Vmware Vsphere 7 Release

5/27/2019 admin

Vmware Vsphere 7 Release Rating: 3,8/5 8319 reviews

May 3, 2018 - vSphere 6.7 has been officially released! If you have a mixed environment with vCenter Server running 6.0 or 6.5 managing ESXi hosts 5.5,.

Vmware Vsphere 7 Releases

Whenever VMware releases a new vSphere version it is big news. The company still has a dominant position in the enterprise virtualization and software markets even though the cloud has been won by KVM, containers, and to a lesser extent Xen. VMware vSphere 6.7 is gearing for enterprise deployments.

VMware vSphere 6.7

VMware vSphere 6.7 and vSAN 6.7 have a number of new features and updates. You can read the full announcement here. We still wanted to go through a few of the ones we see as highlights:

VMware vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) has seen new APIs added and increased performance with this generation.
VMware vSphere 6.7 in many instances does away with the double reboot required for major ESXi enhancements. There is also a new Quick Boot feature that reboots ESXi without rebooting the underlying hardware.
Spectre and Meltdown Patches are in the mainline, this may negatively impact performance.
The HTML5 client is becoming the go-to management interface we expect VMware to build upon for the foreseeable future. There are now workflows that are unique to the HTML5 client which should push adoption.
TPM 2.0 and virtual TPM 2.0 support and improved encrypted VM support, especially for Microsoft Windows guests.
NVIDIA vGRID GPU support is getting better for VDI users, but VMware still has a long way to go if it wants to compete in HPC and AI/ deep learning support space.
VMware vSphere Persistent Memory supports NVDIMMs and future persistent memory technologies that are offered by some of the larger server vendors. NVDIMMs provide high bandwidth, low latency storage like RAM while being non-volatile so they can store data through power loss.
For those running hybrid clouds, new VMware vCenter Server Hybrid Linked Mode now has better management for private and public clouds (e.g. AWS) even if they are different versions. This is important because private and public clouds can end up on different VMware vSphere versions over time.
Per-VM Enhanced vMotion Compatability (Per-VM EVC) allows for better migration support between processor types and generations. If you want to run AMD EPYC 7000 series due to its awesome core count and RAM support, but also want to use Intel Xeon servers in your private cloud or the public cloud, this is going to be one of the features to watch.

VMware vSphere 6.7 Requires Intel Xeon E5-2600 V1 or Newer

If you’re thinking VMware vSphere 6.7 will run on your legacy servers, you may want to check again. There are a number of CPUs that have been removed from the new OS including the Intel Xeon 5500 and Xeon 5600 series CPUs. Also, some of the Xeon 3400 Clarkdale / Lynnfield CPUs for single-socket servers are being depreciated in their support. This is the inevitable march of technology and looking back to STH’s history we can see articles like Tyan’s New Sandy Bridge-EP Xeon E5-2600 Series C600 Motherboards back in 2012. Newer processors are the way of the future.

Also dropped from the VMware vSphere support list in the 6.5 to 6.7 upgrade is the aging AMD Opteron series CPUs. The AMD Opteron 6100 and Opteron 4100 series have also been dropped. In the G34 socket, it seems like the Opteron 6200 and 6300 series of CPUs are supported but those days appear to be fading. If you are still using servers with those CPUs, then flashing BIOS to support newer chips and scouring ebay may be an option. Beware though, many motherboard vendors required a PCB refresh with new Opteron 6200/ 6300 versions due to interconnect signaling quality. If you think this is a path you need to take for your aging ESXi infrastructure, double-check this before investing more in a legacy platform instead of simply upgrading.

Final Words

Any new VMware vSphere release is a big deal. There are more features in this release than we covered here, some that will excite our VMware admin STH readers. If you are in that group, VMware has extensive documentation on the changes. If you keep up on the latest versions and have legacy hardware, we wanted to show the changes in CPU support since that can push admins to start a hardware planning cycle. Next up on getting dropped for support will be the Intel Xeon E5-2600 V1 / V2 generations. We also wanted to highlight that if Spectre and Meltdown mitigation are important to you, this is the generation to watch as those patches are now standard.

Squuiid, I confirmed this to be correct. If you use the SSH or PowerCLI to upgrade on E/X56xx series, the upgrade is allowed. Anything older than that and the install will take place, but you will be presented with the Unsupported CPU message upon boot.

