VCF Operations (Aria)

Aria Operations Integration with VCF 9

Aria Suite Components for VCF 9

VMware Aria Operations has been rebranded to VCF Operations in VCF 9. This is not just a name change—it represents a fundamental shift in scope and capability.

Key changes:

Aria Operations → VCF Operations (mandatory deployment in VCF 9)
Aria Operations for Logs → VCF Operations for Logs (no in-place upgrade; fresh install required)
Aria Suite Lifecycle → VCF Fleet Management
vRealize Operations (vROps) → evolved into VCF Operations

Mandatory components in VCF 9:

VCF Fleet Management (formerly Aria Lifecycle)
VCF Operations (formerly Aria Operations)

You do not need Aria Suite components installed prior to upgrading to VCF 9.0. These mandatory components deploy automatically during upgrade.

VCF Operations vs Aria Operations

VCF Operations in VCF 9 expands far beyond what Aria Operations offered:

Aria Operations (Pre-VCF 9)	VCF Operations (VCF 9)
Monitoring and performance	Unified operations center
Separate UI from SDDC Manager	Integrated with SDDC Manager
Performance assessment only	Fleet management + monitoring + lifecycle
Standalone appliance	Consolidated platform

VCF Operations main functional areas:

Fleet Management - password rotation, certificate rotation, configuration drift detection
Operations Management - performance monitoring, cost optimization, troubleshooting
Workload Operations - application health monitoring
FinOps and Capacity - expense analysis, capacity forecasting

VCF Operations becomes the “one stop shop” for managing VCF environments, consolidating what previously required multiple separate interfaces.

Integration Steps

For new VCF 9 deployments: VCF Operations deploys automatically as part of the VCF 9 installation process.

Upgrading from Aria Operations:

Verify Aria Operations version 8.14 or later (8.18.3 recommended)
Use Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager to perform upgrade
Aria Operations and cloud proxies upgrade to version 9
Deploy unified cloud proxy to access new v9 features
Migrate integrations from Aria Operations for Logs (no in-place upgrade available)

Cloud Proxy Architecture:

Deploy one cloud proxy per physical data center
Creates one-way communication between remote environments and VCF Operations
Cloud proxies collect data locally and push to VCF Operations cluster
Classic cloud proxy types preserved during upgrade; deploy unified cloud proxy for new features

Monitoring Capabilities

Infrastructure monitoring:

VCF Health page shows operational health state of all VCF instances
Unresponsive ESX host detection
NTP drift sync issues (host and vCenter)
DNS resolution failures
vCenter connectivity state and service status
Resource utilization across domains

Performance and observability:

Predictive analytics and capacity forecasting
Proactive health monitoring
Timeline-based incident tracking
Remediation runbooks for faster MTTI/MTTR
Integrated log analysis from VCF Operations console
Network flow monitoring and topology visualization

Modern workload support:

Kubernetes cluster monitoring via Management Pack
Istio Service Mesh integration for east-west traffic visibility
Prometheus integration for metrics
VM and container workload visibility

Dashboards & Alerts

Key dashboards:

Overview Page - summary of all monitored VMware cloud accounts with geo-map view
VCF Health Page - operational health state requiring immediate attention
Fleet Management - vCenter and host configuration status
Capacity Forecasting - resource utilization trends and predictions
Compliance Dashboard - STIG and FIPS compliance status

Alert capabilities:

Proactive alerts for infrastructure issues
Configuration drift notifications across vCenter Servers and Hosts
Certificate expiration warnings
Password rotation reminders
Performance threshold alerts

Third-party integrations:

Cisco Intersight Management Pack (IMM mode infrastructure)
Red Hat OpenShift monitoring
Dell VxRail and PowerFlex integration
NetApp Data Infrastructure Insights
Splunk integration for log analysis