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vSphere Update 1 dribbles out in multiple downloads

VMware also throws updates and cloudy partners and users of penguin-powered guests

VMware's released the various bits of software that together add up to the first update to vSphere 6.0 that we foreshadowed last week.

ESXi 6.0 Update 1 adds stretched clusters and authentication for stretched clusters. The vSphere APIs for I/O Filtering (VAIO) have also arrived and give vAdmins the chance to “create software components called I/O filters” that run on ESXi hosts and “offer additional data services to virtual machines by processing I/O requests that move between the guest operating system of a virtual machine and virtual disks.”

VCenter 6.0 Update 1's release notes mention Active Directory authentication and bug fixes as the headline functional items. An important addition – at least for VMware – is the advent of a Customer Experience Improvement Program that “provides VMware with information that enables VMware to improve the VMware products and services and to fix problems.”

vSphere phone home to big data back-end, in other words. And entirely for the purposes of product improvement, of course!

vSphere Replication Update 1 that brings “5 minute Recovery Point Objective (RPO) for replication between Virtual SAN data stores.” VSAN still lacks common SAN features like de-duplication, but arrivals like this one move it closer to direct competition with physical SANs.

Virtzilla's popped out some guidance on how to upgrade vSphere:. The TL;DR version is start with vCenter and don't step off the lit path if you want to live.

VMware's also popped out vCloud Director 8.0, the roll-your-own vCloud Air-ware it offers to partners. The headline here is vSphere 6.0 support.

Just one more thing: Virtzilla's also updated the VMware tools package that helps vAdmins to get lots of chores done improves guest performance. VMware tools and vSphere used to move in lock-step, but the development cycles have now been uncoupled.Which could mean more updates, more often. vAdmins wrangling Linux virtual machines also have some good news because the Open VMTools, the open version of VMware tools, are now baked into the following distros:

  • Fedora 19 and later releases
  • Debian 7.x and later releases
  • openSUSE 11.x and later releases
  • Recent Ubuntu releases (12.04 LTS, 13.10 and later)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 and later releases
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 and later releases
  • CentOS 7 and later releases
  • Oracle Linux 7 and later

That'll mean less updating for Penguin-powered guests, but of course the time you gain now has to go into the vSphere upgrade. And the next one due late this year when the hybrid-cloud-centric Project Skyscraper is erected. ®

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