vRealize Automation 7 vs 8 ! Fundamental Differences and Key Jargons

 You might know that the vRealize Suite is a popular private cloud automation tool by VMware. It is recently renamed as VMware Aria Automation. 

As VMware upgraded this toolset from version 7 to 8, it is not an unusual upgrade, but in a nutshell, it's a very different product, architecture and core concepts wise.

 Let's have a quick look at their architecture.

 vRA 7

As you can see from the architecture, the application runs on a hybrid environment, which means that part of it runs on a Linux appliance [vR, vRO, PostgreSQL, VIDM] and some parts use a Windows runtime [Infra core (web, mgr, DEM-O/W), DB]. 

The following snapshot below represents the conceptual architecture of the vRA 7 application: - 

vRA 8

In a nutshell, it's a Kubernetes app deployed on a Linux appliances. Windows-based IAAS components are removed [which makes in-place upgrades of custom vRO workflows a very painful activity, since workflows using the vRO IAAS plugin need to be rewritten - something for a differnt article!].

 

As you can see, it's not very intuitive to catch up on vRA 8 when you come from vRA 7, so following component map will help you to relate concepts and key jargons as you move from vRA 7 to vRA 8.