HCX Team

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Announcing VMware HCX 4.4

VMware HCX continues to evolve with the release of HCX 4.4 which includes several key enhancements in multiple different areas. These enhancements are going to address new requirements, stabilize the current feature set and provide additional security. This blog aims to highlight the major changes in HCX 4.4.

Transport Analytics

Following the release of HCX 4.1, the HCX team undertook an effort to better understand how various aspects of a network underlay (including bandwidth, packet loss and latency conditions) affect migration outcomes. We called this effort the Network Underlay Characterization for HCX.

During the 4.2 release, the characterization exercise enabled us to officially support services over VPN/SD-WAN, along with the Network Underlay minimum requirements to support any underlay agnostically. We also published detailed tech paper (See Network Underlay Requirements and HCX Performance Outcomes). This document guides the reader through the characterization exercise (manually using command line tooling).

HCX 4.4 adds Transport Analytics the HCX, allowing the user to execute performance baselining for the HCX service transport on-demand and visualizes transport performance in real-time and as time-series graphs.

This enables the migration administrator to understand the network underlay conditions reflected in the transport and plan Continue reading

Announcing VMware HCX 4.3

VMware HCX, an application mobility platform, is a crucial part of an organization’s digital transformation journey. HCX simplifies application migration, workload rebalancing, and business continuity across data centers and clouds. This becomes increasingly important as organizations consolidate data centers, extend data centers to the cloud, or replace on-premises infrastructure.

Let’s dig into some of the new and exciting features of HCX 4.3.0:

Transition to PostgreSQL

One of the key improvements HCX 4.3.0 introduces is the use of PostgreSQL. The goal is to replace the older databases and leverage some inherent advantages of PostgreSQL. From an end-user perspective, this transition will have no impact. Once the upgrade process is triggered, the system will automatically transition to the newer database in the backend, and all the data is seamlessly transferred to the new database.

Building Resiliency in HCX Network Extension

The second significant enhancement is the high availability of Network Extension appliances. Network Extension service is a critical part of HCX, and any disruption during normal migration activities can have a high impact on business operations. HCX 4.3.0 aims to minimize the impact of such disruptions by introducing a high availability (HA) feature for Network Extension Continue reading

What’s New in VMware HCX 4.2

Real-time Estimation of vMotion and Replication Assisted vMotion Migration 

HCX analyzes migration metrics and provides an estimate of the time required to complete the relocation phase of every configured vMotion, as well as the time required to complete the transfer phase of every RAV migration. For each virtual machine migration, the estimate is shown in the progress bar displayed on both the Migration Tracking and Migration Management pages while the transfer is underway. 

 The following snapshot shows an estimate of time remaining for the vMotion-based migration to complete. 

Here we see a similar estimate for a RAV– (Replication Assisted vMotion) based migration.  

Predictive Estimation of Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) Migrations 

For RAV migrations in draft state, HCX uses machine learning to generate an estimate of the time required to complete the migration. The estimate is shown in the progress bar displayed on the Migration Management page. Predictive estimation is available for Early Adoption (EA) with both RAV and Bulk migration. 

5The following snapshot shows how the user can get a predictive estimate of the time needed for Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) to migrate workloads of virtual machines in a Mobility group. 

OS Assisted Migration (OSAM) with HCX for VMware Cloud 

HCX OS Assisted Migrations enable transitions from non-vSphere-based environments to vSphere-based environments. OSAM can now be run in VMware Cloud Continue reading

Announcing VMware HCX 4.1

VMware HCX is a crucial component of the modernization journey for many VMware customers as they transform their data centers into SDDCs, both on-premises and in the public cloud. HCX, an application mobility platform, simplifies application migration, workload rebalancing, and business continuity across data centers and clouds, and enables large-scale migration of workloads to modern environments.

With the HCX 4.0 release, we rolled out some major updates. Now, the journey continues steadily forward with the release of HCX 4.1. Let’s dive in and see what’s new.

What’s New

Migrations Estimations: Predictive Estimations for Bulk Migrations

One key capability that was launched in HCX 4.0 was Migration Estimation — which provides real-time predictions for bulk migrations. With the HCX 4.1 release, customers will see a more accurate predictive estimate for bulk migrations in draft stage before wave execution.

Seed Checkpoint for Bulk Migration​

In the past, failed replication-based migrations, like bulk migrations with HCX, automatically executed a cleanup process, which would lead to a total loss of replicated data. To the customer, this entailed losing all migration progress, while for larger VM profiles this meant the loss of many days of replication progress.

The seed checkpoint Continue reading

Introducing HCX 4.0: Migration Event Details and Estimation, In-Service Upgrades, and more

VMware HCX is indeed a swiss army knife — a mobility platform with several options to streamline and optimize workload migrations between on-premises and VMC-based environments. HCX delivers secure, seamless app mobility and infrastructure hybridity across vSphere 6.0 and later versions, both on-premises and in the cloud. Thousands of customers worldwide use HCX for faster, safer, and large-scale migrations, cost-savings, and efficient operations. 

Today, we are excited to announce an important milestone in this journey — HCX 4.0, a major release that introduces new functionality and enhancements. This release focuses on providing enhanced visibility, reducing service downtime during upgrades, and simplifying the reconfiguration of NSX security policies post-migration.  

Let’s take a look at some of the new capabilities in HCX 4.0: 

New Release Versioning and Lifecycle Policies 

Starting with the HCX 4.0.0 release, HCX is switching its naming convention from ‘R’ releases to Major.Minor.Maintenance semantic versioning to align with VMware convention. VMware HCX will now use X.Y.Z.P where: 

  • X is a major version. 
  • Y is a minor version. 
  • Z is a maintenance version. 
  • P is a patch version. This is a unique bit that uses the build number.  

Please also note that the  VMware N-2 Lifecycle Policy will be applicable with the new convention, providing extended support and additional flexibility to customers. 

Each Major or Minor release will have a minimum support duration of 12 months (*).   
Refer Continue reading