VMware vSphere Automation SDK for .NET 6.5 Release Notes

VMware vSphere Automation SDK for .NET 6.5 | 15 November 2016 | Build 4571809

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

This document contains the following sections:

Overview

The VMware vSphere Automation SDKs provide support for your client application infrastructure with services to perform management operations in your vSphere environment. The vSphere Automation SDK for .NET also contains samples that demonstrate how the libraries work with other vSphere APIs.

The version 6.5 SDK enables programmatic access to the following services:

  • Service discovery using Lookup Service
  • Authentication (Single Sign-On)
  • Session management
  • Tagging
  • Content Library
  • Virtual Machines
  • vCenter Server Appliance management

Note:  Single Sign-On authentication is available through the VMware vCenter Single Sign-On API. Service discovery is available through the Lookup Service API.

Distribution Kit

When you extract the contents of the vSphere Automation SDK for .NET distribution kit, the files are placed in the VMware-vSphere-Automation-SDK-.Net directory:

    VMware-vSphere-Automation-SDK-.NET/
        client/
        docs/
        open_source_license.txt
        SDK-EULA.txt
        vSphere-Automation-SDK-.NET-README.html

You can download the vSphere Automation SDK for .NET distribution kit from the VMware Developer Center.

What's New

This release of vSphere 6.5 included the following changes:

  • vCloud Suite SDK for .NET is now renamed to vSphere Automation SDK for .NET.
  • vCloud Suite SDK for .NET requires version 4.5 or higher of the .NET framework.
  • Creating a content library backed by a file storage URI is not supported. When you create a content library and specify a Windows Shared Folder as a storage backing, note that the file URI format is not supported and you should use smb://unc-server/path instead of file://unc-server/path.
  • Creating a subscribed content library with a file subscription URL is not supported. When you create a subscribed library you can use an HTTP or HTTPS subscription URL. The new URI schemes supported for this release are NFS, SMB, and DS. For more information about the supported URI formats, see the API Reference documentation.
  • Virtual Machine Management APIs that enable developers to manage the lifecycle and configure the hardware of a virtual machine.
  • The Tagging API is more powerful, including improved search methods and bulk tagging capability.
  • vCenter Server Appliance Management APIs that enable developers to create client applications to configure, monitor, and manage the vCenter Server Appliance.

Resolved Issues

This release of vSphere 6.5 included the following fixes:

  • Certificate Validation

    The samples in the vSphere Automation SDK for .NET have been updated to enable certificate validation for service endpoints by default. See the documentation in the SDK for details about how to install root certificates from the servers you want to connect to.

Known Issues

The following issues were discovered during testing.

  • Internal Server Error if Tagging Description Field is Empty

    The Tag Category Description field is optional in the vSphere Web Services API, but it is mandatory in the vSphere Automation SDK. Therefore, if the description field is empty, the vSphere Automation SDK can return an internal server error that states, "the ‘description’ field of the Category model is empty".

    Workaround:

    When creating tags, do not leave the description field empty. If you do not have any description, you may add a whitespace character (i.e. space).

  • Unauthenticated exception following long-running operation

    After an API client completes a long-running operation, such as an upload to the content library, the next operation might fail with an "Unauthenticated exception" message. This happens if the long running operation did not complete within the lifetime of the authentication session.

    Workarounds:

    • Keep the session alive by issuing short operations on another thread until the long running operation completes.
    • Increase the session length using the VMware vSphere Web Client. Select Administration > System Configuration > Services > vAPI Endpoint > Manage > General, and increase the value for the Maximum session idle time.