Products Site Recovery Manager Virtual Volumes (vVols) vSAN

Looking Back at VMworld 2016 Europe!

Another year, another VMworld – and what an event this year’s Europe show was!

A few things were announced during VMworld, including the latest versions of vSphere, vSAN, Site Recovery Manager, and Virtual Volumes. Take a look below at each product announced, as well as some of the key updates:

 

vSphere 6.5

VMworld 2016 Europe saw the announcement of vSphere 6.5, the latest version of VMware’s industry-leading virtualization platform. This latest release features a dramatically simplified experience, comprehensive built-in security, and a universal app platform for running any app.

A look at what’s new:

  • Scale Enhancements
    • New configuration maximums to support even the largest app environments
  • VMware vCenter Server Appliance
    • The single control center and core building block for vSphere
  • vCenter Server High Availability
    • Native vCenter Server high availability solution
  • vCenter Server Backup and Restore
    • Native vCenter Server Backup and Restore
  • vCenter Server Appliance Tool
    • Single step migration and upgrade of existing vCenter Server to vCenter Server Appliance
  • REST APIs
    • Simple, modern developer-friendly APIs
  • vSphere Client
    • HTML5-based GUI that ensures fast performance and cross-platform compatibility
  • Security-at-Scale
    • Policy-driven security that makes securing infrastructure operationally simple
  • Encryption
    • VM-level encryption protects unauthorized data access both at-rest and in-motion
  • Audit-quality logging
    • Enhanced logging that provides forensic information about user actions

Plus much more – read more in-depth about vSphere 6.5 here.

 

vSAN 6.5

The latest release of the market-leading, enterprise-class storage solution for hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) is VMware vSAN 6.5. It builds on the existing features introduced in 6.2 by enhancing automation, further reducing total cost of ownership (TCO), and setting the stage for next-generation cloud native applications.

vm2016-3145-1

  • Accelerate Responsiveness
    • The vSAN API and vSphere PowerCLI have been updated – it’s now possible to automate the configuration and management of cluster settings, disk groups, fault domains, and stretched clusters.
    • Activities such as maintenance mode and cluster shutdown can also be scripted.
    • Health issue remediation and re-sync activities can be automated with this latest release
  • 20%-50% Additional TCO Savings
    • All vSAN 6.5 licenses include support for both hybrid and all-flash configurations
      • Note: deduplication, compression, and erasure coding still require vSAN Advanced or Enterprise licenses
    • Increased Flexibility
      • Extends workload support to physical servers and clustered applications with the introduction of an iSCSI target service.
      • Easy access vSAN storage using the iSCSI protocol with just a few vSphere Web Client mouse clicks
    • Next-Gen Hardware Support
      • Support for 512e drives, enabling larger capacities to meet the constantly growing space requirements of today’s and tomorrow’s applications
      • Up to 150k IOPS per host
    • Two-Node Direct-Connect

 

Jeff Hunter talks more in detail about VMware vSAN 6.5 in his Virtual Blocks post here.

 

Site Recovery Manager 6.5

 

An exciting release for VMware, VMware Site Recovery Manager 6.5 has added a number of cool features that make it easier to use and monitor SRM. With v6.5, SRM can now interoperate more and better with other VMware products.

  • vSphere 6.5 Compatibility
    • Includes full integration with the new vCenter HA feature – SRM will continue working normally if vCenter HA fails over
    • Full support for Windows vCenter to vCSA migration.
    • Supports protecting VMs that are using VM encryption when using the Storage Policy-Based Protection Groups (SPBGs)
  • vSAN 6.5 Compatibility
    • Fully supported and compatible with vSAN 6.5, using vSphere Replication.
      • vSAN and SRM continue to work well together to provide low cost, easy to use vSphere integrated storage and disaster recovery
    • Virtual Volumes Interoperability
      • SRM 6.5 now supports protection of VMs located on VVOLs using vSphere Replication
    • API and vRO plug-in enhancements – Scripted/Unattended install and upgrade
    • vSphere Replication RPO
    • vROps SRM Management Pack

 

GS Khalsa talks more about Site Recovery Manager in his Virtual Blocks post here.

 

Virtual Volumes 2.0

With vSphere 6.5, customers can protect their Virtual Volumes environment with array based replication, while experiencing how Virtual Volumes can greatly simplify management and provider greater granularity over the existing operational model.

 

  • Array-Based Replication Support
    • Have the flexibility to replicate a group of virtual machines (Replication Group) or you can replicate at an individual VM level.
  • Virtual Volumes Support for Oracle RAC
    • Now validated to support Oracle RAC workloads (similar to validation for VMFS) delivering policy-based, VM-centric storage for Business Critical Applications like Oracle RAC

Pete Flecha talks more about Virtual Volumes 2.0 here.

 

The vSpeaking Podcast also went into detail on some of the announcements that happened at VMworld, bringing in Frank Denneman, VMware Senior Staff Architect to provide even more insight around VMware cloud and AWS.

 

Listen to the latest vSpeaking Podcast here.

 

As a reminder, follow us on Twitter at @VMwarevSAN and ‘like’ us on Facebook at Facebook.com/VMwarevSAN for the latest updates.

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