VMware is about to release vSphere 5.1 with great enhancements. There are many great papers about the new features and enhancements. This is a short overview containing the greatest changes:
- Virtual machines can now have up to 64 vCPUs and 1TB of Memory
- A new Features called zero-downtime migration allows vMotion without shared storage.
- EMC Avamar based backup solution replaces vSphere Data Recovery
- vSphere Replication enables replication between hosts at virtual machine level
- vSphere Web Client is the new core administrative interface for vSphere
- Newsley designed vCenter Orchestrator workflow
- Better ESXi User Management. No shared-root required anymore
- New auditing features can monitor and audit DCUI and shell activity per user
- The new Sparese Disk allows to reclaim previously used space within the guest OS
- VXLAN (Virtual eXtensible LAN) enables support for scalable multitenant networks
- vCenter Server can now run on the VSA Cluster itsself
There are many great features like zero-downtime migration, vSphere Replication or the VSA enhancements for smaller environments. I am also looking forward for the new Avamar backup solution which replaces the VDR, which is effectively useless in larger deployments. The new Orchestrator workflow design might make the product more popular.
Resources
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1
What’s New in VMware vCenter 5.1
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Networking
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Platform
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Storage
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Performance
What’s new in VMware vSphere Storage Appliance