At today’s VMworld Europe conference in Barcelona VMware are announcing vSphere 6.5. There are a plethora of new features and fixes in this series of postings I plan to cover the ones that caught my eye and so for the first one let us cover the vSphere 6.5 VCSA and Clients announcements.

Overview

• Native high availability – An all new HA solution that reduces RTO and is easy to configure. No dependency on expensive 3^rd party database clustering solutions of RDMs while eliminating the single point of failure for vCenter Server
• VMware Update Manager – is now integrated into the vCenter Server Appliance. Simple, enabled by default, and removes the requirement for a separate Windows VM.
• Improved appliance management – an improved vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface (VMAI) brings more CPU, Memory, Network and Database monitoring right into the UI. Reduces reliance on CLI for simple monitoring tasks.
• Native Backup and Restore – Simplified backup and restore with a new native file-based solution. Restore the vCenter server configuration to a fresh appliance and stream backups to external storage using HTTP, FTP or SCP protocols (Only available on the vCenter Server appliance)

VCSA Deployment

• Installer support now for windows, Mac and Linux
• An updated menu where you cannot just select to install or upgrade but also migrate and restore.

• VMware vSphere Update Manager included
• VCSA and PSC install is now a two stage process
  • Stage 1- Deploy OVF
  • Stage 2 – Configuration
• The benefits of the 2-stage deployment are:
  • Improved validation and checks
  • Manual snapshot between stages for rollback
  • Create a template for additional deployments

VCSA Migration – 6.5

• 6.5 support for Windows vCenter 5.5 or 6.0 -> 6.5
• Migrations for both embedded and external topologies
• VMware vSphere Update Manager included as part of migration
• Assumes the identity of the source Windows vCenter (UUID, IP, OS Name, Certificates)
• Embedded and external Database support: MSSQL, MSSQL Express, Oracle
• Migration Assistant pre-checks
• Option to select historical and performance data

VCSA Monitoring

• New vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface
• Built in monitoring: Network, CPU and Memory
• Visibility to vPostgres DB
• Remote syslog configuration
• vMon: Enhanced watchdog functionality

Native vCenter Server Appliance Backup & Restore

• Removes dependency on 3^rd party backup solutions
• Restore vCenter Server instance to a brand new appliance
• Supports backup/restore of VCSA & PSC appliances
• Includes embedded and external deployments
• Supported protocols include:
  • HTTP/S
  • SC
  • FTP/S
• Option for Encryption
• Restore directly from VCSA ISO

Native vCenter High Availability

• VCSA Only
• Active/Passive with witness
• Required network configuration:
  • Eth0 – Public network
  • Eth1 – Private network (added during configuration)
• Two configuration options: Basic and Advanced

Client Integration Plugin Deprecation

• In 6.5 CIP is no longer required
  • Replaced by native browser functions
  • Optional plugin called Enhanced Authentication Plugin for smart card and Integrate Windows Authentication login capabilities.

vSphere HTML5 Web Client

· Clarity UI standard

· No browser plugins

· Integrated into vCenter Server 6.5

· Fully supports Enhanced Linked Mode

Make sure you attend one of the multiple sessions by Emad Younis and Adam Eckerle to learn and see more.

Gregg