CloudChef has officially released CloudChef Platform V8.5!

After nearly six months of development, CloudChef Platform 8.5.0delivers a wide range of new features and enhancements. Key highlights of thisrelease include:

1. Embedded AI Agent capabilities bring AI across the platform

2. A completely refreshed  UI with a more modern style, a clearer and more attractive request and approval experience, and improved cost analysis displays

3. Bare Metal Cloud V2,eliminating dependencies on RackHD and PXE

4. Stronger operations and FinOps capabilities

• Enhanced cost optimization that calculates potential savings

• Improved public cloud billing with richer billing data and cost analysis views

5. A new alert collection model with a new collection agent built on OpenTelemetry Collector

6. Extensive cloud platform enhancements

7. Systematic improvements to platform UI, internationalization, security hardening,software package upgrades, installation, and deployment

1.Embedded AI Agent: AI-Powered Operations and Analysis Across the Platform

AtlasClawIntegration Extends Platform AI Agent Capabilities

·       AtlasClaw AI Agent is an extensionmodule for SmartCMP and supports one-click installation

·       Supports conversations from adedicated menu

·       Supports a floating interface thatdisplays information about objects on the current page and available actions

PlatformAI Agent Capabilities

·       IM channel integration: supports multiple notification channels, includingmainstream IM platforms such as DingTalk, Feishu, and WeCom. Users can completeresource requests, view resources, perform day-2 operations, approve requests,analyze alerts, and handle other tasks directly in IM

·       Agent capabilities

o  Service requests and approvals:request and approve resources conversationally, with Agent-assisted requestanalysis

o  Resource query and analysis: viewresources and perform operations such as power on, power off, restart, viewdetails, and other day-2 operations

o  Intelligent alert handling: the Agentreviews alerts together with the associated resource context, change records,and historical events to perform root-cause analysis, assess impact, andrecommend remediation

o  Cost optimization analysis: the Agentreviews cost analysis for cloud resources

o  Intelligent compliance analysis:checks resources for security and compliance issues. The Agent summarizes basicresource information, risk levels, findings, and key compliance points, thenprovides remediation or optimization recommendations

·       Intelligent operations bot:

o  Agentpre-approval: after a user submits a request, the Agent evaluates the requestdetails, service catalog rules, and historical approval records, thenrecommends approval, rejection, a request for more information, or escalation tomanual handling to help approvers decide quickly

o  Agentpre-request decomposition: after a user submits a text-based request, the Agentanalyzes the description, automatically breaks the requirement into severalspecific self-service requests, and routes them to the operations administratorfor review

The platform provides MCP services, enabling other Agents to accessthe CMP directly through MCP

2.Expanded and Enhanced Cloud Platform and Cloud Product Support

·       New integration with the Topsechyperconverged platform, including virtual machine management

·       New Nutanix AHV integration withvirtual machine management

·       AWS resource pools support Accountconfiguration and retrieval of the Account ID through an API; Account selectionis supported for all AWS resource creation

·       Price inquiry is supported for AWS LB,Redis, RDS, and DocumentDB

·       Supports creating, importing, anddeleting AWS DynamoDB resources, together with billing, monitoring, and basiccost optimization

·       Supports adding custom data (UserData) when requesting an AWS virtual machine

·       Supports Huawei FC affinity andanti-affinity rules

·       Huawei DCS virtual firewall rulessupport priority adjustments and reordering based on the updated priorities

·       Supports configuring DNS serveraddresses when creating subnets on Huawei DCS and HCS

·       Supports creating, importing, anddeleting peering connections (VPC connectivity) on Huawei HCS, includingoperations to create and delete peer and local routes

·       Supports Huawei OceanStor8.1.5 and additional capabilities for file storage, file sharing, andnamespaces

·       Supports Apsara 3.18.6 across IaaS,PaaS, RDS, and other resource scenarios

·       Supports MaxCompute, the cloud-nativebig data computing service, and DataWorks, the big data development andgovernance platform, on Alibaba Cloud and Apsara 3.18.6

·       Supports synchronizing clusters fromvirtualization platforms (FC, VC, CloudTower, SmartX, SangforCloud, ZStack, andPVE) to CMP resource pools

·       Supports managing OceanBase users andthe topology relationships among users, tenants, and databases

·       Supports PVE physical serversynchronization and monitoring data collection

·       Supports synchronizing Sangfor AD nodepool resources

·       Supports OCI billingsynchronization

·       Supports adding customdata (User Data) and additional day-2 change operations when requesting OracleCloud (OCI) virtual machines

·       Supports and displays additionalproperties for Sangfor AD load balancing models and node pools

·       Supports and displays additionalproperties for F5 virtual services (Virtual Server)

