Today VMware announced vSphere 6.5, which is one of the most feature rich releases of vSphere in quite some time. The vCenter Server Appliance is taking charge in this release with several new features which we’ll cover in this blog article. For starters, the installer has gotten an overhaul with a new modern look and feel. Users of both Linux and Mac will also be ecstatic since the installer is now supported on those platforms along with Microsoft Windows. If that wasn’t enough, the vCenter Server Appliance now has features that are exclusive such as:
- Migration
- Improved Appliance Management
- VMware Update Manager
- Native High Availability
- Built-in Backup / Restore
We’ll also cover general improvements to vCenter Server 6.5 including the vSphere Web Client and the fully supported HTML5-based vSphere Client.
Migration
Getting to the vCenter Server Appliance is no longer an issue as the installer has a built in Migration Tool. This Migration Tool has several improvements over the recently released vSphere 6.0 Update 2m release. Now, Windows vCenter Server 5.5 and 6.0 are supported. If you’re currently running a Windows vCenter Server 6.0, this is your chance to get to the vCenter Server Appliance using this Migration Tool. In vSphere 6.5 there is an improvement in the migration tool which allows for more granular selection of migrated data as follows:
- Configuration
- Configuration, events, and tasks
- Configuration, events, tasks, and performance metrics
VMware Update Manager (VUM) is now part of the vCenter Server Appliance. This will be huge for customers who have been waiting to migrate to the vCenter Server Appliance without managing a separate Windows server for VUM. If you’ve already migrated to the vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 the upgrade process will migrate your VUM baselines and updates to the vCenter Server Appliance 6.5. During the migration process the vCenter configuration, inventory, and alarm data is migrated by default.
Improved Appliance Management
Another exclusive feature of the vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 is the improved appliance management capabilities. The vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface continues its evolution and exposes additional health and configurations. This simple user interface now shows Network and Database statistics, disk space, and health in addition to CPU and memory statistics which reduces the reliance on using a command line interface for simple monitoring and operational tasks.
vCenter Server High Availability
vCenter Server 6.5 has a new native high availability solution that is available exclusively for the vCenter Server Appliance. This solution consists of Active, Passive, and Witness nodes which are cloned from the existing vCenter Server. Failover within the vCenter HA cluster can occur when an entire node is lost (host failure for example) or when certain key services fail. For the initial release of vCenter HA an RTO of about 5 minutes is expected but may vary slightly depending on load, size, and capabilities of the underlying hardware.
Backup and Restore
New in vCenter Server 6.5 is built-in backup and restore for the vCenter Server Appliance. This new out-of-the-box functionality enables customers to backup vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller appliances directly from the VAMI or API, and also backs up both VUM and Auto Deploy running embedded with the appliance. The backup consists of a set of files that will be streamed to a storage device of the customer’s choosing using SCP, HTTP(s), or FTP(s) protocols. This backup fully supports vCenter Server Appliances with embedded and external Platform Services Controllers. The Restore workflow is launched from the same ISO from which the vCenter Server Appliance (or PSC) was originally deployed or upgraded.
vSphere Web Client
From a User Interface perspective, probably the most used UI is the vSphere Web Client. This interface continues to be based on the Adobe Flex platform and requires Adobe Flash to use. However, VMware has continued to identify areas for improvement that will help improve the user experience until it is retired. Through several outreach efforts over the past year we’ve identified some high-value areas where we think customers are looking most for improvements. This small list of high-impact improvements will help with the overall user experience with the vSphere Web Client while development continues with the HTML5-based vSphere Client:
- Inventory tree is the default view
- Home screen reorganized
- Renamed “Manage” tab to “Configure”
- Removed “Related Objects” tab
- Performance improvements (VM Rollup at 5000 instead of 50 VMs)
- Live refresh for power states, tasks, and more!
