It’s finally here! VMware vSphere Update 2 released on March 16th, 2016 and is available for download. With it comes many new features and of course bug fixes.
What’s New with vCenter 6.0 U2:
Download VMware vCenter Server 6.0 U2
- Two-factor authentication for vSphere Web Client: Protect the vSphere Web Client using the following form of authentication:
- RSA SecurID
- Smart card (That is the UPN based Common Access Card)
- Support to change vSphere ESX Agent Manager logging level: This release supports dynamic increase or decrease of vSphere ESX Agent Manager (EAM) logging levels without restarting EAM.
- vSphere Web Client support: vSphere Web Client now supports Microsoft Windows 10 OS.
- vCenter Server database support: vCenter Server now supports the following external databases:
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 3
- Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1
- Resolved Issues: This release of vCenter Server 6.0 Update 2 addresses issues that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.
- Read the full release notes here.
What’s New with ESXi 6.0 U2:
- High Ethernet Link Speed: ESXi 6.0 Update 2 supports 25 G and 50 G ethernet link speeds.
- VMware Host Client: The VMware Host Client is an HTML5 client that is used to connect to and manage single ESXi hosts. It can be used to perform administrative tasks to manage host resources, such as virtual machines, networking, and storage. The VMware Host Client can also be helpful to troubleshoot individual virtual machines or hosts when vCenter Server and the vSphere Web Client are unavailable. For more information about VMware Host Client, see VMware Host Client 1.0 Release Notes. This used to be a Fling!
- vSphere APIs for I/O Filtering (VAIO) Enhancement:
- ESXi 6.0 Update 2 supports the IO Filter VASA Provider in a pure IPv6 environment. For additional information, see the Resolved Issues section.
ESXi 6.0 Update 2 supports the VMIOF versions 1.0 and 1.1. For additional information, see the Resolved Issues section.
- ESXi 6.0 Update 2 supports the IO Filter VASA Provider in a pure IPv6 environment. For additional information, see the Resolved Issues section.
- ESXi 6.0 Update 2 addresses issues that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.
- Read the full release notes here.
What’s New with Virtual SAN 6.2:
Virtual SAN 6.2 introduces the following new features and enhancements:
- Deduplication and compression: Virtual SAN 6.2 supports deduplication and compression to eliminate duplicate data. This technique reduces the total storage space required to meet your needs. When you enable deduplication and compression on a Virtual SAN cluster, redundant copies of data in a particular disk group are reduced to single copy. Deduplication and compression are available as a cluster-wide setting on all-flash clusters.
- RAID 5 and RAID 6 erasure coding: Virtual SAN 6.2 supports both RAID 5 and RAID 6 erasure coding to reduce the storage space required to protect your data. RAID 5 and RAID 6 are available as a policy attribute for VMs in all-flash clusters. You can use RAID 5 in clusters with at least four fault domains, and RAID 6 in clusters with at least six fault domains.
- Software checksum: Virtual SAN 6.2 supports software-based checksum on hybrid and all-flash clusters. The software checksum policy attribute is enabled by default on all objects in the Virtual SAN cluster.
- New on-disk format: Virtual SAN 6.2 supports upgrades to new on-disk virtual file format 3.0 through the vSphere Web Client. This file system provides support for new features in the Virtual SAN cluster. On-disk format version 3.0 is based on an internal 4K block size technology, which provides improved efficiency, but can result in reduced performance if the guest operating system I/Os are not 4K aligned. >
- IOPS limits: Virtual SAN supports IOPS limits to restrict the number of I/O (read/write) operations per second for a specified object. When the number of read/write operations reaches the IOPS limit, those operations are delayed until the current second expires. The IOPS limit is a policy attribute that you can apply to any Virtual SAN object, including VMDK, namespace, and so on.
- IPv6: Virtual SAN supports IPv4 or IPv6 addressing.
- Space reporting: The Virtual SAN 6.2 Capacity monitor displays information about the Virtual SAN datastore, including used space and free space, and provides a breakdown of capacity usage by different object types or data types.
- Health service: Virtual SAN 6.2 includes new health checks that help you monitor the cluster and enable you to diagnose and fix problems with the cluster. If the Virtual SAN health service detects health issues, it triggers vCenter events and alarms.
- Performance service: Virtual SAN 6.2 includes performance service monitors with cluster-level, host-level, VM-level, and disk-level statistics. The performance service collects and analyzes performance statistics and displays the data in a graphical format. You can use the performance charts to manage your workload and determine the root cause of problems.
- Write-through in-memory cache: Virtual SAN 6.2 improves virtual machine performance by using a host resident write-through read cache. This caching algorithm reduces read I/O latency and reduces Virtual SAN CPU and network usage.
- Read the full release notes here.