We are happy to announce that the VMware Cloud Provider Lifecycle Manager (VCPLCM) 1.4 is now generally available for our Cloud Providers. With this release, we continue to deliver operational simplicity along with the enhancements that enable our Cloud Providers to improve and deliver seamless and secure services to their customers.
What’s new with 1.4?
Simplified Operations
The wait is over!! The foremost addition in this version is the “import operation” , unlike earlier ones, you can now import an existing product with only a few details – just a matter a few clicks in the UI – that enables Cloud Providers to import a product and manage brownfield environments using VCPLCM.
Under Environments, Click on Register Environment to import a product and manage.
Day-2 Operations support through GUI
This release brings many feature enhancements to close the gap between the API and GUI functions. Cloud Providers can now use the GUI to operationalize Day 2 tasks like:
- Product Upgrades
- Certificate Management
- Node Management
The ‘Discover’ feature has been introduced to track the changes or modifications made to the deployed product and sync it with the Lifecycle Manager Repository.
You can now discover changes made to the deployed product in an environment and a registered datacenter. To know more about Datacenter, please refer to the VMware Documentation.
Concurrent Task Execution
This new feature greatly decreases the delivery times as Cloud Providers need not wait for a task to complete to start another, as VCPLCM 1.4 is capable of running multiple tasks for different products simultaneously. This can be beneficial especially when you are upgrading multiple product deployments simultaneously. Users can request tasks in sequence, should there be no free “execution slot” it will be queued and executed once possible.
Detailed Product View
With various products and versions deployed, it consumes effort to keep track of the details of all the components. This enhancement helps Cloud Providers to view product details that are running in their environments – deployed or registered product specifications – by clicking Open (as shown in Fig. 1)and the same is applicable for registered Datacenter(s)
Fig. 1
Improved Troubleshooting
With version 1.4 you can retrieve logs and error messages easily using GUI and API as against its predecessors where, one had to log in to the VCPLCM host via SSH to retrieve logs. We have introduced separate log files corresponding to each task ID for ease of troubleshooting (Fig. 1a).
We have also provided the option to generate a support bundle to retrieve all necessary log and config files bundled in an archive through API and GUI. (Fig. 1c)
Fig. 1a – View log files associated with each of the tasks 
Fig. 1b – View & Download the logs in GUI 
Fig. 1c – Download log bundle
In-place Interop Bundle Update
Version 1.4 simplifies the process of checking and deploying Interop Bundles.You cancheck the availability of the latest interop bundle and update it from the UI, where we have provided options like Check for Interop Bundle Update and Update Interop Bundle under Administration tab (Fig 2a).
Fig 2a
To further simplify, we have introduced a banner which will be presented when you log in to GUI that will periodically check the availability of the latest interop bundle and prompt you to update so that your VCPLCM host is up to date.
Please note, that this function requires VCPLCM host needs VMware Customer Connect to accessfor respective binaries.
Automated Repository Directory Structure Creation
Yet another addition in this version is the automated creation of directory structure. As a part of the initial boot, the repository creation will be triggered with all the supported product directories of that specific release, thus eliminating the need for Cloud Providers to manually configure repositories.
Example:
/cplcmrepo/vcd/10.4.0/ova
Other Useful Resources:
Download VCPLCM 1.4
Release Notes
Product Documentation
Solution Brief
What’s new? – Video
For more questions, please connect with us via our dedicated Slack channel and we’d be happy to respond to your queries and feedback. Or leave a reply.
