VMware Inc.’s Cloud Foundation 5.0 hybrid cloud platform is now available, touting improvements in scalability, security and deployment simplicity.

The release, announced Thursday, includes the latest versions of the VMware vSphere hypervisor version 8.0 Update 1, vSAN storage virtualization layer 8.0 Update 1, NSX 4.1 for network and security virtualization and vRealize LifeCycle Manager 8.10 for cloud management.

One highlight of the new version is Isolated SSO Workload Domains, a feature that allows administrators to configure new workload domains using a separate single sign-on instance. This capability is aimed at enterprises that need workload isolation and managed service providers that want to allocate workload domains to different tenants with their own SSO domains.

Isolated SSO domains are each configured with their own NSX instance and users have the option to configure a separate identity provider, such as Microsoft Corp.’s Active Directory or the open-source LDAP. The option is currently limited to a maximum of 15 domains but additional scaling is possible with task parallelization.

Context-aware pre-checks

VMware’s Software-Defined Data Center Manager uses pre-checks to ensure that the infrastructure stack is ready to accept the desired update and that deployment is updated to the desired Cloud Foundation version in the correct order. Pre-checks are now context-aware, meaning that once SDDC Manager has been installed or upgraded to version 5.0, administrators can choose to update their Cloud Foundation domains to a newer Cloud Foundation 5.x target version and can either run a pre-check against a specific Cloud Foundation release or execute a “general update readiness” pre-check to ensure general readiness.

SDDC Manager now also allows administrators to view any configuration changes that are part of the upgrade to better understand new features that may impact deployments.

VSphere 8.0 Update 1, which was introduced in March, includes several enhancements intended specifically for Cloud Foundation 5.0. Workload domains get enhanced operational efficiency, security updates and better performance on artificial intelligence workloads through support for Nvidia Corp.’s NVSwitch. Up to 32 devices are now supported in passthrough mode and administrators have the ability to increase available GPU resources. Up to eight virtual graphics processing units can be supported per VM.

VSphere Distributed Resources Scheduler now factors workload memory usage into placement decisions and can place workloads optimally based on memory needs, bandwidth and latency requirements.

VSAN 8 Update 1 adds high-resolution monitoring of performance metrics with default collection intervals now collected every 30 seconds for near-real-time real-time analysis and troubleshooting.

The VM Input/Output Trip Analyzer has been enhanced with new functionality that enables customers to schedule analysis on a VM, specifying the time of day, duration and frequency.

VSAN Skyline Health, which is used to monitor the status of cluster components, gets a redesigned user interface that includes a simplified view of the health status of each cluster, including areas of impact, steps for resolution and access to additional resources like Knowledgebase articles.

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