vSphere Client
With vSphere 6.5 I’m excited to say that we have a fully supported version of the HTML5-based vSphere Client that will run alongside the vSphere Web Client. The vSphere Client is built right into vCenter Server 6.5 (both Windows and Appliance) and is enabled by default. While the vSphere Client doesn’t yet have full feature parity the team have prioritized many of the day to day tasks of administrators and continue to seek feedback on what’s missing that will enable customers to use it full time. The vSphere Web Client will continue to be accessible via “http://<vcenter_fqdn>/vsphere-client” while the vSphere Client will be reachable via “http://<vcenter_fqdn>/ui”. VMware will also be periodically updating the vSphere Client outside of the normal vCenter Server release cycle. To make sure it is easy and simple for customers to stay up to date the vSphere Client will be able to be updated without any effects to the rest of vCenter Server.
Now let’s take a look at some of the benefits to the new vSphere Client:
- Clean, consistent UI built on VMware’s new Clarity UI standards (to be adopted across our portfolio)
- Built on HTML5 so it is truly a cross-browser and cross-platform application
- No browser plugins to install/manage
- Integrated into vCenter Server for 6.5 and fully supported
- Fully supports Enhanced Linked Mode
- Users of the Fling have been extremely positive about its performance
Conclusion
While we’ve covered quite a few features there are many more which will be covered in accompanying blog articles. We will also be following up with detailed blogs on several of these new features which will be available by the time vSphere 6.5 reaches General Availability.
We hope you are as excited about this release as we are! Please post questions in the comments or reach out to Emad (@Emad_Younis) or Adam (@eck79) via Twitter.
Related Posts:
What’s New in vSphere 6.5: Host & Resource…What’s New in vSphere 6.5: Host & Resource Management and OperationsCharu Chaubal posted October 18, 2016
What’s new in vSphere 6.5: SecurityWhat's new in vSphere 6.5: SecurityMike Foley posted October 18, 2016
Introducing vSphere 6.5Introducing vSphere 6.5Charu Chaubal posted October 18, 2016
Ondrej
There is a missing link in your text:
“The vSphere Web Client will continue to be accessible via Error! Hyperlink reference not valid”
Charu Chaubal
Fixed now – thanks!
TG2
Lol at Ondrej…. “will continue to be accessible via Error! Link not valid” … sounds about right 😉
LB
“vCenter Server 6.5 has a new native high availability solution” – does that mean that vCenter HA will be available in vCenter Standard edition?
Looking forward for this! Thanks
Douglas Arcidino
Supported with vCenter standard. There are only two version of vCenter, Foundation and Standard. The Standard version of vCenter is licensed with vSphere Standard and Enterprise Plus. Foundation is available with Essentials and Essentials Plus.
ccc
hi, how many lincenses will I need to go for the Active/Passive/Witness Role Model, call vCenter HA? thanks!
Buggah
Licensing differences`?
Douglas Arcidino
Most of the licensing differences fall under VSAN. All-Flash without erasure-coding, dedupe and compression being available in VSAN Standard, VSAN ROBO Advanced to add erasure-coding, dedupe and compression to All-Flash ROBO deployments.
Charu Chaubal
To clarify, VSAN is an independent product and requires a separate license purchase altogether
tobias
is the old native vSphere client still usable?
Douglas Arcidino
The Winodws based vSphere Client is no longer supported with 6.5. Only the two web clients for vSphere and the HTML5 host client that is installed on all hosts out of the box since 6.0 Update 2.
Charu Chaubal
In addition, there are separate HTML5-based web interfaces for management of VCSA and PSC.
kjstech
Wow thats bad news. Unil the HTML5 interface is 100% complete and the Flash based web client is removed… I think I’ll stay on 6.0u2 and keep it updated.
VMware can pry the Windows client out of my cold dead hands.
Mike
Well said!
Rodrigo Oliveira
With the feature of built up through vCenter. What is the situation of the VDP, will be discontinued?
Bhavani Eswar
Migration from Windows to Appliance is possible as mentioned.. Is there any way for ViseVersa?
