9.0.0 Release Notes

Release date: 2022-04-11

The release notes for Snow Commander® version 9.0.0 include new features, upgrade notes, deprecated features, resolved issues, and known issues. To access release notes for previous versions, go to the Release Notes Archive.

What's new

Terraform was available as a technology preview for early adopters in a previous release (8.8.0). All Terraform capabilities in version 9.0 are now generally available.

This release introduces the following new features:

You can now set ownership on Terraform backends, making their resources available to your Service Portal users.

Once visible to Service Portal users, the resources can be managed through service change requests to perform any Day-2 operations.

For more information, see Set Terraform Resource Ownership.

Service Portal users that are owners of Terraform backends can now view those backends and their infrastructure resources, along with the configurations for those resources.

Commander Admin Portal and Service Portal users can now make change requests to Terraform resources associated with backend states that have been added to Commander.

When change requests with appropriate workflows have been configured, users may be able to make Day-2 configuration changes to the resources associated with those backends.

For more information, for Admin Portal users, see Request changes to Terraform resources. For Service Portal users, see Submit change requests for generic resources.

For Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners, Commander now supports Azure Plan, which provides CSP partners access to pay-as-you-go rates for their customers under the Microsoft Customer Agreement. Find more about Azure Plan at Introduction: Azure Plan on the Microsoft site.

For information on configuring Commander to leverage Azure plan, see Retrieve Azure billing data for Azure Plan accounts (legacy).

  • Commander now supports Azure Stack HCI clusters managed by System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM).

Upgrade notes

You can upgrade directly to Commander version 9.0.0 from versions 8.5.x - 8.10.x. For more information, see Upgrade Commander.

Important Upgrade Information:

Commander 9.0.0 includes an updated 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. 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 9.0.0.

Deprecated

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • vSphere 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.
  • 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.

Resolved issues

  • 23997 The Approval Landing Web page linked from request approval emails now displays in all cases. This enables users without Commander Superuser or Enterprise Admin roles to approve or decline requests as appropriate.
  • 23924 Disk change values are now shown in completion workflow acknowledgment emails.
  • 23721 With large databases, the scheduled purge task to remove old events and billing records no longer fails.
  • 23709, 23606 For MS SQL, startup proceeds as expected when the database is configured with the appropriate port and instance names. See Upgrade notes for details.
  • 23666 Updated Apache Tomcat version to 8.5.76 to address vulnerabilities CVE-2020-9484 and CVE-2022-23181.
  • 23635 For the Commander VM Access Proxy, you can now clear both the Direct and Secure Proxy session access configuration options for Admin Portal users.
  • 23625 The VM Billing Report now runs as expected.
  • 23441The VM details in the Service Portal now display the correct uptime.
  • 23388 The minor security vulnerability associated with missing error handling (CVSS 3.1) has been addressed.
  • 23316 Commander has been updated with Log4j version 2.17.1 to mitigate any potential security vulnerability related to CVE-2021-44832.
  • 22818 All disks included in the snapshot of a template are now locked in linked clone VMs.
  • 22758 SAML2 Assertions to handle authentication are now handled appropriately.
  • 21950 Configuring AWS Cost and Usage Reports in other, non-USD currencies is now supported.
  • 19235 HTTP security headers were added to the Admin Portal and the Service Portal to prevent security vulnerabilities like cross-site scripting, clickjacking, information disclosure and more. The new HTTP security headers are enabled by default and can be disabled using system properties that are named under the prefix embotics.http.security.header.

Known issues

These are the known issues for version 9.0.0.

  • 24406 Deploying a service catalog item may fail if storage form elements have been modified when creating the catalog.

    Workaround options:

    • Create a template with the specific storage tier type(s) you want to use. Make a catalog using this template as a blueprint.

      OR

    • In the Admin Portal, add Storage to the blueprint form with Display Storage Tier enabled and Change enabled so users can modify the storage tier. When making the request, Service Portal users should change the storage tier.
  • 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.

  • 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.