As we enter 2024, we are still seeing changes in Broadcom’s VMware business unit. Changes will occur as the year progresses, especially given the splitting out of the Carbon Black and EUC businesses. As licensing changes occur, we may see changes in the availability of products and what is included within a given edition.
In the meantime, let’s take another look at what’s leaving general support in January and February 2024.
What's Going and When?
The following table shows the products leaving VMware End of General Support in January – February 2024.
Date
Products
7th Jan 2024
Horizon DaaS On Prem Platform 9.1
Horizon 8 2012
19th Jan 2024
VMware vRealize Automation 8.11
VMware vRealize Orchestrator 8.11
31st Jan 2024
NSX Advanced Load Balancer 20.1.x
Tanzu Application Platform 1.4.0
VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 2.1.0
15th Feb 2024
VMware Workspace ONE UEM Console 2206
16th Feb 2024
VMware Skyline Collector 3.3
17th Feb 2024
VMware Workstation 17.0.0
VMware Fusion 13.0.0
VMware HCX 4.6
21st Feb 2024
VMware vRealize Automation 8.11.1
VMware vRealize Orchestrator 8.11.1
29th Feb 2024
VMware Workspace ONE® Access 22.09
VMware Workspace ONE® Access Connector 22.09
Avi Kubernetes Operator 1.9.x
Avi Multi Kubernetes Operator 1.9.x
Infrastructure
Following the end of HCX 4.5 support last period, 4.6 follows suit. VMware HCX 4.8 is the current release, and this adds numerous enhancements, however, there is an item of note if you operate legacy 32-bit operating systems as these are dropped in 4.8, so 4.7 might be a better choice while considering your options.
NSX Advanced Load Balancer 20.1.x leaving support – note this is a VMware NSX ALB, not an AVI Load Balancer release – so we’re now seeing NSX branded products going out of support. The current release is 30.1.2 and, although a direct upgrade is supported, this should not be embarked upon until more fully investigated as there are interoperability and feature questions to answer first – environments can break badly if these are not considered.
Modern Apps Solutions
Avi Kubernetes Operator provides Kubernetes integration with AVI load balancing (now NSX ALB). The current release is 1.11, though care must be taken with respect to interoperability with Kubernetes and OpenShift, as well as NSX ALB/AVI support.
We have a VMware TKG release (2.1.0) leaving support at the end of January. The current release is 2.4.0, though there are dependency factors, most notably with the provided Kubernetes and Kubernetes Management Cluster versions, that need to be taken into account with what is a fairly substantial jump. This results in an incremental upgrade path being required – refer to the Interoperability matrix for details.
Monitoring, Management and Automation
Two releases of vRealize Automation (and Orchestrator) leave support in the next period. 8.11.1 ends support in mid-January and the patch release 8.11.1 in mid-February. Both releases have a straightforward upgrade path to the now re-named VMware Aria Automation 8.12.1, taking support to May 2024.
VMware Skyline Collector collects product usage and diagnostic data from these products and solutions, and securely transfers this data to VMware, for the purposes of providing an enhanced technical support experience. It can be updated from within the collector up to 3.5, the current release.
End User Compute
There are several items of note, though we may see some policy changes and other activity as the EUC unit splits away, so keep an eye out on this area.
The desktop hypervisors, VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion see releases 17.0 and 3.0 respectively leave support. The recommendation is to make sure you upgrade to 17.5 and 3.5 as needed. There are some improvements, including with security and compatibility that make this worthwhile.
VMware Horizon 8 2012, the December 2020 release, leaves support as scheduled, as does the somewhat less common Horizon DaaS On Prem Platform 9.1.
Horizon 8 2012 is not an Extended Service Branch and so should be upgraded to 2309, though subject to interoperability needs, a 220x or 2306 would remain in support. The current ESB releases are 2111.2 and 2212.2.
Horizon DaaS On Prem Platform 9.1 is primarily for Service Providers who wish to provision secure DaaS environments to multiple tenants and shouldn’t be confused with VMware Horizon on Azure. Release 9.2.2 is the current release (December 2023) and this is a supported direct upgrade.
VMware Workspace ONE Access 22.09 leaves support at the end of February. This is important as this is not uncommon in on-premises deployments. VMware are pushing customers down the Horizon subscription route and, as a part of this, are moving to only offering the cloud-based flavour of this for new deployments. Such a move is worthwhile given the appliances, especially when clustered, can be problematic to manage. For those where on-prem remains the preferred path, the upgrade to 23.09 is strongly recommended sooner rather than later.
Conclusion
This brings us to the end of the January/February update. Stay tuned to the Blog for further news.