·       Updates the disk type API and cloudsynchronization for Tencent Cloud snapshot creation to support newly added disktypes

·       Supports passing network aliases whenthird-party IP pools are used for VMware resource deployment

·       When creating generic cloud instances,vSphere and Huawei FC VMs support specifying the number of CPU sockets andcores per socket

·       Enhanced VMware/FC folder support:users can select a folder when creating vSphere/FC virtual machines, and the VMis placed in the specified folder. Extended properties based on theorganization can be used to select the corresponding folder, and missingfolders are created automatically

3.Terraform Enterprise Integration

• Enhanced Terraform  Enterprise integration with a new Terraform Enterprise cloud platform integration supporting GitOps and TFE Ops execution modes

4.Bare Metal as a Service

·       Bare Metal Cloud V2 provides a new wayto integrate and manage physical servers without relying on PXE; RackHD will nolonger be maintained

·       Supports automated physical serverprovisioning based on the Redfish protocol, with visual configuration of RAIDparameters

·       Bare Metal Cloud V2 supports cloudgateway configuration

5.Enhanced Resource Models and Operations Data Collection

·       Implements dependency definition anddiscovery for major IaaS resource components on the generic cloud platform,with relationship updates during resource creation and import

o  Covers relationships among VMs,security groups, EPCs, EIPs, and VPCs

o  Covers Alibaba Cloud and Azure, withadded support for AWS, Huawei Cloud, Tencent Cloud, HCS, FC, Sangfor SCP, andOCI

·       Supports scanning hardware servers andnetwork devices with Nmap and importing them as assets

o  Includes a built-in Nmap script forasset scanning and collection; asset discovery can be completed by configuringa pipeline

·       AppStacks and cloud resources can nowbe removed directly even when the corresponding backend resources no longerexist

·       Resource property and status refreshessupport a script-configurable active-skip mechanism, reducing refresh frequencyand avoiding frequent access during business hours

·       Supports batch updates to securitygroup rule policies across all platform types

·       Supports configuring a minimumremaining space threshold for private-cloud datastores when creating VMs oradding disks. The default is 0 and can be changed through a system environmentvariable

6. Enhanced Ticket and Request Information Display

·       Ticket lists and details, including MyRequests, My Approvals, and My Tasks, automatically refresh their status aftersubmission

·       Optimized UI presentation andkey-field display for the service catalog, request parameters, ticket details,and resource details, making approval and processing clearer and improving theefficiency of requests, approvals, task handling, and day-2 operations

o  Adjusted the default fields and fieldorder in AppStack, virtual machine, and cloud resource lists; added aDescription column with support for displaying and viewing descriptions

o  Request parameters for cloudapplications, cloud resource deployments, and change operations are displayedin My Requests, My Approvals, Tasks, All Tickets, and sub-request lists

o  Ticket details display execution logsfor deployment and operation processes

o  Sub-request lists display IP addressesassigned after approval

7.Service Configuration and Request Optimizations

·       Cloudresource changes are delivered as services and integrated with ticketscenarios; a cloud resource change service has been added to the ServiceCatalog

o  Supportsservice-based day-2 operations for cloud resources, including start/stop, VMconfiguration changes, billing mode changes, disk addition, removal, and allform-based operations

o  Supportsreuse across multiple scenarios, including tickets, cost optimization, andmulti-task pipeline execution

·       Request parameters on generic cloudservice cards can be configured as visible, editable, or required, and new helpdocumentation is provided

·       Supports approval workflow automation,with resource allocation triggered by automatic approval nodes

·       Resource environment tags support bothflat and hierarchical views; hierarchical mode supports level-by-levelfiltering

·       Optimized resource pool ordering inthe drop-down list when a resource pool policy is specified; when resourcepools are hidden and multiple pools match, allocation can be attemptedsequentially

8.Cloud Monitoring and Alerts

·       Enhanced monitoring flexibility

o  Added OpenTelemetry Collector Exportersupport, including monitoring for Redfish physical servers and databaseresources. More monitoring capabilities can now use OpenTelemetry Collector,allowing one Agent collect multiple types of monitoring data and simplifyingmaintenance  

o  Improved the flexibility ofsingle-target monitoring exporters, including support for changing themonitoring target

o  Supports installing single-targetExporter software on virtual machines through the software installationoperation and ensures successful Consul registration

·       Expanded monitoring support foradditional cloud platforms

• AWS RDS, Redis, and DynamoDB support monitoring through CloudWatch and display monitoring data

• Supports Oracle Cloud (OCI) monitoring

• Supports PVE cloud platform monitoring

• Supports QingCloud monitoring, including private cloud deployments

• Supports ZStack cloud platform monitoring

·       Third-party alert integration supportsHuawei FC cloud platform alerts

9.Enhanced Operations and FinOps Capabilities

·       Cost optimization now includes a costsavings view that shows estimated cloud cost savings based on recommendedactions

