8.10.0 Release Notes

Release date: 2021-12-16

The release notes for Snow Commander® version 8.10.0 include new features, upgrade notes, deprecated and removed features, resolved issues, and known issues. To access release notes for previous versions, go to the Release Notes Archive.

What's new

This release introduces the following new features:

You can now add conditional expressions to change requests. Making change requests conditional allows you to control which change requests are available to users according to resource types and whether those resources meet other conditions you may define.

For example, you could limit a change request for modifying the memory allocated to a VM so that users could only select that change request for VMs deployed on Azure.

While conditional expressions apply to all change requests, they are especially useful to control what changes users can request for resources deployed through AWS stacks, GCP deployments, or Azure Resource Groups (that is, Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) resources). For example, you could limit a change request for backing up databases so users could only make that request when they select a mySQL database.

For more information, see Make Change Requests Conditional.

Service Portal users can now request changes to inventoried and generic XaaS resources that have been deployed through AWS stacks, GCP deployments, or Azure Resource Groups.

For more information, see Change Requests.

Two example XaaS change requests are now provided with Commander.

These XaaS change requests show how to use workflows with script steps to apply new security rules to Azure network security group resources or AWS security group resources.

You can use these examples as guides when you configure XaaS change requests that your users may select for their deployed XaaS resources.

To help further integrations and automation, these new features are introduced in the Commander API.

  • You can now manage access rights for admin users more efficiently. The new endpoints are:
    • GET /users/{name}/access-rights/cloud-accounts
    • POST /users/{name}/access-rights/cloud-accounts
    • DELETE /users/{name}/access-rights/cloud-accounts/{id}
    • GET /users/{name}/access-rights/datacenters
    • POST /users/{name}/access-rights/datacenters
    • DELETE /users/{name}/access-rights/datacenters/{id}

    These new endpoints replace /cloud-accounts/{id}/access-rights/{user}, which is now deprecated.

  • You can now import billing data in any currency over REST API. The updated endpoint is:

    • PUT /cloud-accounts/{id}/billing-records

    • The vm_remote_id field is deprecated. It has been replaced by remote_id.
    • The currency is specified in the BillingRecordsCostCategory object for this endpoint. This currency is for all costs in this cost category. The default is USD, if unspecified.

For an overview of the API, see Get Started. To browse the API reference, see Commander API.

Upgrade notes

You can upgrade to Commander version 8.10.0 from versions 8.0.x - 8.9.x. See Upgrade Commander.

Security Update: It's recommended that you upgrade to Commander version 8.10.0 and VM Access Proxy version 3.6 for a critical Log4j vulnerability update (see CVE-2021-44228). For more details, see the Snow Globe Knowledge Base article Vulnerability termed Log4j.

Important Upgrade Information:

Commander 8.10.0 has updated our database SQL driver. This driver has new configuration requirements which may result in issues during upgrades. If you're using the default SQL instance and port, no upgrade issues are expected. Please read the following Knowledge Base article if you're using a SQL named instance or a non-standard port. Note that this article applies to version 8.10 as well as version 9.0. Upgrading to Commander 9.0 using SQL named instances or non-standard ports. For help with the configuration, create a case through the Snow Support Portal.

Before upgrading, it's recommended that you review all release notes between the version you're currently using and the version you're upgrading to. Release notes for previous Commander versions are available in the Release Notes Archive.

Deprecations and removals

These are the deprecations and removals for version 8.10.0.

Deprecated

  • The /cloud-accounts/{id}/access-rights/{user} endpoints in the Commander API are now deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Use /users/{name}/access-rights/cloud-accounts and /users/{name}/access-rights/datacenters instead.
  • Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is deprecated as of version 8.7.0 and will be removed in a future release.
  • vCenter datastore scanning is deprecated, and this functionality will be removed in a future release.
  • Service Portal access for non-organizational users is deprecated, and this functionality will be removed in a future release.
  • VM Billing Report for Public Clouds: You can use the VM Billing Report for private cloud environments; however, for public or hybrid cloud environments it's recommended that you use the Cloud Billing Report. The ability to use the VM Billing Report for public clouds will be removed in a future release.
  • End of Life Policy, Suspect Policy, and Approval Policy and the relevant VM states are deprecated as of version 7.0.2 and will be removed in a future release.
  • Quarterly and weekly timespans for displaying costs in the Admin Portal and the Service Portal are being deprecated. The options that will remain for showing costs are Daily, Monthly, and Annually.

Removed

  • The vm_remote_id field has been replaced by remote_id.

Resolved issues

  • 23000, 22991 A Log4j vulnerability has been addressed in Snow Commander and in the Commander VM Access Proxy. Log4j 2.16.0 is now included with Commander 8.10.0 and Commander VM Access Proxy 3.6. For Log4j vulnerability details, see CVE-2021-44228.
  • 22659 Placement attributes now display as expected in the Destination Details area of the Admin Portal.
  • 22612 When a plug-in workflow step fails, the failure is now captured as expected in the Visual Workflow page.
  • 22594, 22593, 21786 Multiple Apache TomCat vulnerabilities have been addressed in Snow Commander and in the Commander VM Access Proxy. TomCat has been updated to version 8.5.73. For TomCat vulnerability details, see CVE-2021-42340.
  • 22545 Intelligent placement attributes are no longer removed from a Service Catalog when a VM is subsequently added to a multi-cloud template used by that service.
  • 22346 Notification and approval emails for disk size change requests now also provide the difference in disk size between the original and the requested disk size.
  • 22301 On change request forms for VMs deployed using linked clone format, the base storage disk now stays locked.
  • 21928 Using REST API to make a service request that includes extra storage disks now works as expected.
  • 21039 The AWS and Snapshot plug-in steps workflows have been updated and now work as expected.
  • 19715 When importing billing data for the same day in a GMT+ time zone, pre-existing data are now overwritten instead of being supplemented.
  • 19095 Valid deployment destinations are no longer listed as inaccessible after a Commander upgrade.

Known issues

These are the known issues for version 8.10.0.

  • 22374 Change requests with approval or completion workflows can't be run on Terraform resources at this time.

    This functionality will be restored in a future release.

  • 21110 You can't export tags for resource groups created by Databricks services.

    If you use Databricks in your environment, it's recommended not to export custom attributes as tags.

  • 20314 Private cloud costs may not accurately reflect storage costs after a billing reset has been run against a private cloud account.

    It's recommended that you don't perform a billing reset on a private cloud without guidance from Snow Support.

  • 18280 The estimated license cost for an Azure SQL VM incorrectly displays the license cost on the SQL Server. It should display the license cost on the VM that the SQL Server is running on. Note that the actual costs for an Azure SQL VM are correctly displayed.
  • 16002 When the WebMKS console connection method is configured, Internet Explorer 11 users may be unable to see the mouse pointer in the console session.

    Workaround: To open a console to a Windows VM from Internet Explorer 11 when using WebMKS, try enabling mouse trails with the shortest option. Or, use the VMRC plug-in method instead of the WebMKS method. For Linux VMs, use the VMRC plug-in connection method. See Console connection methods to learn how to change the console connection method for HTML5 browsers.

  • 9223 In some cases, when you attempt to generate a Cloud Billing report and use the Group By option of Cost Adjustments, the report will fail to generate.