As I had covered back in the end of August with VMWorld 2018 in the US, on the first day, exciting news was announced for a new vSphere release – vSphere 6.7 Update 1. With vSphere 6.7 Update 1, VMware pulled out all the stops and introduced long awaited features that have been teased for some time. Can you say fully-featured HTML 5 client?! However, the UI is only one of the major components of this release. However, at the end of August the release was only announced and was not available for download. As of yesterday that has changed, VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 Available for Download! Once again, let’s take a look at the great new features contained in the vSphere 6.7 Update 1 release and see how these new features and functionality take VMware’s vSphere to the next level.
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 New Features
Even though I had covered the release announcement, there are so many new features in this release and they are worth taking a look at again, especially since the download is now available. The new features in this release consist of the following:
- Fully-featured HTML 5 client
- New Platinum Edition
- Upgraded vSAN version
- New Content Library enhancements
- vCenter Convergence Tool
- New Cluster Wizard
- vMotion for NVIDIA Quadro vDWS VMs
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 Fully-featured HTML 5 Client
Ever since VMware introduced the web client with the flash based architecture, the web interface has long been a sore point with administering vSphere environments. With the teasing first release of the HTML 5 client, customers quickly saw the light at the end of the tunnel. The HTML 5 client is beautiful, quick, and gives roughly the same user experience as the old vSphere Windows client that has long been deprecated. However, to fully administer vSphere, administrators could not use the HTML 5 client and still had to make use of the flex/flash based client.
With each new release of vSphere, VMware has been making great strides at fully implementing the new HTML 5 web client and had announced earlier in the year that the HTML 5 vSphere client would be fully functional in the fall of 2018. VMware came through with this promise early, at least by way of announcement, by announcing vSphere 6.7 Update 1 at the end of August at VMWorld. Now with the availability to download vSphere 6.7 Update 1, customers can now make full use of the HTML 5 client for administering vSphere environments.
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 Available for Download
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 Platinum Edition
With the release of vSphere 6.7 Update 1, VMware also announced the availability of a new vSphere version – vSphere Platinum Edition. The new Platinum Edition is very security focused and rolls many of the vSphere security products into a single offering. Most notable of the security features included in this edition, is the inclusion of VMware’s AppDefense product that provides application white listing and AI powered intelligence to stop threats at the application layer.
AppDefense works hand-in-hand with VMware’s NSX product to provide security mechanisms to help secure and provide microsegmentation and application filtering to the vSphere environment. This is a great new offering in this space that certain fills a need in the industry in an ever-growing security-conscious world.
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 vSAN and HCI Enhancements
With each version of vSphere released, vSAN is an exciting component that always benefits in features and functionality with each release. VMware’s vSphere 6.7 Update 1 is no exception to that rule. With vSphere 6.7 Update 1, vSAN gets exciting new functionality including the ability to update storage controller firmware right from within Update Manager! This means that vSphere administrators can take care of both software and firmware updates related to storage, right from within the Update Manager interface and within the same maintenance window.
Another great new feature is an UNMAP functionality that provides the unmapping of storage and space reclamation with vSAN. Duncan Epping provides a great overview of this new functionality in his post found here.
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 New Content Library enhancements
The content library has received great new improvements in this release. With vSphere 6.7 Update 1, you can import OVA templates from an HTTPS endpoint and local storage. You can also import virtual machine templates into the content library which allows access to the associated operations such as deploying a VM directly from the Content Libary.
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 vCenter Convergence Tool
Another great new feature with the vSphere 6.7 Update 1 release is the vCenter Server Convergence Tool. This new tool allows migrating from External Platform Services Controller configurations to the Embedded PSC architecture. The Embedded PSC architecture is much simpler and easier to administer as well as provides a much smaller footprint from a virtual machine perspective in the vSphere environment. Additionally, the added benefits of no longer being required to have load balancers for HA and no more multi-site replication make this a worthwhile move from an architecture standpoint. This tool greatly simplifies the process of getting from the external PSC architecture to the embedded architecture.
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 New Cluster Wizard
New with vSphere 6.7 Update 1, there is a great new cluster quick start wizard added. This allows quickly provisioning and configuring vSphere clusters along with the configuration of HA, DRS, vSAN and even network configuration such as virtual distributed switches needed for cluster specific services. This new feature makes the process of creating a cluster a “wizardized” process that certainly helps to cut down on misconfiguration or any other issues that may come to light with improper configuration.
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 vMotion for NVIDIA Quadro vDWS VMs
The technology in this space has certainly be developing rapidly. VMware has introduced enhancements with vSphere 6.7 Update 1 in regards to NVIDIA vMotion vDWS as well as Intel FPGA Support.
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 Available for Download
As you can see above, this is a great release, chocked full of enhancements, new features, and the exciting release of the fully-featured HTML 5 client for vSphere administration. This was very much the release that many VMware customers were waiting for in regards to upgrades. Additionally, the vsphere 6.7 Update 1 release officially supports the upgrade path from vSphere 6.5 U2 to the vSphere 6.7 Update 1 release, so getting to vSphere 6.7 is no longer blocked if environments were first upgraded to the vSphere 6.5 U2 release.
Offical Download links are as follows:
Things to remember:
In general there are a few rules of thumb to remember. Always check with VMware to see order of upgrade operations, especially if you have other vSphere products running in your environment. In the case of a simple vCenter/ESXi host environment, you always upgrade vCenter Server first and then your ESXi hosts. Make sure before upgrading that your particular backup solution supports the upgraded version of vSphere as this can lead to issues and failed backups.
Takeaways
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 is a great new release! It contains loads of new features and functionality that certainly make this a version for upgrade consideration. If you have been holding out waiting on vSphere 6.7 Update 1, the wait is over with the news of VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 Available for Download officially. No longer will administration need to be carried out between the Flex client and the HTML 5 client as everything can now be done in the HTML 5 client. New vSAN improvements, vCenter convergence tool, content library, cluster wizard, and other new features make this the most exciting vSphere release to date.
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