What's new in VMware vSphere 6.5

vSphere 6.5 is the latest release of the industry-leading virtualization platform which delivers the Next gen infrastructure for your Next gen apps. This release of vSphere features several new capabilities and enhancements that addresses the challenges of digital transformation by delivering:

Dramatically simplified experience:

We have made the new Photon based, vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) the building block for a Simplified and Streamlined architecture of the future. To enable this, we have delivered Rest-based APIs, HTML5-based GUI, embedded Update Manager, native VC HA w/ 5 min RTO, integrated backup & restore and a host of other great new capabilities.

But it’s not all about new features, we have done some amazing grass roots engineering to ensure vCenter Server Appliance delivers a tremendous amount of optimization and innovation, including an over 2x increase in scale and 3x in performance.

Comprehensive built-in security:

vSphere 6.5 is the core of a secure SDDC and natively provides capabilities to secure data, infrastructure, and access at scale via its operationally simple, policy-driven model. To deliver this, we have delivered exciting new capabilities such as VM Encryption, Encrypted vMotion, Secure Boot support for ESXi and Guest VM’s.

Along the way, we have enhanced our logs and VC events to ensure authorized administration and control of vSphere environments by providing our customers granular visibility & audit level capabilities.

Universal app platform for running any apps:

vSphere 6.5 is a universal app platform that supports both traditional and next-generation apps (including 3D Graphics, Big Data, Machine Learning, In-Memory Databases).

vSphere 6.5 expands its existing workload coverage model by focusing on both scale-up and scale-out next-gen apps, which are increasingly built using containers and other evolving technology building blocks. Today, we are launching vSphere Integrated Containers as the easiest way for vSphere users to bring containers into an existing vSphere environment.

vSphere 6.5 launch is going to be accompanied by other SDDC components: VMware vSAN 6.5, VMware vRealize Log Insight 4 and VMware vRealize Operations 6.4. Together these features help IT more efficiently run, manage, and secure their applications both on- or off-premises and help deliver on the promise of an industrialized SDDC.

Key New Features

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
- What’s New in vSphere 6.5: vCenter Server
- 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
- What’s new in vSphere 6.5: Security
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
Secure Boot – Protection for both the hypervisor and guest operating system by ensuring images have not been tampered with and preventing loading of unauthorized components
vSphere Integrated Containers™ – Virtual infrastructure platform for containers
Proactive HA – High availability capability that utilizes server health information and migrates VMs from degraded hosts before problem occurs
Cross-Cloud vMotion® – Live migrate workloads between VMware based clouds
Virtual Volumes™ Replication – Native array virtual volumes replication
VMware Update Manager integrated into VCSA
- VUM 6.5 Performance and Best Practices Blog
- VUM 6.5 Performance and Best Practices Whitepaper