ZStack Cloud 4.6.0>Release Notes>ZStack Release Notes>ZStack Cloud 4.6.0>VM Instance

ZStack Cloud 4.6.0

On February 20, 2023, ZStack Cloud officially released its latest version, ZStack Cloud 4.6.0, covering a number of important features described in details below.

Highlights

VM Directory View: Displays VM instances by cluster or by group in a directory view.
Upgrading of VM Scheduling Policy: The original Affinity Group feature is fully upgraded to a more flexible scheduling policy of VM-VM and VM-host.
Authorize Backup Service According to Licensed VMs: Authorizes the Backup Service plus license according to the number of licensed VM instances to help you better control costs and manage resources.

Overview

VM Instance
1. VM Directory View.
2. VM Scheduling Policy.
3. Adds an alert when using Ctrl+Alt+Del in VM console to avoid mishandling.
Cloud Network and Network Service
1. Adds a Session Persistence mechanism to LB listeners.
2. Adds an IP Allocation Policy in DHCP service.
3. Supports enabling/disabling VM NIC on UI.
4. Allows to assign management network IP address when creating a VPC vRouter.
5. Optimizations of smart NIC.
  1. Supports virtualizing smart NICs on UI.
  2. Supports three Network Acceleration Modes when creating an L2 network.
  3. Other operation optimizations.
User Experience Optimization
1. Saves the specified number of items displayed per page of the resource list.
2. Retains the page state when going back from resource details page.
3. Supports adjusting column width on resource list.
4. Optimizations of the advanced search interaction experience.
Backup Service
1. Authorize Backup Service according to licensed VMs.
Elastic Baremetal Management
1. Allows to update IPMI info of baremetal nodes on UI.
Enterprise Management
1. Optimization of adding a 3rd-party authentication server in Enterprise Management.
Installation and Deployment
1. Releases new x86 custom ISO of the c79 version.

VM Instance

VM Directory View

In earlier versions, VM instances are displayed in a list view. Starting from ZStack Cloud 4.6.0, a new Directory View is added to and ZStack Cloud allows you to display VM instances by cluster or by group in a directory tree form. You can quickly filter target resources through the directory tree and centrally manage VM instances in the same cluster or group. Currently, you can swithc to the directory view on VM instance page in Resource Pool and vCenter.

Figure 2. VM Directory View (Display by Cluster)

Figure 3. VM Directory View (Display by Group)

ZStack Cloud allows you to switch the VM instance view between list view and directory view according to your needs. You can click the switch button on the upper-right corner of the VM Instance page to change the current VM instance view. Note that VM instances will be displayed in the default view when you refresh the page. You can specify how VM instances are displayed by modifying VM Instance View in Global Setting. By default, VM instances are displayed in the list view.

Figure 4. Switch VM View for Current Page

Figure 5. Switch VM View in Global Setting

When creating associated resources based on VM instances, you can filter VM instances by cluster or by group on the Select VM Instance page, which helps you quickly locate the target resources and improve operation efficiency.

At present, you can filter VM instances by cluster or by group when creating the following associated resources: resource alarms, backup jobs, CDP tasks, and scheduled jobs.

VM Scheduling Policy

Starting from ZStack Cloud 4.6.0, the Affinity Group feature is upgraded to VM Scheduling Policy feature to further improve the high performance and high availability of businesses and utilization of physical resources.

The VM Scheduling Policy feature provides four types of policies: VM Exclusive from Each Other, VM Affinitive to Each Other, VMs Affinitive to Hosts, and VMs Exclusive from Hosts. These polices define the exclusive/affinitive relations between VM instance and VM instance, and between VM instance and host, respectively.

Each policy has two execution mechanisms: Hard and Soft. By associating scheduling policies with VM scheduling groups and host scheduling groups, you can forcibly or primarily assign hosts for VM instances in bulk. Note that you need to associate a host scheduling policy when select the VMs Affinitive to Hosts or VMs Exclusive from Hosts policy. You can configure scheduling policies based on your daily scheduling and O&M demands.

Figure 1. Create Exclusive VMs (Hard) Scheduling Policy

Figure 2. Create Affinitive VMs (Hard) Scheduling Policy

Figure 3. Create VMs Exclusive from Hosts (Hard) Scheduling Policy

Figure 4. Create VMs Affinitive to Hosts (Hard) Scheduling Policy

The Affinity Group feature is seamlessly upgraded to VM Scheduling Policy feature after upgrading ZStack Cloud. In earlier versions, the Affinity Group feature provides Anti-Affinity Group (Hard) and Anti-Affinity Group (Soft). These two strategies are upgraded to VM Affinitive to Each Other (Hard) and VM Affinitive to Each Other (Soft) respectively, without any modification to the underlying working principles. This upgrade has no impact on your existing application workloads and is annoyance-free.

Figure 5. Anti-Affinity Group (Hard&Soft)-Version Earlier Than 4.6.0

Figure 6. Exclusive VMs (Hard&Soft)-4.6.0 Version

Adds Alert When Using Ctrl+Alt+Del in VM Console to Avoid Mishandling

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