vRealize Automation 7.0 List of Improvements and it is GA now!

I am really excited about this news, because I implemented Distributed VRA 6.1 one year ago in one of my customer. And it was really complex installation experience. One of the improvement here is the installation mechanism, that will simplify the installations! A lot of new cool features now and integration too. Really Cool!
Following is an incomplete highlight of new features:
Streamlined and Automated Wizard-based Installation

• Introduces management agent to automate the installation of Windows components and to collect logs
• Automates the deployment of all vRealize Automation components
• Installation wizards based on deployment needs: Minimal (Express) and Enterprise (Distributed) Installations

Simplified Deployment Architecture and High Availability Configuration

• Embedded authentication service by using VMware Identity Manager
• Converged Application Services in vRealize Automation Appliance
• Reduced minimal number of appliances for HA configuration
• Automated embedded PostgreSQL clustering with manual failover
• Automated embedded vRealize Orchestrator clustering

Enhanced Authentication Service

• Integrated user interface providing a common look and feel
• Enabled multiple features by new authentication service

Simplified Blueprint Authoring for Infrastructure and Applications

• Single unified model for both machine and application blueprints and unified graphical canvas for designing machine and application blueprint with dependencies and network topology
• Software component (formerly software service in Application Services) authoring on vSphere, vCloud Air, vCloud Director, and AWS endpoints)
• Extend or define external integrations in the canvas by using XaaS (formerly Advanced Service Design)
• Enable team collaboration and role segregation by enhancing and introducing fine-grain roles
• Blueprint as code and human-readable which can be created in editor of choice and stored in source control or import and export in the same or multiple vRealize Automation 7.0 instances
• Customer-requested machine and application blueprints provided
• Additional blueprints available on the VMware Solutions Exchange

Simplified and Enhanced NSX Support for Blueprint Authoring and Deployment

• Dynamically configure NSX Network and micro-segmentation unique for each application
• Automated connectivity to existing or on-demand networks
• Micro-segmentation for application stack isolation
• Automated security policy enforcement by using NSX security policies, groups, and tags
• On-demand dedicated NSX load balancer

Simplified vRealize Automation REST API

• Simplified schema for API requests by switching to normal JSON model
• Follow-on request URIs and templates exposed as links in response bodies (HATEOAS)
• New APIs to support business group and reservation management
• Improved documentation and samples

Enhanced Cloud Support for vCloud Air and AWS

• Software component authoring for vCloud Air, vCloud Director, and Amazon AWS
• Simplified blueprint authoring for vCloud Air and vCloud Director
• Improved vCloud Air endpoint configuration
• Optional proxy configuration

Event-Based Extensibility Provided by Event Broker

• Use vRealize Orchestrator workflows to subscribe any events triggered by most events happen in the system or custom events
• Support blocking and non-blocking subscriptions
• Provide administrative user interface for extensibility configurations

Enhanced Integration with vRealize Business

• Unified location in vRealize Business to define flexible pricing policies for infrastructure resource, machine and application blueprints, and all type of endpoints in vRealize Automation
• Support operational cost, one time cost and cost on custom properties
• Role-based showback reports and fully leverage new features in vRealize Business 7.0

CloudClient Update

• Content management (import and export blueprints between instances or tenants in vRealize Automation 7.0)
• Existing functionality updated for vRealize Automation 7.0 APIs

vRealize Orchestrator 7 New Features

• Introduce vRealize Orchestrator Control Center for easy monitoring and troubleshooting
• Significant Smart Client improvements including Workflow tagging UI, Client reconnect options and enhanced search capabilities
• vSphere 6.X  vAPI endpoint support

Other Improvements

• Enhanced management of tenant, business group, approval, and entitlements
• Customizable columns in the table for a given type of custom resource defined in XaaS
• Accept a mix of license input, including vRealize Suite, vCloud Suite, and vRealize Automation Standalone
• Improved stability, quality, and performance

 
The complete detail of the improvements can be read in here: http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/vra/vrealize-automation-70-release-notes.html
KUDOS! Great enhancement and innovations for VMware R&D Team!
 
Kind Regards,
Doddi Priyambodo