VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 on Dell VxRail 8.0.300 is now GA (Generally Available) as of August 29th 2024. Building on our strong partnership, Dell Technologies and VMware are thrilled to announce the General Availability of VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 on Dell VxRail 8.0.300. This release supports ESXi 8.0 U3 and vCenter Server 8.0 U3a, and introduces several new features and enhancements, including expanded VxRail hardware platform support, improved lifecycle management, and NSX enhancements. This is the first VCF release to support the ability to independently upgrade SDDC Manager, patching individual VCF on VxRail components using SDDC Manager, and deploying new domains with async patches. VxRail 8.0.300 is a feature release of the VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure solution that brings support for vSphere 8.0 U3 and support for mixing 15G and 16G nodes in vSAN ESA cluster.

Release Notes: the bill-of-materials below can be officially referenced in the following Release Notes links :

DELL: VCF 5.2 on VxRail Release Notes

VMware: VCF 5.2 on VxRail Release Notes

The following is a list of all the components and their versions as per VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2:

VCF 5.2 release includes the following major updates:

DELL VxRail 8.0.300 release components aligned with VCF 5.2:

Some other notable highlights of this VCF 5.2 On VxRail 8.0.300 release include:

• N-3 upgrade support: Support upgrades to VCF 5.2 from existing VCF 4.5.1 and higher environments (N-3 upgrade support). 
• VCF on VxRail to support 16G platforms:
  • AMD-based VxRail 16G VE-6615 and VP-7625 hardware platforms
  • VxRail VD-4000 hardware platform for workload domain clusters with 3+ nodes
  • 16G VxRail VS-760 storage-dense hardware platform
  • 16G Intel Xeon 5th Generation (Emerald Rapids) CPU-based VxRail hardware platforms
• VCF 5.2 introduces new SDDC Manager compliance APIs: 
  • At present just PCI is supported (VMware plans to add more in future releases.)
  • Provides 9 PCI controls we can audit specific to the SDDC Manager appliance only.
  • Provides configuration audit results.
• Starting with VCF 5.2, VMware enforced a minimum 15-character password length for both Cloud-Builder (admin/root) & SDDC Manager (root/vcf). VMware enforced this change as part of STIG compliance for Photon OS.
• Avi Load Balancer Integration with VCF: VCF users can now deploy Avi (formerly NSX Advanced Load Balancer) as part of a new workload domain and perform password rotation and certificate management of the ALB infrastructure from SDDC Manager.
• Shared NSX support with isolated WLD: Allow sharing of NSX support between isolated WLDs instead of creating a new NSX instance for every isolated WLD.
• VCF on VxRail support for authenticated proxy: If you do not have direct Internet access, you can configure a proxy server to download bundles. VCF 5.2 supports proxy servers with authentication.
• Independent SDDC Manager update using the SDDC Manager UI: SDDC Manager 5.2 allows you to get the latest SDDC Manager features and security fixes without having to update the entire VCF BOM.
• Offline depot configuration: VCF On VxRail instances that are on Dark Sites or DMZ, or sites with multiple SDDC Managers can take advantage of VCF 5.2 new Offline Depot feature.
• Patch individual components using SDDC Manager: This improvement means that users no longer need to download the async patch tool to apply an asynchronous patch to their VCF deployments. Instead, they can now apply the asynchronous patch in the same straightforward manner as any other patch, directly through the SDDC Manager UI.
• Deploy a new pre-patched workload domain: From VCF 5.2, admins can deploy new domains and clusters that align to the patch levels applied to the management domain. This eliminates the need to patch a newly deployed domain, improving
  speed and scalability for operations.
• VMware Validated Solutions: For all VMware Validated Solutions that are updated to support VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 Visit VMware Validated Solutions to check for the updated guides.

Please refer to the following blog by Karol @cl0udguide for a detailed overview of all the new features included with this release:

Learn About the Latest VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 on Dell VxRail 8.0.300 Release

Cloudbuilder Download Link:

Download VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 Cloud Builder

Some Additional Useful Links:

• Correlating VMware Cloud Foundation version with the versions of its constituent products
• VMware Blog: ‘Introducing VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2: The Next Step in Private Cloud Modernization’
• VMware Cloud Foundation 5.x on Dell VxRail 8.0.x Release Notes
• VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail Support Matrix
• VMware’s Approach to Private AI