Unified VCF Product Releases & Versioning
Article ID: 410435
Updated On:
Products
Issue/Introduction
Starting with VCF 9.0, all VMware Cloud Foundation Components and supporting tools will use a different versioning convention from previous VCF releases and individual component releases. This new versioning convention will replace all prior product release version formats from VCF 9.0 forward.
Users will need to review VCF 9.0 component versioning numbers to determine what release is in use and not interpret the VCF 9.0 version numbers using the older release version numbers.
Environment
VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0
Resolution
From VCF 9.0 forward, all components that are a part of the VMware Cloud Foundation Bill of Materials will use the same version convention and follow the same release cadence.
Former release formats included Major, Update, Patch, Express Patch, and Hot Patch release names and version formats. Starting with VCF 9.0, VMware will follow a new release pattern, consistent release types and a new versioning convention.
The new versioning convention will consist of 5 numeric fields separated by periods.
|
Release Type |
Versioning Example |
Release Cadence |
|
Major Version |
9.0.0.0 |
~3 years |
|
Minor Version |
9.1.0.0, 9.2.0.0 |
~9 months |
|
Maintenance Release |
9.2.1.0 |
~3 months |
|
Express Patch |
9.2.1.0100 9.2.1.0200 (x.x.x.01xx - x.x.x.99xx) |
Released per component as needed. i.e. ESX 9.2.1.0100, NSX 9.2.1.0100 |
|
Hot Patch |
9.2.1.0104 (x.x.x.xx01 - x.x.x.xx99) |
As needed |
- Major Versions, i.e. VCF 9.0, will be released approximately every 3 years.
- Minor Version, i.e. VCF 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, will be released approximately every 9 months after a major release.
- Maintenance Releases will be released approximately every 3 months during the first phase of support. Maintenance Releases are not applicable for the long term support (LTS) minor releases.
The versioning convention applies to all components in VCF including:
ESX, vCenter, VSAN, NSX, VMware Tools, VCF Operations, VCF Operations Collector, VCF Operations for logs, VCF Operations for networks, VCF Operations fleet management, VCF Identity Broker, VCF Operations HCX, VCF Automation, VCF Operations orchestrator, SDDC Manager, vSphere Replication, SRM, vSphere Supervisor, vSAN File Services, vSAN Witness, Remote Console, vCloud Director(VCD), Cloud Builder, Bundle Transfer Utility (BTU), Aria Suite LCM (vRSLCM), Aria Suite LCM Product Support Packs, VMware PowerCLI, Data Services Manager (DSM)
Approved Versioning Exceptions
The following components are exempt from the versioning policy.
- Virtual Hardware Version
- Open Source Software
- Internal libraries that ship as part of a component
The following components have to adhere to the versioning guidelines, but do not have to reset versions to 9.0.
- VMware Tools
- VMware Remote Console (VMRC)
vSphere Kubernetes Service has an exception for the following versioning format
- Allowed to use semver v2.0.0 compliant version.
- The major, minor, and patch version numbers of semver are independent of any VCF release version numbers.
- The build metadata portion of the semver will contain the most recent compatible
- Kubernetes minor version number.
Supervisor Services have an exception for the following versioning format
- Allowed to use semver v2.0.0 compliant version.
- The major, minor, and patch version numbers of semver are independent of any VCF
- Release version numbers.
VLR appliance has an exception to use the version 9.0.3.0 for the 9.0.0.0 release. It will align with the expected version number starting with the 9.1.0.0 release.
VMware tools has an exception to retain the 4th digit as 0. It will align with the expected version number semantics in the 9.1.0.0 release.
ESX components will use “x.y.z-a.buildnum” as the format for the 9.x.x.x release. They will comply with x.y.z.a.buildnum in the 10.0.0.0 release.
ESX addons will retain the current format (partner defined) for 9.x.x.x release. The partner versioning scheme will be defined in the 10.0.0.0 release.
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