Introducing the New and Improved Networking Experience for VMware Cloud Console

I am excited to share that the new Networking & Security Dashboard has gone live! This new feature is available to all commercial SDDC on version 1.22 or above in both VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts environments.

Background

VMware Cloud team has been striving to provide great user experience in the VMware Cloud Console, and networking has been one of the key areas for improvement. We have started an initiative to improve and simplify networking experience, with the goal of making networking configuration easy for VMware Cloud Console’s target persona, Cloud Admins. Cloud Admins are not necessarily NSX or networking experts. The project goal is to keep networking configuration in the VMware Cloud Console very streamlined and easy to understand, while keeping advanced networking configurations and settings in NSX Manager UI, which is usually managed by Networking Admins, a different persona.

Over the past few years, we have been receiving feedback regarding the Legacy Networking and Security tab in SDDC Details Page. The Legacy Networking and Security tab had been where customers configured their networking settings in the VMware Cloud Console. Most of the feedback was around the performance and the complexity of the UI. To gradually move away from the Legacy UI, we have released the following updates in the past few years.

• Enable NSX Manager standalone UI access through VMware Cloud Console (SDDC Version 1.16)- This enhancement provides users quick access to NSX Manager UI to manage their networking settings. Users wouldn’t have to rely on the Legacy Networking and Security tab UI anymore to configure networking. The NSX Manager standalone UI also provides access to a wider range of networking features than the Legacy UI does.
• Allow users to connect to NSX Manager UI via internal network access (SDDC Version 1.19)- With this release, users can set their access to NSX Manager UI to “via internal network”, which provides better security.
• The new Networking & Security Dashboard (SDDC Version 1.22)- The latest release of Simplified Networking initiative. The new UI greatly improves the performance of Networking & Security tab and provides a quick snapshot view of networking configuration. This new UI will replace the Legacy UI overtime.

The New Networking & Security Dashboard

Compared with the Legacy Networking and Security UI, which has numerous tabs and interfaces embedded in the UI, the new dashboard provides a single pane of glass view that enables users to get a quick sense of their networking status in one glance. It consists of six sections: VPN, Direct Connect, Transit Connect, Management Gateway, Default Compute Gateway, and Cloud Provider (Connected VPC).

Key values of the new dashboard

• Single View, Easy to Understand: The new dashboard provides Cloud Admins a single view to quickly grasp the networking status of their instances. It only shows high-level information, keeping networking simple in the VMware Cloud Console. For editing or viewing any advanced networking information, the embedded links bring users to NSX Manager standalone UI where Networking Admins manage networking configurations. 
• Surfaces networking alerts: The dashboard brings networking alerts such as VPN or Direct Connect in down status to the top level to notify users. This allows Cloud Admins to quickly detect any networking issues, and engage the appropriate networking teams to resolve problems.
• Performance Improvement: This new dashboard also greatly improves performance compared with the Legacy Networking and Security tab. The loading time is similar to other tabs in SDDC Details.
• Smooth transition from Legacy UI: During the transition period, users can choose to switch back to the Legacy view if needed.

Meanwhile, if you would like to learn more about VMware Cloud on AWS, please check out these learning resources: