Introduction
VMware has spent decades making data centers smarter and easier to manage.
Before virtualization, every application needed its own physical server. That meant buying a lot of hardware, setting it up slowly, wasting resources, and keeping IT teams constantly busy.
Then VMware introduced virtualization. In simple terms, this lets one physical server act like many smaller servers at the same time. Suddenly, multiple applications could run on a single piece of hardware. This meant resources were used more efficiently, deploying new software was faster, and scaling up became much easier. Tasks that used to take days could now be done in hours.
As companies grew, though, managing all of this manually became complicated. IT teams had to handle requests for new software, install operating systems, set up networks, allocate storage, and keep track of everything—an exhausting process.
That’s when automation came in. Automation lets the system handle repetitive tasks on its own, making everything faster, easier, and more reliable. It has become a core part of VMware’s approach and allows IT teams to focus on the work that really matters.
The Rise of VMware Automation
As companies grew, managing all their IT resources by hand became a real challenge. Teams needed a way to deliver infrastructure that was faster, more consistent, scalable, and repeatable—basically, something that just worked without constant manual effort.
The old manual way of doing things wasn’t cutting it anymore. Virtual machines took forever to deploy, configurations were inconsistent, IT teams were always in the middle of everything, and human errors kept creeping in. Service delivery was slow, and frustration was high.
That’s when VMware started building automation platforms. The idea was simple: let users request the infrastructure they needed without having to wait for someone to do it manually.
This was the start of VMware’s automation journey—a shift from slow, manual processes to a faster, smarter way of managing IT resources.
VMware’s Automation Journey: From vRA 6 to VCF
The Early Days: Laying the Groundwork
Before vRA 6, VMware was already experimenting with automation through vCloud Automation Center (vCAC). These early efforts set the stage for self-service infrastructure and blueprint-driven deployments. It was the foundation upon which the modern VMware automation story would be built.
vRA 6: Stepping Stones in Automation
vRealize Automation 6 officially carried the vRA name (2014) and helped IT teams start automating VM provisioning. Users could request virtual machines via a portal instead of waiting on IT to do everything manually.
It wasn’t flashy, but it was a necessary step—think of it as automation getting its first taste of freedom.
vRA 7: Automation Levels Up
Then came vRA 7, which really brought automation to life. A redesigned interface, integrated architecture, and blueprint-driven deployments meant IT teams could work smarter, and users could get what they needed faster.
Manual VM setups that once took days could now happen in hours. Standardized, repeatable, easier to govern—vRA 7 was a big leap forward.
But as IT environments grew—multi-cloud, containerized apps, DevOps workflows—vRA 7 started showing its limits. It was still mostly VM-focused.
vRA 8: The Transformation Phase
vRA 8 wasn’t just a new version—it was a complete reinvention of VMware automation. Imagine starting from scratch with everything we learned from vRA 6 and 7, then building a system that could handle today’s complex, multi-cloud world. That’s vRA 8.
Here’s what made it a game-changer:
- Kubernetes-based architecture: vRA 8 expanded automation beyond traditional VM-centric workflows. vRA 8 could now work seamlessly with containerized applications and modern cloud workloads.
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Instead of clicking through portals for every change, IT teams could define infrastructure in YAML templates, making deployments repeatable, version-controlled, and easier to manage.
- API-first design: Everything could be automated programmatically, not just through the UI. This made it perfect for DevOps pipelines and modern workflows.
- Multi-cloud readiness: vRA 8 could deploy and manage workloads across different cloud providers, making hybrid and multi-cloud strategies easier to execute.
- Extensibility framework: Organizations could build custom workflows and integrate third-party tools, giving IT teams unprecedented flexibility.
In short, automation was no longer just about spinning up virtual machines. vRA 8 turned VMware automation into a platform capable of orchestrating entire cloud infrastructures, with consistency, speed, and control.
It also paved the way for Aria Automation, signaling VMware’s shift toward full-stack cloud management rather than just virtual machines.
Aria Automation: Unified and Modern
With version 8.12, VMware renamed vRA to Aria Automation. This wasn’t just a new name—it showed that VMware was thinking bigger.
Aria Automation is designed to manage everything in your cloud environment: virtual machines, containers, multi-cloud setups, networking, and storage.
For IT teams, this means less switching between tools. Instead of managing each cloud or workflow separately, Aria provides a single platform for automation, governance, and lifecycle management.
In short, if vRA was a tool for specific tasks, Aria is the all-in-one platform for modern cloud operations. It also sets the stage for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Automation, where full-stack infrastructure management becomes much easier.
What is VMware Cloud Foundation?
As IT environments kept growing, managing everything separately started becoming difficult.
Teams were no longer dealing with just virtual machines. Now they also had to manage:
- networking
- storage
- security
- automation
- cloud environments
- operations
And honestly, using different tools for everything became messy very quickly.
That’s where VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) came in.
Instead of managing compute, storage, networking, and automation separately, VCF brings everything together into one platform.
At its core, VCF combines:
- vSphere for virtualization
- vSAN for storage
- NSX for networking and security
- Aria for automation and cloud management
The idea behind VCF was pretty simple:
make private cloud environments work more like public clouds.
Organizations wanted infrastructure that could:
- deploy faster
- scale easier
- automate operations
- reduce manual work
- stay consistent across environments
And VMware realized automation could no longer focus only on virtual machines.
It had to handle the entire infrastructure platform itself.
That shift became one of the biggest turning points in VMware’s automation journey.
To understand the basics of VMware Cloud Foundation more clearly, click here for a better understanding.
Evolution into VCF Automation
Earlier, VMware automation was mostly about virtual machines.
If a team needed a server, automation could deploy it faster instead of doing everything manually. That worked really well for a long time.
But slowly, the IT world started changing.
Applications became bigger, faster, and more demanding. Companies were no longer running everything inside a few simple virtual machines. They wanted environments that could scale quickly, support different platforms, and handle modern applications more efficiently.
At the same time, infrastructure teams were dealing with:
- multiple tools
- growing environments
- cloud platforms
- networking
- storage
- security
- automation workflows
Managing everything separately started becoming difficult.
That’s where VMware started thinking beyond just VM automation.
The focus slowly shifted from:
“How do we automate virtual machines?
to:
“How do we automate the entire infrastructure platform?”
And this is where VCF Automation started becoming important.
Instead of only provisioning workloads, VMware started building platforms that could automate:
- infrastructure
- operations
- lifecycle management
- networking
- cloud environments
all together in a more unified way.
This was no longer just virtualization automation anymore.
It was the beginning of modern private cloud automation.
Is vRA Dead? The Biggest Misconception
One question that keeps coming up in the VMware community is:
“Is vRA dead?”
Honestly? No.
vRA didn’t disappear. It evolved.
A lot of people think VMware completely moved away from vRA after Aria and VCF started becoming popular. But if you look closely, many of the ideas introduced by vRA are still very much alive today.
Things like:
- self-service automation
- cloud templates
- automated deployments
- orchestration
- extensibility
are still a huge part of modern VMware automation.
What really changed was the scale and direction.
Earlier, automation was mostly focused on deploying virtual machines and handling infrastructure requests faster.
Now VMware is thinking much bigger.
Instead of automating just workloads, the goal became : automating the entire private cloud platform.
That’s where VCF Automation comes in.
So in many ways, modern VCF Automation is actually built on top of the foundation that vRA started years ago.
The names changed.
The architecture changed.
The platforms evolved.
But the core idea stayed the same: make infrastructure faster, smarter, and easier to manage through automation.
The difference now is that automation is no longer limited to virtual machines.
It’s becoming the backbone of modern private cloud operations.