And why the Concentration(Feature Enhancements) are completely on Appliance? Not Windows based.
What Database Does it use?
Charu Chaubal
The vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) is the future of vCenter Server. By having full control of the entire stack, from operating system (Photon OS) to application and database technologies (a customized version of Postgres), we can get much better performance and reliability, and be much more innovative than if we were dependent on 3rd party components. We encourage all customers to migrate to VCSA.
Muhammad Ammad
do we still need to have desktop vSphere client ?
Charu Chaubal
The vSphere desktop client (aka “C# Client”) is no longer available starting with vSphere 6.5.
Kevin Carby
Since the ‘divorce’ of using Microsoft related components in using VMware management tools, will this also extend to Powershell or will PowerCLI continue to be developed with 6.5
Charu Chaubal
Yes, PowerCLI will be available for vSphere 6.5 and will continue to be expanded. It is a client technology and so we’re not dependent on it for the platform. We also are making an effort to provide greater choice for customers when it comes to CLIs and APIs. This article goes a bit more into detail about this: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/10/whats-new-in-vsphere-6-5-host-resource-management-and-operations.html
Shailender Singh
When independent vCenter Server setup will be available for windows installation for 6.5? Is VMware going to focus more on VCSA or both (vcenter server setup on windows)? Any expected date when 6.5 vcenter setup will be available?
Charu Chaubal
Windows vCenter Server will be available with vSphere 6.5. However, VCSA is the future of vCenter Server and we are encouraging ALL customers to start planning their move off Windows to VCSA.
Ryan M. Curtin
“The vCenter Server Appliance is taking charge in this release…”
Is vCS on Windows/SQL still available? If not can the embedded appliance Postgre DB scale to support large? If not is Oracle the only option?
Charu Chaubal
vCenter Server on Windows will still be available for vSphere 6.5. However, the supported maximums will be the same for both and the performance on VCSA is better than on Windows vCenter Server. So the overall VCSA model with the embedded Postgres DB works better than Windows vCenter Server with an external 3rd party DB.
vikrant
Wow great , VMware Finally announced the vSphere 6.5 , vSphere 6.5 is a one of the most feature rich releases of vSphere. VMware has done a lot of improvement and added some new features in vcenter server appliance like migration, improved Appliance management ,vmware update manager , High Availability and Backup / Restore ,its really awesome. The best part is vCenter Server 6.5 has a new native high availability solution that is available exclusively for the vCenter Server Appliance. that is amazing . Thanks for this information .The way you explained each and everything is really great . Thanks once again
jc
can you upgrade from the 6.0/6.1 vcsa to 6.5 using the same license or will you need to purchase a new license for 6.5 after upgrading? What is the pricing structure if you need to make an additional purchase?
Also, do you still need to have external load balancers for your external PSCs if you want HA on your PSCs or is that built in now?
Adam Eckerle
If you have an active SnS contract then you are able to upgrade to vSphere 6.5. If you do not have active SnS then it will be a separate purchase to upgrade.
HA for PSCs will still require an external load balancer (F5, NSX, or Netscaler).
The Greasy Strangler
No C# client? NO C# CLIENT?!?!?!
It’s far far far faaaaaaaaaaar more intuitive than the web client, which isn’t terrible itself, but nowhere near as nice to use.
I know this day has been coming for several years, but I’m still gutted it has finally come. 🙁
Adam Eckerle
We announced this back in May. Please see that announcement for more information: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/05/goodbye-vsphere-client-for-windows-c-hello-html5.html
Mike
Yes and read all the comments on that post from VMware admins.
Like many others, I prefer the C# client as well. The web client is slower and provides a less interactive user experience. You have many people saying the same thing, yet the response from VMware is the same kind of patronizing spin you would expect from a big vendor that no longer listens to its customers.
