Today, VMware announces vSphere 6.5, the latest version of its industry-leading virtualization platform. This new release of vSphere features a dramatically simplified experience, comprehensive built-in security, and a universal app platform for running any app.
vSphere 6.5 accelerates the customer transition to digital transformation and cloud computing by addressing key challenges:
Vcenter Server 6.5 Keygen
1. Environments growing increasingly complex,
2. Growing IT security threats, and
3. The need to support both existing and new apps and services.
Let’s take a look at some of the key capabilities.
Dramatically Simplified Experience
vSphere 6.5 elevates the customer experience to an entirely new level. It provides exceptional management simplicity, operational efficiency, and faster time to market
vSphere 6.5 makes the vCenter Server Appliance the fundamental building block of a vSphere environment. The core vSphere architecture is built around this easy to deploy and manage approach that reduces operational complexity by embedding key functionality into a single location. Capabilities such as vSphere host management (with a fully integrated vSphere Update Manager), file-based backup and recovery, native VCSA high availability, and much more are now embedded in this new one-stop appliance model. Users can now be more efficient as there is no longer a need to interface with multiple components. Additionally, because everything is centralized, vCenter Server Appliance generates a tremendous amount of optimization and innovation, including an over 2x increase in scale and 3x in performance. Upgrading to this building block will be easier than ever before as users can now convert from their traditional Windows deployment into the new appliance model using the new vCenter Server Appliance Migration tool.
vCenter Server Appliance: The fundamental building block of a vSphere environment
In this release, vSphere 6.5 also takes an API-first approach to foster a more business-centric and highly agile environment. In a world where infrastructure as code is becoming a requirement rather than just nice to have, a programmable infrastructure layer is now essential. vSphere 6.5 introduces new REST-based APIs for VM Management that vastly improve both the user and partner experience by enabling finer control of virtual infrastructure for apps. You can now do much more with less lines of code with these new simple APIs.
The final component that allows vSphere 6.5 to deliver a simplified experience is the graphical user interface itself. The highly anticipated new HTML5-based vSphere Client provides a modern user interface experience that is both responsive and easy to use. Many customers have already experienced this vSphere Client as part of a Fling on VMware Labs, and thus far the response has been overwhelming positive.
HTML5-based vSphere Client: GUI that enables fast performance and cross-platform compatibility
Comprehensive Built-in Security
With increased threats, comprehensive built-in security becomes more critical than ever before. vSphere 6.5 natively provides secure data, infrastructure, and access at scale via its operationally simple, policy-driven model. Protecting all three areas is essential for digital transformation and the evolution of any given business.
To secure data, vSphere 6.5 offers a new VM-level disk encryption capability designed to protect against unauthorized data access. VMware’s approach is both universal and scalable, with the ability to encrypt any VM disk regardless of guest OS, and the ability to manage encryption at scale using the familiar vSphere storage policy framework. Combined with the new encrypted vMotion capability, vSphere can safeguard both data at-rest and data in-motion.
To assure the security of the underlying infrastructure, vSphere 6.5 also adds a secure boot model to protect both the hypervisor and the guest operating system. It helps prevent images from being tampered with and prevents the loading of unauthorized components.
vSphere 6.5 also delivers enhanced audit-quality logging capabilities that provide more forensic information about user actions. IT can now better understand who did what, when, and where if an investigation into anomalies or security threats requires it.
vSphere 6.5 is the core of a secure SDDC and works seamlessly with other SDDC products to provide a complete security model for infrastructure.
Comprehensive Built-in Security: Secure Data, Secure Infrastructure, and Secure Access
Universal App Platform
vSphere is a universal app platform that supports both traditional and next-generation apps. While these two worlds are vastly different, both require infrastructure with the scale, performance, and availability to meet key business objectives.
vSphere has always been pushing the limits on what apps it can support. Initially it was all about test/dev but then quickly expanded coverage business critical apps as well. Later, it included Desktop Virtualization and 3D graphics. Now we are seeing more modern apps being virtualized including Hadoop, Spark, Machine Learning, HPC and cloud native apps.
