VMware vRealize LifeCycle Manager (vRSLCM)

VMware vRealize LifeCycle Manager (vRSLCM) is technology for management of lifecycle of solutions of a product line of VMware vRealize Suite.

2018

Release of version 2.0

At the end of August, 2018 VMware announced the next version of Lifecycle Manager 2.0.

In the provided version appeared:

Management of certificates.

• It is possible to manage certificates for different environments of vRealize from a uniform point.
• It is possible to replace certificates for a product within the current tasks of infrastructure management.
• Possibility of a task of certificates both at the level of a product, and at the level of an environment.

Patching support.

• The transparent mechanism on automatic detection and use of updates for products.
• It is possible to browse and load the history of audit of the patches applied to products and at the level of all environment.

Content management improvements.

• Support of content of vRealize Operations with detection of dependences for the Dashboards, Reports, View, Alerts, Symptoms, Recommendations, Text, Topology and Resource Kind Metrics components.
• Possibility of deployment of several content types for components (endpoints) within one transaction.
• Possibility of content filtering based on metadata, such as tags, appointment components, content type. Besides, it is possible to save these filters and to reuse them.
• The role of Content Developer has the rights only for reading to the components created by others, and the role of Release Manager has access to all components.

Other improvements.

• Process of initial setup and connection of the existing environments became simpler.
• Support of deployment of Windows machines from ISO or templates as a part of creation of a copy of vRealize Automation.
• Possibility of package import of the vCenter servers.
• Possibility of package import and updating of passwords in data sources for the solution vRealize Network Insight.
• Different notifications appeared and will improve.
• An opportunity to filter and export user queries^[1].

Release of version 1.3

On July 11, 2018 it became known that the VMware company released update of the solution VMware Lifecycle Manager which is intended for automation of installation, a configuration, upgrade/patching, change management, correction of a configuration and condition monitoring of the vRealize Suite components.

In the provided version 1.3 appeared:

1. Support of vRealize Network Insight.

It includes:

• Support of versions 3.7 / 3.8
• Possibility of the indication of the amount of installation (Small, Medium or Large)
• Installation through the master of configuration wizard
• Export of the existing environment configurations to the JSON format for the purpose of reconstruction of the replicated copy of an environment
• The separate license for vRealize Network Insight

Support of vRealize Network Insight

2. Improvements of content management with support of vSphere.

• Now management of templates of virtual machines and specifications on customization of guest OS (Customization specifications) is available
• There was an integration with vSphere Content library (the version of vSphere 6.0+ is necessary)
• Possibility of role access (RBAC) to tags of content (content tags)

Support of vSphere

3. A possibility of the pre-check at upgrade of a product.

• Start of validation on compliance to requirements of upgrade
• Possibility of viewing errors, predpyatstvuyushchy to upgrade, and their unloading in a report form

4. Other improvements.

• Support of the global NTP configuration and also at the level of separate servers
• Grouping of components of the products vRealize in the master of creation of an environment
• Content pack ice for the solution Log insight that allows to make monitoring of an instans of Lifecycle Manager
• Support of the next versions of vRealize Suite through support pack ices (support pack) that allows not to update entirely LCM at an exit of upgraded versions of vRealize Suite.^[2]

2017: Announcement

On September 14, 2017 the VMware company provided vRealize LifeCycle Manager technology as a part of vRealize Suite.^[3]

The product helps to automate processes of the vRealize Suite single console:

• installation,
• configuration,
• upgrade/patching,
• change management,
• correction of a configuration
• condition monitoring of components.

Main Features

Installation and updating of products

Users of vRealize Suite 2017 can select from quality of model of installation of Product based or Solution based. It is possible to import the operating environment under management of vRSLCM then it is possible to update all components to current versions. It reduces time of the procedure of upgrade till several o'clock.

Before carrying out upgrade of components of a packet, LifeCycle Manager starts checks at the level of all stack of the solution SDDC (Software-defined-data-center). The administrator can also export a configuration to the JSON template (approach of infrastructure-as-code) and to unroll then all components on other infrastructure.

In addition to GUI for this process there is an automating process of API, it provides full control over installation process and upgrade of components.

Using vRSLCM it is possible to manage configurations and to generate the reports reflecting deviations in the operating infrastructure from an optimal configuration. The cloud administrator can use push-technologies for configuration change in all environment, in remote infrastructures and control the course of changes from the single console.

The mechanism of journalizing allows to monitor changes of the environment and to document them.

There is an opportunity to obtain state-of-health data (Healthcheck) of the vRealize environment on the scale of all data-centers and the dev/test/production environments. By means of vRealize Operations SDDC Health users can timely obtain information on the worked warnings in the environment of vRealize, carry out studying and correction of problems.

In a product there is a possibility of comparison to reference architecture and validirovanny configurations (VMware Validated Designs, VVD). These configurations will allow to be convinced of readiness of infrastructure for scaling and lack of restrictions on performance in the long term.

As developers said, referring to own statistics, by means of this technology it is possible to achieve:

• 50% of reduction of switchings between contexts of consoles at the expense of uniform UI.
• 55% reduction entered by the user of the accounts given at the expense of an exception of duplication of data entry and other.
• 65% reduction of time of interaction of the interface with the user.

According to the statements of VMware, time of deployment of components of a packet for management of big infrastructure is reduced on ~ 65%.

Notes