VMware Cloud Foundation 4.3, businesses can expect a simple, secure, and agile cloud infrastructure that can be deployed on premises and consumed as a service from the public cloud.  

To learn more about VMware Cloud Foundation, contact an Arraya expert today to start a conversation or answer any questions you may have.  

Visit https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to connect with our team now.  

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