To run any app, 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. In this release, VMware delivers vSphere Integrated Containers, the easiest way for vSphere users to bring containers into an existing vSphere environment. vSphere Integrated Containers delivers an enterprise container infrastructure that provides the best of both worlds for the developers and vSphere operations teams. Containers are now just as easy to enable and manage as virtual machines. No process or tool changes are required.
VMware vSphere Integrated Containers helps customers to transform their businesses with containers without re-architecting their existing infrastructure. It is comprised of three components – the Engine which provides the core container run-time, Harbor which is an enterprise registry for container images, and Admiral which is a portal for container management by dev teams. vSphere Integrated Containers enables IT operations teams to provide a Docker compatible interface to their app teams, running on their existing vSphere infrastructure and features tight integration with VMware NSX and VMware Virtual SAN to support best-in-class network automation and scale out, high performance persistent storage, respectively.
vSphere Integrated Containers: Delivering the best of both worlds for IT and Developers
vSphere 6.5 also lets you run apps from any cloud, including your data center or in public cloud environments. vSphere 6.5 is not only the heart of the Software-Defined Data Center, it’s also the foundation of VMware’s cloud strategy. vSphere 6.5 is available in both the private cloud and as a service through a public cloud. The newly announced VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware Cloud on AWS are both built on vSphere 6.5.
As the ideal platform for apps, cloud, and business, vSphere 6.5 reinforces the customer’s investment in VMware. vSphere 6.5 is one of the core components of VMware’s SDDC and a fundamental building block for VMware’s cloud strategy. With vSphere 6.5, customers can now run, manage, connect, and secure their applications in a common operating environment, across clouds and devices.
Learn More
This article only touched upon the key highlights of this release, but there are many, many more new features. To learn more about vSphere 6.5, please see the following resources.
Related Posts:
- What’s New in vSphere 6.5: Host & Resource…What’s New in vSphere 6.5: Host & Resource Management and OperationsCharu Chaubal posted October 18, 2016
- What’s new in vSphere 6.5: SecurityWhat's new in vSphere 6.5: SecurityMike Foley posted October 18, 2016
- What’s New in vSphere 6.5: vCenter ServerWhat's New in vSphere 6.5: vCenter ServerCharu Chaubal posted October 18, 2016
As of this writing, vCenter 6.5.0d has been released which gives me the opportunity to update my lab’s vCSA (vCenter Server Appliance) to this latest release and write about it as well. The update process has been greatly simplified thanks to the Appliance Management tool which is also used to manage the appliance’s configuration or parts of it. In today’s post, I’ll take you through the three methods you can use to update vCSA using the Appliance Management tool.
Backup First
Before trying out any of these methods, make sure to snapshot and/or take a backup of the appliance just in case the update fails. While writing this post, I successfully reverted back to snapshot a number of times not because any of the update methods failed but because I had to make sure that each of the methods covered here worked flawlessly. So, do yourself a favor and snapshot your appliance more so if it’s being used for production.
If you have an Internet facing vCSA
This method works only if the appliance has Internet connectivity (ports 80,443) which it needs to connect to VMware’s online repositories.
To start with, point your browser to https://<vCSA IP Address or hostname>:5480 and log in as root. Remember that we’re accessing the appliance itself and not the vCenter Server component so user accounts like [email protected] will not work.
Figure 2 – The Appliance Management tool used to configure and update vCSA
After you log in, click on Update and hit the Settings button as shown in Fig. 3.
Fromthe Update Settings dialog, you can either use the default VMware repository URL or specify one yourself. The default repository is automatically points to the latest appliance update as shown in Fig. 4. You can also schedule the time at which the vCSA polls for updates. This, however, does not imply that updates are automatically downloaded.
Figure 4 – Link to the latest available vCSA update is set automatically
If the Check for updates automatically option is ticked off, click on Check Updates and select Check Repository. This will poll the VMware repository for the latest available update and display the link as such. Expanding More Details, will reveal more information on the update being installed along with a link to the KB article describing it. When required, use this link to correlate the current version with that being updated.