It's a big day! See also virtuallyGhetto's All vSphere 6.7 release notes & download links, but note that not all the links are live quite yet. Meanwhile, VMware has a lot of detail in the press release and technical blog posts ready already. Enjoy!

2:00pm EDT Update - The vSphere 6.7 bits are now available, details here at TinkerTry.

Get started here:

VMware Press Release

VMware Elevates the Hybrid Cloud Experience with New Releases of vSphere and vSAN
Apr 17 2018
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New and enhanced features in VMware vSphere 6.7 will include:
New vCenter Hybrid Linked Mode: Will enable unified visibility and management across different versions of vSphere running on-premises and in the public cloud such as VMware Cloud on AWS, IBM Cloud and other VMware Cloud Provider Program partner clouds. This will allow customers to maintain their current version of vSphere on-premises as needed while enjoying the benefits of new capabilities in vSphere-based public clouds.
New ESXi Single Reboot and vSphere Quick Boot: Will significantly reduce patch and upgrade times by halving the number of reboots required to one, while vSphere Quick Boot will skip hardware initialization steps to gain further re-start efficiencies.
New vSphere Persistent Memory: Will leverage the latest innovation around non-volatile memory and significantly enhance performance for both existing and new apps.
Enhanced NVIDIA GRID vGPUs Support for Modern Workloads: Will improve host lifecycle management and reduce end-user disruption via new suspend and resume capabilities for VMs for GPU-accelerated environments. vSphere 6.7 will enhance support for NVIDIA GRID Virtual PC/Virtual Apps (for knowledge workers) and NVIDIA Quadro Virtual Data Center Workstation (for design and engineering professionals) to enable optimal management of VDI workloads as well as enable administrators (admins) to run other NVIDIA GPU-enabled workloads, including AI and ML.
New Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 Support and Virtual TPM 2.0: This combination will significantly enhance protection and integrity for both the hypervisor and the guest operating system (OS). Virtual TPM 2.0 will help prevent VMs and hosts from being tampered or compromised, thwarting the loading of unauthorized components and enable guest OS security features.
Enhanced VMware vSphere Client: This latest release of the HTML-5-based vSphere Client will introduce new functionality to manage VMware NSX, vSAN and vSphere Update Manager along with an increased support for third-party products.
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VMware Technical Articles

You may recall me talking about the RDMA capabilities baked into the latest Xeon Scalable systems and even the recent hotness in IoT, the SoC based Xeon D-2100. By the way, I'll have a loaner Xeon D-2100-based SYS-E300-9D soon, to start some testing out 6.7 on by the end of the month, nice timing! Meanwhile, this article dives right in to RDMA today, in depth, enjoy!

What’s New with VMware vSAN 6.7
Apr 17 2018 07:56am EDT by John Nicholson at VMware Blogs Virtual Blocks
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New HTML5 User Interface Fast, efficient, and consistent
While many customers use CLI and API’s to interact with vSAN, the graphical UI is still the most common day to day management tool. vSAN 6.7 introduces a new HTML5 UI based on the “Clarity” framework as seen in other VMware products. All products in the VMware portfolio are moving toward this UI framework. This interface is more than a simple, direct port from the old vSphere Web Client. VMware took a long look at how tasks and workflows can be optimized and introduced new ways to accomplish tasks more intuitively with fewer clicks. Going forward all new functionality will be delivered in the HTML5 client; however, the legacy vSphere Web Client is still available in this release. The HTML5 UI is a great step forward in providing vSAN users an intuitive and efficient user experience.
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Introducing VMware vSphere 6.7!
Apr 17 2018 07:59am EDT by Himanshu Singh at VMware vSphere Blog
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Moreover, with vSphere 6.7 vCSA delivers phenomenal performance improvements (all metrics compared at cluster scale limits, versus vSphere 6.5):
2X faster performance in vCenter operations per second
3X reduction in memory usage
3X faster DRS-related operations (e.g. power-on virtual machine)
These performance improvements ensure a blazing fast experience for vSphere users, and deliver significant value, as well as time and cost savings in a variety of use cases, such as VDI, Scale-out apps, Big Data, HPC, DevOps, distributed cloud native apps, etc.
vSphere 6.7 improves efficiency at scale when updating ESXi hosts, significantly reducing maintenance time by eliminating one of two reboots normally required for major version upgrades (Single Reboot). In addition to that, vSphere Quick Boot is a new innovation that restarts the ESXi hypervisor without rebooting the physical host, skipping time-consuming hardware initialization.
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Introducing vSphere 6.7 for Enterprise Applications
Apr 17 2018 8:04am EDT by Sudhir Balasubramanian at VMware Blogs
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Remote Directory Memory Access
vSphere 6.7 introduces new protocol support for Remote Direct memory Access (RDMA) over Converged Ethernet, or RoCE (pronounced “rocky”) v2, a new software Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) adapter, and iSCSI Extension for RDMA (iSER). These features enable customers to integrate with even more high-performance storage systems providing more flexibility to use the hardware that best compliments their workloads.
RDMA support is enhanced with vSphere 6.7 to bring even more performance to enterprise workloads by leveraging kernel and OS bypass reducing latency and dependencies. This is illustrated in the diagram below.

