vSphere 6.5 & Virtual SAN (vSAN) 6.5 Now Generally Available (GA)!

vSphere 6.5 & Virtual SAN (vSAN) 6.5

Now Generally Available (GA)!

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vSphere 6.5:

There are 3 themes for vSphere 6.5:

Simplified Experience –
- simplified architecture (integrated vCenter Server Appliance, Update Manager included all-in-one), no Windows/SQL licensing
- Native High Availability (HA) of vCenter for the appliance is built-in – Automatic failover (Web Client may require re-login)
- Native Backup and Restore of vCenter appliance – 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.
- New HTML5-based vSphere Client that is both responsive and easy to use (Based on our new Clarity UI)
Built-In Security –
- Encryption at rest and in motion – new VM-level encryption capability designed to protect against unauthorized data access. When used with vSphere vMotion, this capability safeguards both data at rest and data in motion
- secure boot model to make sure images have not been tampered with and to prevent the loading of unauthorized vSphere component
- secure access, vSphere 6.5 provides multi-factor authentication. You can now configure vCenter Server permissions to require 2-Factor authentication using both a password and a smartcard or RSA key. Plus, vSphere 6.5 offers enhanced audit-quality logging capabilities that provide more information about user actions. IT can now access auditable trails if an investigation into anomalies or security threats require it.
Universal App Platform – universal app platform that supports both traditional and next-generation apps (including 3D graphics, big data, machine learning environments, SAP Hana, and SaaS)… vSphere 6.5 expands its workload coverage model by focusing on both scale-up and scale-out next-gen apps that are increasingly built using evolving technology building blocks, such as containers.
- VIC is extends vSphere capabilities to run container workloads and sits on top of vCenter, and integrates with the rest of the VMware stack like NSX and vSAN…
  - vSphere Integrated Containers where we are enabling the best of both worlds for contained based cloud native apps…
  - vSphere Integrated Containers is the easiest way for vSphere users to bring containers into an existing environment.
  - Integrated containers deliver an enterprise container infrastructure that provides the best of both worlds for the developer and vSphere operations team.
  - Containers are now just as easy to enable and manage as virtual machines.
  - For cloud native apps, there are two audiences we are trying to serve, one is the developers, they want to leverage native docker interface, using the tools that they are familiar with.
  - For IT, operations guys, they want to have control and visibility of these category of applications, they like to leverage tools and processes they have honed in over the years.
- newly released VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation Service are built on vSphere 6.5.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please be sure to check the vSphere 6.5 compatibility blog (see KB 2147548) before upgrading to vSphere 6.5 if you are currently using other VMware solutions.

vSphere 6.5 Announcement: https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/10/introducing-vsphere-6-5.html

vSphere 6.5 Release Notes: http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/vsphere/65/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-65-release-notes.html

Download: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/6_5

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Virtual SAN (VSAN) 6.5:

Additional TCO Savings by…
- Offering New Workload types such as Cloud-Native Apps and the ability for Physical workloads to point to the VSAN datastore via iSCSI
  - vSphere
    - Works off-the-shelf with Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes, …
    - Persistent Docker Volume Driver
  - vSphere Integrated Containers
    - Docker API Compatibility
    - Persistent Volume Driver
    - VM-like container isolation
  - Photon Platform
    - New VSAN for Photon Platform release available
  - Non-virtualized workloads can utilize VSAN for storage (using iSCSI initiators)
- Support of All-Flash hardware in Virtual SAN (VSAN) STANDARD
- While eliminating the cost of networking hardware for (2)-Node ROBO deployments.
  - Eliminate router/switch costs by connecting two nodes directly using crossover cables
  - Supports two cross over cables between the
    2-Nodes for higher availability of network
  - Separates VSAN data traffic from witness VM traffic
- Then we can Accelerate Responsiveness of the business by…
  - Providing a Full-Featured PowerCLI tool to fully automate operational tasks.
  - And then separating witness and Virtual SAN (VSAN) traffic for Stretched Clusters.
- We have accelerated the adoption of HCI with the support of Next-Gen Hardware…
  - By increasing the Cache Sizing
  - As well as now support large capacity drives through the 512e drives.