Figure 5 – Manually checking for the latest update. Full details for update are also displayed.
Updating the appliance, is a simple matter of clicking on Install Updates and selecting Install All Updates as per Fig. 6.
The upgrade process may take a while and at times you may think it’s actually stuck. Just remember that the process needs to download 1.5GB worth of file which can take time depending on the environment, available bandwidth and what not. In my case – nested environment on a heavily used ESXi host – , 40 minutes into the update and the installer was still stuck at 40%.
To verify that the vCSA was actually doing something, I logged on the vCenter Server hosting it using the vSphere Web Client. I then checked the vCSA VM’s network performance graph for any signs of activity. As shown in Fig. 7, the VM was pretty busy on the networking front with activity spiking immediately as soon as the update kicked in.
Figure 7 – Network activity on the vCSA’s VM indicating that the update is being downloaded
At one point, the installer lost connectivity to the appliance – probably because it timed out – so I wasn’t quite sure if the update completed successfully. If this happens, SSH to the vCSA and check the contents of a log file called software-packages.log which you’ll find under /storage/log/vmware/applmgmt. Run the following command:
Figure 8 – Checking the software-packages log file to determine the result of the update
If the update completed successfully, you should see a line containing Packages upgraded successfully, reboot is required. If that’s the case, proceed with rebooting the appliance so the changes can take root. If not, scour the log file for hints as to what went wrong and revert back to snapshot. This is all shown in the video below. The appliance’s version will read to the latest even though the appliance needs to be rebooted. You can verify this from the Appliance Management tool and the vCSA’s console.
For Non-Internet facing vCSAs
If Internet access is denied to the appliance, which is pretty normal in production environments, you’ll need to download the update manually and use one of the two methods described next.
The ISO Method
You first need to download the vCSA update – as an ISO file – from https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/patch#search. To download the update, you need to sign up for a VMware account unless you already have. Once you do that, select VC followed by the latest version from the drop-down menus as shown in Fig.9, marked 1 and 2. Then, select the latest available update by ticking the box next to it (3) and click on Download (4).
Figure 9 – Downloading the vCSA update as an ISO image
As shown in Fig. 10, I’ve uploaded the ISO file to a datastore on the ESXi host where the vCSA VM resides. I then mounted it as a CD/DVD drive from the vCSA VM’s settings. The same update process is repeated using the Appliance Management tool.
Select the Check CDROM update option to verify the ISO image, the details for which are displayed on the Update screen. If all’s well and good, select Install CDROM Updates (4) to run the update process.
Figure 10 – Updating the appliance using a locally mounted ISO image
Updating from ISO, reduces the time taken to update the appliance mainly because there are no update files to download.
This time round, there were no time-outs and the appliance update took only 5 minutes to successfully complete. The appliance is then rebooted by clicking OK – which brings up another dialog box prompting for a reboot – or via the Reboot button on the Summary page.
Figure 12 – A successful update! An appliance reboot is mandatory.
The Web Server Method
If complicating matters is your thing, here’s an alternative method you can try. This time, you need to download the vCSA update bundle which is a zipped archive. This, pretty much, contains the same RPM packages comprising the ISO file save for a couple of manifest files. The zip file is downloadable from my.vmware.com from the VMware vCenter Server 6.5.0d downloads section.
Figure 13 – The vCSA update bundle downloadable from my.vmware.com
The bundle is then extracted to the root folder of a web server. For this example, I’ve used IIS. I extracted the archive’s contents to c:inetpub as shown in Fig. 14 and modified the Default Web Site to point directly to it. Directory Browsing must be enabled for Default Website unless the setting is inherited.
Figure 14 – Extracting the update bundle to an IIS server and setting the default website to point to it
Lastly, you need to create MIME types for the .sign and .json files which the vCSA reads from the files present under the two folders – package-pool and manifest – extracted to c:inetpub.
Figure 16 – Manifest files from the extracted update bundle
To add new MIME types, just click on the MIME Types icon and add them via the Add link at the top-right corner or by right-clicking on the MIME Types page in IIS. Add the 2 new mime types as shown in Figure 17.