Let’s look at what we have for management interfaces:
1. A formerly effective, well-performing, but now feature-incomplete and deprecated UI.
2. A poorly-received flash-based web client based on legacy technology that major browser vendors have all but abandoned support for.
3. A feature-incomplete less than beta version new web UI that uses the so-called latest and greatest technology. “Trust us, it will be great!”. Have we heard this before?
Frank
The problem they are likely running into is getting devs that know how to code the old c# client. All the devs we run into anymore only know web.
Tom Smith
For VCSA HA, we are basically going to need 3 appliances?? Active/Passive/Witness? Why does the witness need to be a fully deployed VCSA? Kind of a waste of resources no?
Adam Eckerle
The witness can be resized to 1 vCPU and 1 GB of RAM. In fact, in the Basic deployment model we do that for you automatically.
Pedro
My current deployment includes a 6 vSphere 6.0 Standard nodes cluster with VSAN 6.0 storage managed by a VC 6.0 for Windows + MS SQL Server, all under the same physical machine. It will be straightforward to migrate to VCSA 6.5? May be there issues with vDS (Distributed Switch) ? May be there problems with the UUID of the the vcenter within the data base, related to EAM? May be the VCSA be hosted under the same managed cluster? Thanks !!
Actually I’m having a lot of problems while trying to update from VC 6.0 to 6.0 U2, so depending on your responses I’ll wait for the migration tool.
Adam Eckerle
The vCenter Server Appliance Migration Tool migrates everything. The IP address, MAC, FQDN, UUID, moref IDs of all of the inventory all come over. It does not matter if a Virtual Distributed Switch is being used as that is included in the vCenter Server configuration and ALL of the configuration comes over.
For more information see these blog posts (which are relative to 6.0 U2m but also apply to 6.5):
http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/09/vcenter-server-migration-tool-vsphere-6-0-update-2m.html
http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/09/preparing-for-a-vcenter-server-migration-using-the-vsphere-6-0-update-2m-migration-tool-part-1.html
http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/10/preparing-vcenter-server-migration-using-vsphere-6-0-update-2m-migration-tool-part-2.html
http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/10/preparing-vcenter-server-migration-using-vsphere-6-0-update-2m-migration-tool-part-3.html
Marco
The vcsa 6.5 supports linked mode? How can we migrate from a deployment with more windows vcenter server in linked mode to vcsa? Thanks
Adam Eckerle
We’ve supported Linked Mode with the VCSA since 6.0. In 6.0 we renamed it to Enhanced Linked Mode and we continue to support ELM with 6.5 on both Windows-based vCenter and VCSA.
If migrating from 5.5 to 6.5 Linked Mode will need to be removed from the vCenters. If you’re already on 6.0 then you do not need to do anything to your ELM configuration.
Karim
I am confused, whats the difference between vSphere Web Client and the new vSphere Client with 6.5 ?, since C# vsphere client is no more available. Whats the new HTML5 based vSphere Client used for ?
Adam Eckerle
Karim, please review this blog post – https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/05/goodbye-vsphere-client-for-windows-c-hello-html5.html
In short, the HTML5 vSphere Client is a true cross-platform browser compatible tool that doesn’t require plugins or client-side software like the C# client and Adobe Flex-based vSphere Web Clients do. We introduced the new HTML5 vSphere Client as a Fling back in March. A fully supported (although not yet feature complete) version is included with vCenter Server 6.5.
Brian J
Cool stuff vmware is always on top of the game. You guys surely rocks.
Carsten
Whats about the Site Recovery Manager (SRM). I Need a Windows instance for that in 6.0. Currently deployed together with vCenter and VUM on one host.
Will the SRM be migrateds to VCSA now?
Alex
Same boat as Carsten, currently using SRM and VUM all on Windows based, 2 DCs in 2 physical location with ELM, how all of this would need to be organized on VCSA based infrastructure? Right now to get ELM I had to deploy a PSCs only on both sites and 2 vCenter servers on both sites as well, would i need to do something similar in 6.5?