You can now provision block storage over FSx for ONTAP when using a scale-out file system deployment with up to 6 HA pairs.

Create an FSx for ONTAP file system in BlueXP workload factory

Mount commands are now available for NFS and CIFS access to a volume. You can get the mount point for a volume within an FSx for ONTAP file system by selecting Basic actions then View mount command.

View mount command for a volume

You can now enable or disable storage efficiency for FlexVol volumes after volume creation. Storage efficiency includes deduplication, data compression, and data compaction. Enabling storage efficiency helps you achieve optimal space savings on a FlexVol volume.

Update storage efficiency for a volume

Discover and replicate on-premises ONTAP cluster data to an FSx for ONTAP file system so that it can be used to enrich AI knowledge bases. All on-premises discovery and replication workflows are possible from the new On-Premises ONTAP tab in the Storage inventory.

Discover an on-premises ONTAP cluster

You now have the option to add AWS credentials from the savings calculator. Adding credentials improves the accuracy of the savings calculator analysis of your Amazon Elastic Block Store, Elastic File Systems, and FSx for Windows File Server storage environments when compared with FSx for ONTAP.

Explore savings with FSx for ONTAP in BlueXP workload factory

Databases now provides insights and recommendations to help you optimize compute resources for Microsoft SQL Server instances. We measure CPU utilization and leverage the AWS Compute Optimizer service to recommend optimal right-sized instance types and notify you of available operating system patches. Optimizing compute resources can help you make informed decisions about instance types, leading to cost savings and efficient resource utilization.

Optimize compute resource configurations

You can now deploy and manage standalone PostgreSQL server deployments in Databases.

Create a PostgreSQL server

This release of BlueXP workload factory for VMware features several improvements to the migration advisor experience:

Create a deployment plan for Amazon EC2 using the migration advisor

BlueXP workload factory for GenAI now supports cloning a knowledge base from a snapshot. This enables quick recovery of knowledge bases and creation of new knowledge bases with existing data sources, and helps with data recovery and development.

Clone a knowledge base

Discover and replicate on-premises ONTAP cluster data to an FSx for ONTAP file system so that it can be used to enrich AI knowledge bases. All on-premises discovery and replication workflows are possible from the new On-Premises ONTAP tab in the Storage inventory.

Discover an on-premises ONTAP cluster

You now have the ability to use workload factory from the BlueXP console. The BlueXP console experience provides the same functionality as the workload factory console.

Learn how to access workload factory from the BlueXP console

Storage inventory has been updated to a two-tab view:

BlueXP workload factory introduces continuous guidance and guardrails to ensure ongoing optimization and adherence to best practices for the storage component of your Microsoft SQL Server workloads on Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP. This feature continuously scans your Microsoft SQL Server estate offline, providing you with a comprehensive report of insights, opportunities, and recommendations to help you achieve peak performance, cost-efficiency, and compliance.

Optimize your SQL Server workloads

You can now use Terraform from the Codebox to deploy Microsoft SQL Server.

This release of Workload Factory for VMware features a data reduction ratio assistant. The data reduction ratio assistant helps you decide which ratio is best for your VMware inventory and storage estate when preparing for AWS cloud onboarding.

Create a deployment plan for Amazon EC2 using the migration advisor

The Generative AI workload introduces the data guardrails feature, powered by BlueXP classification. The data guardrails feature identifies and masks Personal Identifiable Information (PII) helping you maintain compliance and strengthen security for your sensitive organizational data.

Create a knowledge base

Learn about BlueXP classification

Create a link

You can now explore savings of detected Microsoft SQL servers on Amazon EC2 with FSx for Windows File Server storage in the savings calculator. Depending on your SQL server and storage requirements, you might find that FSx for ONTAP storage is the most cost effective for your database workloads.

Explore savings with FSx for ONTAP for your database workloads

You can now protect your Generative AI workloads data by taking a point-in-time copy of a knowledge base. This enables you to protect your data against accidental loss or test changes to the settings of the knowledge base. You can restore the previous version of the knowledge base volume at any time.

Take a snapshot of a knowledge base volume

Restore a snapshot of a knowledge base volume

You can now pause scheduled data source scans. By default, Generative AI workloads scans each data source daily to ingest new data into each knowledge base. If you don't want the latest changes to be ingested (during testing or while restoring a snapshot, for example) you can pause the scheduled scans and resume them at any time.

Manage knowledge bases

When selecting a knowledge base volume, you can now choose a data protection volume that is part of a NetApp SnapMirror replication relationship. This enables you to store knowledge bases on volumes that are already protected by SnapMirror replication.

Identify the data sources to integrate in your knowledge base

This release of workload factory for VMware features functionality and stability enhancements as well as the ability to import and export migration plans when using the VMware migration advisor.

Create a deployment plan for Amazon EC2 using the migration advisor

RSS subscription is available from the workload factory console. Using an RSS feed is an easy way to consume and be aware of changes in BlueXP workload factory.

When adding AWS credentials in workload factory, you can now select a single permission policy, either read or automate mode, for each workload and storage management.

Add AWS credentials to workload factory

Terraform support is available for Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP file system deployment and storage VM creation. The setup and admin guide now has instructions for how to use Terraform from the Codebox.

Use Terraform from Codebox