Note: This was tested on IIS 8 running on Windows Server 2012. Additional MIME types, perhaps for the RPM packages, may need to be created.
That’s all there is to it as far as IIS configuration is concerned. For authentication, I used anonymous which is enabled by default. You may wish to use other forms of authentication if security is a concern.
To update vCSA from the IIS repository, click on Updates, Settings and type in the IP address of the IIS server as shown below. Optionally, add a username and password if you set up any other form of authentication other than anonymous.
Figure 18 – Point the vCSA to download the update bundle from the IIS server
The appliance will upgrade identically to the previous methods used. On completion, you are once again asked to reboot.
Figure 19 – Rebooting the appliance after updating
Troubleshooting
You may come across a Download Failed error message when testing this method for the first time. This generally occurs due to 401 or 404 errors on the Web Server’s side. While testing this method, I took hints from the software-packages.log on the vCSA to iron out any problems I ran into. For instance, 404 errors told me that I needed to create mime types for the .sign and .json files since IIS, by default, doesn’t know about them which leads to a file not found error.
Below is an example of what you’ll see in the log file. The entries point to something wrong with how authentication is set up on IIS; I intentionally disabled anonymous authentication to reproduce the error.
Conclusion
As we’ve seen, updating vCenter Server Appliance is pretty easy, something you can do using any of the three methods outlined in this post. Regardless of the method used, it is always important to take a backup of the vCSA, and any other critical component for that matter, before updating or upgrading. There’s no guarantee that an update will succeed, so at the risk of repeating myself, being able to recover from a failed update or upgrade is paramount to business continuity and your sanity!
Today VMware announced vSphere 6.5, which is one of the most feature rich releases of vSphere in quite some time. The vCenter Server Appliance is taking charge in this release with several new features which we’ll cover in this blog article. For starters, the installer has gotten an overhaul with a new modern look and feel. Users of both Linux and Mac will also be ecstatic since the installer is now supported on those platforms along with Microsoft Windows. If that wasn’t enough, the vCenter Server Appliance now has features that are exclusive such as:
- Migration
- Improved Appliance Management
- VMware Update Manager
- Native High Availability
- Built-in Backup / Restore
We’ll also cover general improvements to vCenter Server 6.5 including the vSphere Web Client and the fully supported HTML5-based vSphere Client.
Migration
Getting to the vCenter Server Appliance is no longer an issue as the installer has a built in Migration Tool. This Migration Tool has several improvements over the recently released vSphere 6.0 Update 2m release. Now, Windows vCenter Server 5.5 and 6.0 are supported. If you’re currently running a Windows vCenter Server 6.0, this is your chance to get to the vCenter Server Appliance using this Migration Tool. In vSphere 6.5 there is an improvement in the migration tool which allows for more granular selection of migrated data as follows:
- Configuration
- Configuration, events, and tasks
- Configuration, events, tasks, and performance metrics
VMware Update Manager (VUM) is now part of the vCenter Server Appliance. This will be huge for customers who have been waiting to migrate to the vCenter Server Appliance without managing a separate Windows server for VUM. If you’ve already migrated to the vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 the upgrade process will migrate your VUM baselines and updates to the vCenter Server Appliance 6.5. During the migration process the vCenter configuration, inventory, and alarm data is migrated by default.
Improved Appliance Management
Another exclusive feature of the vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 is the improved appliance management capabilities. The vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface continues its evolution and exposes additional health and configurations. This simple user interface now shows Network and Database statistics, disk space, and health in addition to CPU and memory statistics which reduces the reliance on using a command line interface for simple monitoring and operational tasks.
vCenter Server High Availability
vCenter Server 6.5 has a new native high availability solution that is available exclusively for the vCenter Server Appliance. This solution consists of Active, Passive, and Witness nodes which are cloned from the existing vCenter Server. Failover within the vCenter HA cluster can occur when an entire node is lost (host failure for example) or when certain key services fail. For the initial release of vCenter HA an RTO of about 5 minutes is expected but may vary slightly depending on load, size, and capabilities of the underlying hardware.
