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Bluelock Upgrades to VMware vCloud Director 1.5
Bluelock has updated our vCloud-based public cloud offering from vCloud Director 1.0 to
1.5. This is a quick overview of the improvements and value that upgrade brings to our clients.
Bluelock Portfolio
Portfolio, Bluelock's decision support tool and management portal has been updated along
with vCloud Director 1.5 upgrade to fully support the new vCloud technologies. This
further improves our integration and our ability to provide the best pricing and performance
visibility in the industry.
General User Interface robustness enhancements and features
This vCloud Director upgrade brings you all the same strengths of the previous version,
with self-service, provisioning, and management, with another year of maturity and interface
enhancements. We're very confident you'll enjoy the added features, which I'll talk
about further, now.
vCloud Director 1.5 introduces self-service VPN
Bluelock has always provided helpful support staff to work with you to configure VPNs that
allow secure connections to the cloud. With vCloud Director 1.5, your networking team
now has access to create VPN connections quickly and easily through the vCloud Director 1.5
web interface. Giving you the ability to seamlessly connect securely to your hybrid cloud and
other datacenters.
Version 1.5 also provides the new automatic vCloud to vCloud VPN feature. Instead of configuring
VPN connections independently, in each of your vClouds, this feature securely configures
both ends of your vCloud VPN, allowing multiple vCloud to be connected quickly and easily.
Full source-based firewall rules
The included firewall in vCloud Director has received a boost as well. While you have always
had the ability through the vCloud Director interface to create and manage firewalls and
secure your vCloud networks, you can now control the vCloud integrated firewall to create rules
with more precision and control by specifying source IP address and ports.
VMware vCloud API 1.5 supports more features and better integration
One of the most powerful innovations that vCloud Director brought us was the vCloud
API. It has received an uplift along with the rest of Director to vCloud API version
1.5. While all the same functions you're used to are available, there have been powerful
additions such as the new Query API that reduces the amount and complexity of the code required
to automate your cloud.
In addition, several important automation products has been enhanced to natively support
the vCloud API 1.5. The PowerCLI Powershell snap-in now supports vCloud 1.5 API allowing
for fast and easy scripting with the language and controls that have supported vSphere automation
for years.
VMware's Orchestrator also now includes vCloud Director 1.5 support, allowing simple point
and click cloud automation that integrates with your existing business processes and
workflows.
vApp Custom Attributes
vCloud Director 1.5 introduces custom attributes or metadata for your vApps. Previously, administrators
would have to log into a vApp after they had deployed it, entering licensing or security
keys or possibly database connection strings. With the new custom attributes you can assign
a key or a license as metadata to the vApp template, which the vApp can then read and
use automatically when it is deployed, which speeds up provisioning times and reduces labor.
Automation tools such as Puppet and Chef can also leverage these custom attributes to take
provisioning and customization tasks to the next level.
Network Card Control
In the past, there was little control over which type of network card a virtual machine
could use. In some situations this could limit the use of certain networking appliances or
impact network performance. vCloud Director 1.5 gives you full control to specify Vlance,
Flexible, E1000, or the VMXNET family of network cards to allow you to customize the VM hardware
to fit your needs.
Bluelock Virtual Datacenters
Bluelock is pleased to offer you this next generation of technology for management and
control of your Virtual Datacenter and we look forward to continuing to provide you
with a true enterprise public cloud experience. We invite you to visit bluelock.com for more
information.