·       Added more built-in cost optimizationpolicies and enhanced recommended optimization actions; remediation viewsdisplay estimated costs and savings

·       Business group administrators andapplication administrators can view cost optimization information

·       Enhanced public cloud billing datawith additional information such as billing type, billing item mapping,Account, resource group, subscription, project, and tenant, with the relatedinformation available on cost dashboards

·       Added richer cost insight analysispublic cloud cost dashboards

·       Optimized bill presentation: added theLineItemType field bill aggregation and updated the billing UI displaydiscounts, taxes, and other cost data from different cloud platforms

·       Costdata supports extended properties that can be displayed in reports, enablingdeeper customization

o  Addextended properties cost data for specific user scenarios

o  Extendedproperties can be updated during cost allocation

o  Reportsand dashboards can display extended properties

10. UI/UX

·       A completely new and more modern UIdesign, with a clearer and more attractive request and approval experience andimproved cost analysis displays

·       When copying components, servicecatalogs, scripts, optimization policies, alert templates, and similar content,internationalization and icon configurations are copied as well improvedelivery consistency

·       CPU, memory, and storage informationin the resource pool overview can be displayed according to the resource quotamode; when physical resource overcommit ratios are configured, the overcommitlimit and utilization are displayed

·       Upgraded all legacy AngularJS listpages the latest Angular, with support for additional list-width configurationand other capabilities

·       All script editors on the platformsupport one-click formatting

·       Optimized the service configurationnode details dialog and resource pool tag layout

·       Optimized the execution UI forpipeline jobs emphasize input information

·       Pipeline job groups support sorting byname, drag-and-drop hierarchy adjustments, and moving entire directories

·       Enhanced notification capabilities

o  Optimized template configuration foremail, SMS, in-app messages, and other notifications; visual configurationchanges take effect directly

o  Email templates for day-2 operationsand reclamation can retrieve cloud resource names, descriptions, tags, IPaddresses, configurations, and other information

·       Enhanced internationalization

o  Improved translations andinternationalization for supported languages

o  Grafana dashboards switch betweenChinese and English in real time according the CMP language

o  Expandedand internationalized SmartCMP Datart resource operations dashboards andreports covering cost, lifecycle, capacity, and governance

11.Enhanced Service Integration Capabilities

·       Added system-level logs serviceintegrations to help users troubleshoot calls and returned results

·       Integrated Huawei OceanProtect backupand recovery services

·       Supports BeyondTrust serviceintegration

·       Service integration supportsconfiguring the registration path for JumpServer bastion host assets; thedefault is Default

·       After a virtual machine asset isregistered with the JumpServer bastion host, a connection user account templatecan be associated with it

·       Infoblox supports synchronizingresource IP status operations (occupied/released)

·       Enhanced Git repository integration,including file synchronization and Terraform GitOps mode  

o  Supports synchronizing resource tags,forms, service configuration cards, workflows, billing types, and billing rulesGit repositories for complete configuration management

o  Git repository componentsynchronization supports filtering content by module control and reduces thesynchronization scope across environments

o  Records git version and syncedTimefacilitate synchronization version and time tracking

o  Supports Git commits in PR mode

12.Platform Architecture Upgrades and Security Hardening

SecurityHardening

·       The login page supports limiting thenumber of login attempts per IP address

·       A user can be signed in at only onelocation; signing in through another UI session signs out the previous session

·       Users can create their own API accesstokens; Agents and other third-party systems must use a token for access

·       All platform services with HTTPSenabled can be restricted TLS 1.3 access only

·       Platform services can disable HTTP andenforce SSL

·       Supports embedded Grafana logs andsearches by service, keyword, time range, and other criteria, helpingadministrators retrieve platform operational logs. Logs from both single-nodeand HA deployments can be queried directly in the UI

• Upgraded platform  system software, Java libraries, and Python libraries to ensure that no security vulnerabilities remain

13.Platform Enhancements

·       Additional module objects supportextended properties

o  Added extended property support forblueprints, components, forms, workflows, price models, billing types, resourcetags, service configurations, and cost centers

·       Improved the presentation of failuremessages caused by cloud platform issues

·       Optimized role display and permissioncontrol for platform administration menus and submenus

·       Supports configuring extendedproperties for users. Extended properties correspond to custom LDAP attributes;during user synchronization, matching attribute values can be synchronized theCMP and used as parameters for dynamic approvals

·       Refactored the import/export tools intoan independent SmartCMP CLI module

·       Enhanced operation auditing withchange records for business groups, applications, and user information