Backup and Restore
New in vCenter Server 6.5 is built-in backup and restore for the vCenter Server Appliance. This new out-of-the-box functionality enables customers to backup vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller appliances directly from the VAMI or API, and also backs up both VUM and Auto Deploy running embedded with the appliance. The backup consists of a set of files that will be streamed to a storage device of the customer’s choosing using SCP, HTTP(s), or FTP(s) protocols. This backup fully supports vCenter Server Appliances with embedded and external Platform Services Controllers. The Restore workflow is launched from the same ISO from which the vCenter Server Appliance (or PSC) was originally deployed or upgraded.
vSphere Web Client
From a User Interface perspective, probably the most used UI is the vSphere Web Client. This interface continues to be based on the Adobe Flex platform and requires Adobe Flash to use. However, VMware has continued to identify areas for improvement that will help improve the user experience until it is retired. Through several outreach efforts over the past year we’ve identified some high-value areas where we think customers are looking most for improvements. This small list of high-impact improvements will help with the overall user experience with the vSphere Web Client while development continues with the HTML5-based vSphere Client:
- Inventory tree is the default view
- Home screen reorganized
- Renamed “Manage” tab to “Configure”
- Removed “Related Objects” tab
- Performance improvements (VM Rollup at 5000 instead of 50 VMs)
- Live refresh for power states, tasks, and more!
vSphere Client
With vSphere 6.5 I’m excited to say that we have a fully supported version of the HTML5-based vSphere Client that will run alongside the vSphere Web Client. The vSphere Client is built right into vCenter Server 6.5 (both Windows and Appliance) and is enabled by default. While the vSphere Client doesn’t yet have full feature parity the team have prioritized many of the day to day tasks of administrators and continue to seek feedback on what’s missing that will enable customers to use it full time. The vSphere Web Client will continue to be accessible via “http://<vcenter_fqdn>/vsphere-client” while the vSphere Client will be reachable via “http://<vcenter_fqdn>/ui”. VMware will also be periodically updating the vSphere Client outside of the normal vCenter Server release cycle. To make sure it is easy and simple for customers to stay up to date the vSphere Client will be able to be updated without any effects to the rest of vCenter Server.
Now let’s take a look at some of the benefits to the new vSphere Client:
- Clean, consistent UI built on VMware’s new Clarity UI standards (to be adopted across our portfolio)
- Built on HTML5 so it is truly a cross-browser and cross-platform application
- No browser plugins to install/manage
- Integrated into vCenter Server for 6.5 and fully supported
- Fully supports Enhanced Linked Mode
- Users of the Fling have been extremely positive about its performance
Conclusion
Vsphere Vcenter 6.5 Keygen
While we’ve covered quite a few features there are many more which will be covered in accompanying blog articles. We will also be following up with detailed blogs on several of these new features which will be available by the time vSphere 6.5 reaches General Availability.
We hope you are as excited about this release as we are! Please post questions in the comments or reach out to Emad (@Emad_Younis) or Adam (@eck79) via Twitter.
Related Posts:
- What’s New in vSphere 6.5: Host & Resource…What’s New in vSphere 6.5: Host & Resource Management and OperationsCharu Chaubal posted October 18, 2016
- What’s new in vSphere 6.5: SecurityWhat's new in vSphere 6.5: SecurityMike Foley posted October 18, 2016
- Introducing vSphere 6.5Introducing vSphere 6.5Charu Chaubal posted October 18, 2016
Despite VMware’s stride to push for the adoption of vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) instead of its Windows-based twin, the latter is still an integral part of vSphere 6.5. In this short how-to post, I’ll guide you through the steps required to install the latest incarnation of vCenter. To keep matters simple, I went for an embedded Platform Services Controller and PostgreSQL database solution. This setup will suffice for most SMBs out there. Broadly speaking, most SMB VMware based environment will fall under the Tiny or Small categories as per VMware’s literature.
The table shows the different types of environments, their respective capacity in terms of the number of ESXi hosts and deployed VMs and the compute resources that need to be allocated to vCenter Server.
