Permissions for Databases were updated to improve feature access and limit SSM access where unnecessary.

The view, planning, and analysis permissions are limited to AWS SSM documents. With these permissions, you can view hosts, instances, and databases. You can also run a basic on-demand well-architected analysis of your resources.

The operations and remediation permissions allow you to make changes to your resources, analyze error logs, get a comprehensive well-architected analysis of your resources and fix configuration issues.

Permissions reference

You can control access to AI features across your organization with the following settings in Workload Factory administration.

The new administration page lets you manage these settings in one place.

AI features include Ask Me, custom dashboards, rule builder, and analyzers for EMS, database logs, and volume latency.

If AI features are turned off, users will see a message that AI is unavailable.

Learn about managing AI features

Create AI-powered dashboards that match your workloads and priorities so you can easily see how your operations are performing. Instead of relying on fixed views, custom dashboards let you focus on the information that matters most.

Just describe what you want to track in plain language, and the AI will create a dashboard based on your request. For example, you can track disaster recovery status, capacity and costs across regions, storage protection compliance, and other operational metrics.

Custom dashboards are read-only, so they cannot change your storage or workload settings. Anyone in your Workload Factory account can view and manage these dashboards, making it easy for teams to share insights and stay aligned.

Learn more about custom dashboards

The GenAI workload has been removed from the Workload Factory console.

The NetApp Workload Factory notification service includes the notification for replication delay.

Configure Workload Factory notifications

You can now create AWS GovCloud (US) accounts in Workload Factory. This account type uses only AWS US GovCloud endpoints and regions for setup and operations. Credentials and secrets remain in GovCloud. GovCloud (US) regions are supported.

Create an AWS GovCloud (US) account in Workload Factory

You can now receive Workload Factory notifications via email without configuring an Amazon SNS topic. Enable email notifications to send notifications to any email addresses associated with the account.

You can configure email notifications from either the Workload Factory console or the NetApp Console. The NetApp Console also provides the option to configure NetApp Console notifications that appear under the bell icon.

If you configure notifications in NetApp Console, NetApp Console takes ownership of notification delivery. Notification settings in the Workload Factory console become read-only to prevent duplicate notifications.

The NetApp Workload Factory notification service includes the notification for EDA latency that notifies you when the latency of an EDA operation exceeds a certain threshold.

Configure Workload Factory notifications

The NetApp Workload Factory notification service includes the notification with a monthly cost summary for your account, showing spending trends, unusual changes, and the best savings opportunities for FSx for ONTAP file systems.

Configure Workload Factory notifications

The NetApp Workload Factory notification service includes the notification for NetApp Autonomous Ransomware Protection with AI (ARP/AI) for Storage.

Notifications for NetApp Workload Factory

We added a new Ask Me bookmark on every screen in Workload Factory console. This improvement makes it easier and faster for you to access Ask Me whenever you need help. Ask Me is our AI assistant, enabling you to ask questions about your own workload environments, get personalized insights directly from your environment, and refer to previous conversations.

You can open Ask Me from any page by clicking the new bookmark. It launches Ask me in a side panel without interrupting your current work and offers quick explanations and recommendations related to what you're currently doing.

Learn more about Ask Me

NetApp Workload Factory includes the well-architected assessment for Elastic VMware Service (EVS) workloads, and adds new configurations for Storage and Database workloads.

New permissions have been added to the Storage workload for enhancements to managing S3 access points.

Permissions reference change log

The Workload Factory console home page embeds the Ask me AI assistant, enabling you to ask questions about your own storage estate, get personalized insights directly from your environment, and refer to previous conversations. You can interact with Ask me to understand your workloads, troubleshoot issues, and learn more about Workload Factory — all without leaving the console.

The FSx for ONTAP EMS events analyzer uses the following Amazon Bedrock permissions in the operations and remediation permission policy to fetch events data for the Storage workload.

Permissions reference change log

BlueXP has been renamed and redesigned to better reflect the role it has in managing your data infrastructure. As a result, BlueXP workload factory has been renamed to NetApp Workload Factory.

Ask Me, Workload Factory's AI assistant, is integrated with the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Using MCP, Ask Me securely interfaces with external environments and queries API tools to deliver responses tailored to your specific storage environment.

The NetApp Workload Factory notification service includes the notification for well-architected issues for Storage.

Notifications for NetApp Workload Factory

The BlueXP workload factory notification service includes the notification for automatic capacity management for Storage.

Notifications for BlueXP workload factory

The following permission is now available in read-only mode for Databases: cloudwatch:GetMetricData.

Permissions reference change log

The BlueXP workload factory notification service enables workload factory to send notifications to the BlueXP alerts service or to an Amazon SNS topic. Notifications sent to BlueXP alerts appear in the BlueXP alerts panel. When workload factory publishes notifications to an Amazon SNS topic, subscribers to the topic (such as people or other applications) receive the notifications at the endpoints configured for the topic (such as email or SMS messages).

Configure BlueXP workload factory notifications

When using BlueXP workload factory CloudShell, you can start typing a command and press the Tab key to view available options. If multiple possibilities exist, the CLI will display a list of suggestions. This feature enhances productivity by minimizing errors and speeding up command execution.

The workload factory user interface and documentation now use "read-only" to refer to read permissions and "read/write" to refer to automate permissions.

When using CloudShell, each time you issue an ONTAP CLI command and an error occurs, you can get AI-generated error responses that include a description of the failure, the cause of the failure, and a detailed resolution.

Use CloudShell

Now you can manage the iam:SimulatePrincipalPolicy permission from the workload factory console when you add additional AWS account credentials or add a new workload capability such as the GenAI workload.

Permissions reference change log

CloudShell is available from anywhere in the BlueXP workload factory console. CloudShell allows you to use the AWS and ONTAP credentials that you've provided in your BlueXP account and execute AWS CLI commands or ONTAP CLI commands in a shell-like environment.

Use CloudShell

The following permission is now available in read mode for Databases: iam:SimulatePrincipalPolicy.

Permissions reference change log

You can now view the permissions that BlueXP workload factory uses to execute various operations starting from the discovery of your storage environments to deploying AWS resources such as file systems in Storage or knowledge bases for GenAI workloads. You can view IAM policies and permissions for Storage, Databases, VMware, and GenAI workloads.

BlueXP workload factory permissions

Service accounts are now supported in BlueXP workload factory. You can create service accounts to act as machine users that automate infrastructure operations.

Create and manage service accounts

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

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

BlueXP workload factory is a powerful life-cycle management platform designed to help you optimize your workloads using Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP file systems. Workloads that can be streamlined using workload factory and FSx for ONTAP include databases, VMware migrations to VMware Cloud on AWS, AI chatbots, and more.