vSpeaking Podcast Episode 75: What’s New in vSAN 6.7
vSAN 6.7 is here! This release offers features and capabilities that enable improved performance, usability and consistency. Significant improvements to the management and monitoring tools are also matched by lower level performance and application consistency improvements. This week on the Virtually Speaking Podcast we welcome vSAN expert Myles Gray to walk us through all the features and enhancements.
vSAN continues to see rapid adoption with more than 10,000 customers and growing. A 600 Million dollar run rate was announced for Q4FY2018, and IDC named it the #1 and fastest growing HCI Software Solution.
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What’s new with vSphere 6.7 Core Storage
Apr 17 2018
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Support for PMEM /NVDIMMs
Persistent Memory or PMem is a type of non-volatile DRAM (NVDIMM) that has the speed of DRAM but retains contents through power cycles. It’s a new layer that sits between NAND flash and DRAM providing faster performance and it’s non-volatile unlink DRAM.
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Intel VMD (Volume Management Device)
Serial number model number lookup. With vSphere 6.7, there is now native support for Intel VMD technology to enable the management of NMVe drives. This technology was introduced as an installable option in vSphere 6.5. Intel VMD currently enables hot-swap management, as well as NVMe drive, LED control allowing similar control used for SAS and SATA drives.
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Updated 17.04.2018
vSAN version ESXi version ReleaseDate BuildNumber vSAN on-disk format version
vSAN 6.7 GA ESXi 6.7 GA 2018-04-17 8169922 6
vSAN 6.6.1 Patch 02 ESXi 6.5 Patch 02 2017-12-19 7388607 5
vSAN 6.6.1 Express Patch 4 ESXi 6.5 Express Patch 4 2017-10-05 6765664 5
vSAN 6.6.1
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More information

Video

From the VMware vSphere YouTube Channel.

From the VMware vSAN YouTube Channel.

Here's a list of announcement day coverage about vSphere 6.7 that you may find helpful, all from Apr 17 2018:
• Enterprise Tech, George Leopold:
VMware Sharpens Focus on Hybrid Cloud
• CRN, Joe Kovar:
VMware Intros vSAN 6.7 Software-Defined Storage Software, But With Eye Toward Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
• CRN, Joseph Tsidulko:
VMware Releases vSphere 6.7, Delivering Advances In Hybrid Cloud And Multi-Application Support
• GeekWire, Tom Krazit:
VMware bets that new versions of vSphere and vSAN will make the hybrid cloud easier to manage
• IT World Canada, Alex Coop:
VMware upgrades its hybrid cloud offerings with new releases
• The Register, Chris Mellor:
Slick HCI trick: VMware smooths off vSAN's rough edges
• The Register, Simon Sharwood:
Forking hell! VMware now has TWO current versions of vSphere
• Storage Review, Adam Armstrong:
VMware Updates vSphere & vSAN To 6.7
• TechTarget, Dave Raffo:
VMware pulls vSAN 6.7 deeper into vSphere
• Virtualization & Cloud Review, Tom Fenton:
Here's What's New in vSphere 6.7
• ZDNet, Stephanie Condon:
VMware updates vSphere, vSAN with more hybrid management features