Type | ESXi Hosts | VMs | VC RAM (GB) | VC CPUs |
Tiny | 10 | 100 | 10 | 2 |
Small | 100 | 1000 | 16 | 4 |
Medium | 400 | 4000 | 24 | 8 |
Large | 1000 | 10000 | 32 | 16 |
X-Large | 2000 | 35,0000 | 48 | 24 |
Note: vCenter Server for Windows 6.5 runs on Windows Server 2008 SP2 or better. As per earlier versions, installing vCenter on an Active Directory Domain Controller IS NOT supported.
A complete list of requirements is available on the VMware vSphere 6.5 documentation site.
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Getting on with the installation
Step 1: Prepare a VM or physical server. The specifications should reflect the environment you expect to be managing. Remember to allocate at least 10GB of RAM, 2 CPUs and 17GB of disk space over and above what’s required for the Windows OS and other installed software. Also keep in mind that in time, the vCenter database will grow in size, so factor in this as well when allocating disk capacity.
Step 2: Decide on a hostname for vCenter (ex. vcw65). Create the corresponding A and PTR records on a DNS server and make sure that the records resolve correctly.
Figure 1 – Creating the DNS records for the vCenter Server for Windows instance
Step 3: Install Windows Server as you would normally do. After the install, apply all pending updates and patches.
Step 4: Make sure the Windows computer name matches the vCenter hostname i.e. vcw65. Reboot the server.
Figure 2 – Setting the vCenter Server Windows computer name
Step 5:Download the latest vCenter Server 6.5 ISO from my.vmware.com.
Step 6: When deploying vCenter to a VM, you can mount the ISO image as a DVD drive directly from a datastore or from local disk. If a physical machine is used instead, you can copy the ISO image to a folder on the Windows server and then mount it as a drive from the OS itself; right-click on the file and mount!
Figure 3 – Mount the ISO image on a VM from a local disk
Step 7: Login as administrator on the Windows box.
Step 8: Double-click on the DVD drive just mounted. This launches the VMware vCenter Installer.
Figure 4 – The mounted ISO image in Windows Explorer
Step 9: From here on, the installer takes you through a series of screens and options, most of which are self-explanatory. Regardless, I listed the whole lot in a sequential order each accompanied by a brief note as follows.
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The process is 100% identical to installing vCenter Server 6.0 for Windows as described in my somewhat old post How to set up a nested vSphere 6 nested environment. So really, very little has changed from an installation perspective. Under the hood, however, there have been some changes as explained here.
Conclusion
Installing vCenter Server 6.5 for Windows is pretty straightforward provided you prepare the groundwork first. Compared to earlier versions, very little has changed except that vCenter is now a little bit more resource hungry. The thick (C#) vSphere client is, officially, no longer supported. This means that getting used to the vSphere Web client (or HTML5 client) is no longer optional.
I would also have loved to see the Web client laid to rest once and for all but since its new HTML5 alternative is still not up to par, I guess we will all have to wait until vSphere 7 is released!
UPDATE: vSphere 6.5 U1 has recently been released. It brings the HMTL5 client almost up to par with the vSphere Web client in terms of functionality. Read about it here.
Just want the easy upgrade (rather than download ISO) methods for vSphere 6.5 Update 1, also known as 6.5U1 or 6.5 U1? No problem, jump on over to:
- How to easily update your VMware Hypervisor from 6.5.x to 6.5 Update 1 (ESXi 6.5 U1).
Today's big vSphere 6.5 Update release is a big deal in that many customers choose to wait for these Update 1 versions of any major vSphere version before upgrading their enterprise. Yes, to mee, it seemed that vSphere 6.5 was such a major change from 6.0 that it could have just as well been called 7.0. That nitpicking aside, the wait-for-N+1 customers and risk-averse home-labbers is over. Start your downloads, but be sure to read this entire article before you begin installing!
