Today VMware announced the availability of VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0. As part of this release, the software bill of materials that makes up Cloud Foundation was updated to include the latest versions of vSphere and vSAN. vSphere 8.0 Update 1 (including ESXi and vCenter Server) and vSAN 8.0 Update 1 both include numerous new features and enhancements that Cloud Foundation 5.0 can leverage to improve the foundation of your private cloud. Let’s look at some of the enhancements that vSphere and vSAN 8.0 Update 1 bring to VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0.
vSphere
vSphere 8.0 Update 1 was introduced in March, building on the success of vSphere 8.0. vSphere 8.0 Update 1 includes several enhancements that VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 leverages. Cloud Foundation excels at provisioning infrastructure in the form of workload domains to meet the needs of VMs and applications. With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, workload domains receive enhanced operational efficiency, supercharged performance for higher-end AI/ML workloads, and elevated security across the environment.
vSphere 8 adds support for up to 32 devices in Passthrough mode to achieve unparalleled levels of performance. You can now support higher complexity models by increasing available GPU resources. Additionally, vSphere 8 Update 1 dramatically speeds up AI/ML application performance with support for NVIDIA NVSwitch (up to 900GB/s bidirectional speed with NVLink on Hopper), which connects up to 8 GPUs per host and up to 8 GPUs to the same VM.
For those customers who are not necessarily looking for raw performance and just need scalability – vSphere 8 now supports 8vGPUs per VM. vSphere Distributed Resources Scheduler (DRS) now factors workload memory usage into placement decisions. DRS can now place workloads optimally by taking into consideration memory needs of workloads and by factoring in DRAM & PMEM bandwidth and latency requirements.
Skyline Health Diagnostics, VMware’s self-service diagnostic platform, is now integrated with vCenter Server. Skyline Health Diagnostics helps admins diagnose issues, resolve failures, and schedule and run health checks automatically. Admins can use this tool for troubleshooting issues before contacting support. With Update 1, Skyline Health Diagnostics will become integrated with vCenter, making it easily accessible to admins. This integration will help save time and improve workload, ESXi, and vCenter availability in your Cloud Foundation environment.
vSAN
vSAN 8 Update 1 introduces improvements that simplify the day-to-day operations of administrators and enable support teams to resolve customer issues more quickly. While vSAN Express Storage Architecture is not currently supported in VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0, many other vSAN enhancements are available for Cloud Foundation customers. Some of those improvements include the following:
The vSAN 8 U1 Performance Service now includes high resolution monitoring of performance metrics. Default collection intervals for performance metrics—previously rendered every minutes—are now collected every 30 seconds. This allows for real-time analysis of performance, simplifying monitoring and accelerating the ability to troubleshoot.
The VM I/O Trip Analyzer has also been enhanced in vSAN 8 Update 1, with new scheduling functionality that enables customers to schedule analysis on a VM: specifying the time of day, duration, and frequency. Running diagnostics programmatically enables greater & better data collection and can be critical to capturing temporary performance issues. This also reduces the amount of manual diagnostics gathering done by already busy support teams.
vSAN Skyline Health has provided customers with an in-depth understanding of the overall health of their environments, offering health checks and guidance on how to remediate issues. In vSAN 8 Update 1, the vSAN Skyline module UX has been redesigned to include a new health dashboard—giving customers a simplified view into the health status of each cluster—with an at-a-glance score card. The dashboard will bring awareness to any health issues, the areas of impact, and clear steps for resolution, while also providing quick access to additional resources, like relevant Knowledgebase articles.
These are just some of the new features and enhancements from vSphere 8.0 and vSAN 8.0 that are available in VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0. The full Cloud Foundation stack has been updated with Cloud Foundation 5.0. For more information, check these other blogs and resources.
Resources:
- [BLOG] Announcing VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0
- [BLOG] What’s New with vSphere and vSAN in VCF 5.0
- [BLOG] What’s New with NSX in VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0
- [BLOG] What’s New with vRealize Suite in VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0
- VMware Cloud Foundation Product Page
- VMware Cloud Foundation Technical Resources
