What’s new in Morpheus 5.3.1

We recently released version 5.3.1 of our industry leading Cloud Management Platform with a number of notable new features and enhancements. It is available for download now from the Morpheus Hub.

Key release features and enhancements include:

• Kubernetes lifecycle management updates
• Terraform instance types
• AWS CloudFormation state management
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP) enhancements
• Morpheus VDI General Availability

The full list of features and improvements included in the Morpheus 5.3.1 release are found in the release notes. You can also check out this third-party review from 451 Research.

Kubernetes Lifecycle Management with Morpheus

Simplifying how operations teams build, manage, and consume Kubernetes in hybrid-cloud and mixed platform environments. A core feature of the Morpheus platform is Kubernetes cluster management and Morpheus 5.3.1 greatly improves the manageability of Kubernetes clusters.

Kubernetes 1.20 Support

Support for Kubernetes 1.20 has been added in this release for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) as well as the built-in Morpheus Kubernetes Engine (MKE) distribution that can be deployed across public and private clouds supported by Morpheus.

Enhanced Resource Discovery & Management

Kubernetes administrators are now able to create, view and manage virtually all of their Kubernetes resources (service accounts, roles, config maps, secrets, persistent volume claims, etc.) from within the Morpheus UI. This includes management of MKE clusters as well as third-party distributions such as AKS, Rancher, OpenShift, etc.

Enhancing Infrastructure as Code Management

Eliminating automation islands and making on-prem Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) as easy as public cloud. Simplifying management and governance of IaC with tools like HashiCorp Terraform, AWS CloudFormation and ARM Templates is a core capability of the Morpheus platform. This release adds new features to the Terraform and CloudFormation integrations that improves the management of resources with those tools in the platform.

Terraform Instance Types

Terraform instance types are a new feature that enables Terraform provisioned IaaS resources to be managed like Morpheus native instances. This enables phase-based provisioning workflows to be tied to the provisioned instances. The ability to tie a provisioning workflow to a Terraform instance simplifies the process of automating post provisioning tasks by leveraging Morpheus’ orchestration functionality. For example, if you want to tie configuration management scripts from Ansible, Chef, SaltStack, or Puppet to the lifecycle phases of your terraform provisioned instances it’s now just a click or an API call away. You can learn more in our online guide for Terraform Instance Types.

CloudFormation Enhancements

Morpheus 5.3.1 further enhances the AWS CloudFormation integration in the platform by adding the following features:

• Support for editing and updating the CloudFormation template associated with an instance in the Morpheus UI.
• Additional visibility into the CloudFormation stack details such as events, parameters, outputs and more from within the Morpheus UI.
• Detection of state drift has been added to see when the desired state and actual state of the resources have diverged.

Simplifying and Extending Google Cloud Support

A number of enhancements have been made to the GCP cloud integration in this release to provide feature parity in the Morpheus platform with AWS and Azure. Expanded details can be found on the Morpheus doc site in this GCP guide.

All Project and Region Scoping

The GCP integration now supports specifying all GCP projects and regions when creating a cloud. This simplifies the configuration of GCP by eliminating the need to create a cloud integration for each project and region.

Networking Enhancements

In addition to the scoping enhancements, this release of the Morpheus platform enables native management of the following GCP networking constructs:

• Networks
• Subnets
• Network firewall rules
• NAT gateways
• Routers

Granular Price Syncing

Prices are now synced at a more granular level that includes processor cores, memory and storage.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Morpheus VDI came out in a beta version earlier this year to positive reviews from early customers. This persona-based interface into desktop instances has now officially been released for general availability in this release of the Morpheus platform. Morpheus VDI lets you access Windows and Linux desktops on-premises or in the public cloud via a web browser. It’s more flexible and affordable than platform specific options from VMware, Xen, or the public cloud providers. Full details available in this simple getting started guide to Morpheus VDI.

Morpheus VDI features

Morpheus VDI includes a number of features that make it easy to deploy and access desktops anywhere in the world.

• Windows and Linux desktop support
• Access full desktops or individual applications
• Public cloud support for clouds that the Morpheus platform supports such as AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.
• Private cloud support for clouds that the Morpheus platform supports such as vSphere, Nutanix, OpenStack, etc.
• SSO integration for enhanced security provided by your IdP (Okta, OneLogin, etc.)
• Clipboard Copy/Paste
• HiDPI Support
• Auto Compression Scanning based on User Bandwidth
• Audio Playback (RDP) support
• Local Printer (RDP) support
• Auto-Resize

New VDI features added in Morpheus 5.3.1

This release includes the following new VDI features:

• VDI Gateways: VDI gateways enable the Morpheus VDI solution to be highly scalable by offloading the connection brokering between the endpoint access device and the virtual desktop to a dedicated VDI gateway. The gateways can be deployed using a standard package installation or as a Docker container.
• VDI Jump Hosts: In addition to VDI gateways, this release introduces VDI jump hosts which are used in situations where an intermediary host is necessary between the Morpheus platform and the desktop being accessed.
• API/CLI Support for VDI Pool Management: Support has been added to automate the management of VDI pools using the Morpheus CLI or REST API.

Try Morpheus Community Edition or Get a Demo
The Morpheus Community Edition lets you fully experience the Morpheus platform including nearly all features and capabilities! Register at Morpheus Hub and try it in your home lab or test environment today! Interested in learning more about Morpheus from one of our cloud transformation experts? Schedule a demo to walk through how Morpheus can help your organization here.