Download
For new installs, or upgrade-from-bootable-ISO installs
Download 1
- VMware vCenter Server Appliance
Release Notes and Download PageFile size: 3.443 GB
File type: iso
Name: VMware-VCSA-all-6.5.0-5973321.iso
Release Date: 2017-07-27
Build Number: 5973321
Download 2
- VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi ISO) image (Includes VMware Tools)
Release Notes and Download PageFile size: 332.63 MB
File type: iso
Name: VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.5.0.update01-5969303.x86_64.iso
Release Date: 2017-07-27
Build Number: 5969303
Overview
Let's roll up our sleeves and have a look at all the great new vSphere features and fixes:
- What's inside VMware vSphere 6.5 Update 1
Jul 28 2017 by Florian Grehl at Virten.net
For those of you into vSAN, there's considerable refinement that moving from vSAN 6.6 to vSAN 6.6.1 will bring.
VMware vSAN 6.6.1 Release Notes
VMware vSAN 6.6.1 | 27 July 2017 | ISO Build 5969303
Check for additions and updates to these release notes.
There are many fixes, and a few new features. This article helps remind folks that the vSAN bits are baked right into the Hypervisor, so there is no separate download for vSAN 6.6.1, it's right in vSphere 6.5 U1! Also, anybody can now upgrade from vSphere 6.0 U3 to vSphere 6.6.1 / vSphere 6.5 U1,.
Don't miss the VUM Integration video featured in the video gallery below.
VMware's Announcements
From earlier today:
added Jul 28 2017, another closely related post
Don't forget to check out the deeply technical overview by Jeff Hunter and others over at StorageHub.
If you are already at vCenter/VCSA 6.5.x and ESXi 6.5.x, then you can get vSAN bits today by simply installing or upgrading to vCenter/VCSA 6.5 U1 and ESXi 6.5 U1. Details appear (soon) for both new installs and upgrade.
vSphere 6.5 Update 1 Prerequisites
- read VMware's vSphere Upgrade guide
- You will also need to do your homework before any major upgrade, even in a home lab. While all that goes into such efforts is well beyond the scope of this article, a great place to get started appears here:
- My vSphere 6.5 Upgrade Checklist – painful
Jan 29 2017 by Michael White at Notes from MWhite
- My vSphere 6.5 Upgrade Checklist – painful
vSAN Prerequisites
- You will need the right hardware for the best experience, especially if you're expecting resilience and performance. Not just on the VCG (VMware Compatibility Guide) aka HCL, but also on the VMware Compatibility Guide for vSAN, featuring a caching layer made from SSDs of the proper write endurance paired with PLP/Supercapacitors, typically found in enterprise (costlier) flash storage devices
- You will need a vSAN license key
- Licensing was discussed recently here, with VMware EVALExperience
~being by far the most affordable way to dip your toes into to a 6 node hybrid vSAN (unconfirmed, but the license key should cover 6), albeit a bit behind on version. I'm hoping for updates to that program soon, stay tuned.~
This has been [mostly] Fixed! That huge update story broke right here at TinkerTry first:- VMUG Advantage just added the latest NSX 6.3.1 and All Flash vSAN 6.6 bits to EVALExperience, great for vSphere home labs, just $180 a year!
May 01 2017
- VMUG Advantage just added the latest NSX 6.3.1 and All Flash vSAN 6.6 bits to EVALExperience, great for vSphere home labs, just $180 a year!
It shouldn't be too long before the EVALExperience downloads links are updated to 6.5 U1. Keep in mind that you can always upgrade your 6.5.x version quite easily, seen below.
VCSA baby! (NOT vCenter)
My focus and yours should be on VCSA going forward, not the old school vCenter installed on Windows. That is why TinkerTry how-to guides generally don't include vCenter on Windows. I'm all in with HMTL5 UIs, and enjoy the ease-of-install, ease-of-update, and speed of this Photon OS-based appliance. See for yourself in the update videos.
Easy Upgrade
Here's the exact way that I got these two upgrades done safely and easily, with a focus on simplicity for smaller home labs, download and install is done with one command, which I tested using the latest BIOS and IPMI on Xeon D:
What are you still reading this for? Roll up your sleeves, backup your VCSA and ESX, and get upgrading! Then come back and let us know how it went by dropping comments below the articles.