New in vSphere 6.0 Update 1

New in vSphere 6.0 Update 1

Disclaimer - VMware has not relived official repeat notes. All info has been taken from VMWorld 2015 session INFO5060 What’s new with vSphere 

The upcoming release of vSphere 6.0 Update 1 in Q3 2015 contains several new features and improvements along with the requisite bug fixes that normally accompany VMware's Update structure. Here are some of the new capabilities for vSphere 6 U1.

vSphere vCenter Appliance

Easy install update and upgrade

• vSphere update manager support in web client – The Update UI points to VMware’s online repository can also configure it to use an ISO or a existing repository (VUM will still require a separate Windows system)
• Upgrading vSphere 6.0 VCSA to Update 1, can now be accomplished by an in-place upgrade or sometimes refer to as a build-2-build. Just mount the U1 ISO to your existing VCSA 6.0 appliance to perform the upgrade. 

Continued improvements in web client – performance and layout have been improved to more closely match the installable client.

Faster evacuation time for maintenance mode – Get those VMs moved in a hurry for a speedier evacuation to maintenance mode.

Certificate authority management - Simplified management in Web Client for certificate management, you won’t be forced to use the CLI to move certificates around.

Throughput enhancements vs using windows vCenter server – According to the presenter along with the VCSA supporting the same sizing scenarios as the Windows Server vCenter Install and improved throughput over Windows, U1 will boast another 20% increases in performance over the Windows install.

The VCSA now supports both vCenter Server as well as ESXi as a deployment targets. Pre U1 ESXi was the only available target.

The ability to convert a single server VCSA deployment to an external Platform Services Controller or PSC. This allows starting with a simple Embedded VCSA deployment and as they get comfortable with the VCSA and want to scale out to an External PSC you can, this allows you to use features like Enhanced Link Mode.

A new Platform Services Controller UI that uses the same backend as the PSC configurations found vCenter Web UI. This way provides the ability configure SSO when the Web Client is unavailable. Troubleshooting should get a lot simpler.

I will update this post as new information is reviled. 

VMworld 2015 Anouncements

This year's VMworld doesn't seem as energetic as the last few years to me but one thing is for sure there 23000 people are here soak it all in. Most of the announcements so far are Cloud driven, a path that VMware has embraced strongly. here's the list sorry if I leave something out.

EVO SDDC Manager

EVO SDDC Manager is a single solution that contains the VMware vRealize Suite, NSX 6.2, VSAN 6.1 and vSphere 6. The solution is designed to be deployed in a two-hour timeframe and starts with just eight servers needed. Customers can grow their Software-defined Data Center a single host at a time after the initial deployment. The eight-host model supports 1,000 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) virtual machines (VMs), or 2,000 VDI VMs to start. EVO SDDC Manager supports the creation of a virtual rack design, known as a workload domain. Work domains provide ways of supporting non-disruptive lifecycle automation, such as patching workload domains through vMotion technology. Availability of EVO SDDC is expected in the first half of 2016

Hybrid Networking Services

VMware vCloud Air’s Hybrid Networking Services that combines intelligent routing, encryption, WAN acceleration, VXLAN extensions and direct connect capabilities from a VMware Private Cloud to vCloud Air. In the past, customers would use VMware vCloud Connector to migrate workloads from a VMware private cloud to vCloud Air using a copy process. This has been tightly integrated into vSphere using Content Libraries to allow administrators to synch VMs between private and public clouds. Now, however, we have Hybridity Actions available. Using a hybridity action from the vSphere Web Client, an application is no longer subject to a disruption when moving to vCloud Air under the vSphere replication process. Customers now have the choice to select either vSphere replication or the cross-cloud vMotion. This new announcement really excited the audience as VMware takes another step in the vMotion realm, by first moving vMotion into a long-distance vMotion process, and now onto cross-cloud.


vSphere Integrated Containers

The last major announcement from today’s keynote talks about vSphere Integrated Containers. This announcement is about how to build cloud-native applications that leverage both cloud infrastructure and frameworks within a distributed model. By using integrated containers, virtual admins can view and manage containers directly within the vSphere Web Client, while DevOps can continue to manage containers directly within the VM. From a security perspective, the integrated containers will also provide hardware-level isolation.


Im still working on more info and will continue to update this post as needed.