VMware has released Update 2 for VMware Infrastructure 3 version 3.5, which includes updates to VMware ESX, VMware ESXi, VirtualCenter, and VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB). Check the Release Notes for the full details; I won’t reproduce them here, but instead I’ll just point out the particularly interesting details.
Also reporting this information (at the time of this writing) are David from VMblog.com, Rich from VM /ETC, and Duncan at Yellow Bricks. Rich’s post also highlights in red the features that he finds most significant.
Some of the features and/or functionality added in Update 2 that I find most notable include:
- The biggest, in my mind, is VSS quiescing support. This allows VMware snapshots to leverage VSS for more consistent snapshots. Microsoft had been using the lack of VSS support as a key argument against VMware; this tackles that issue head-on. Also surf over to Duncan’s site and see his post about enabling VSS snapshot support in VMware Tools.
- Users can now hot extend a virtual disk (extend a virtual disk while the VM is running).
- Users can clone a virtual machine while it is up and running (live cloning). There is now no need to shut down a VM in order to clone it. I suspect this functionality will have some very interesting repercussions from an operational perspective, and may serve as the basis for future functionality as well.
- VMware now officially introduces Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC), which leverages Intel FlexMigration and AMD-V Extended Migration support. This functionality automatically configures CPUs within a cluster to be VMotion-compatible and won’t allow you to add hosts to a cluster that can’t be configured via EVC to be compatible.
This doesn’t even touch on any of the other numerous features that are supported. Again, go check the Release Notes or one of the linked blogs above for complete details.
The introduction of new features that reduce service interruption—namely, hot extending virtual disks and live VM cloning—is exactly the move that VMware needs to take to further differentiate their virtualization solution from competitors’ solutions. I’ve stated time and time again that innovation in the virtualization space will continue to set VMware apart from the competition.
Tags: ESX, ESXi, Snapshots, VCB, Virtualization, VMotion, VMware
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VMware keeps raising the bar. This is great!
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There is a heck of a lot that excites me about this release that I’ve been wishing for. To name a few:
1. Windows Server 2008 support
2. Enhanced VMotion Compatibility. I wasn’t aware this was in the works but it sounds helpful for making the transition to newer hardware platforms now that our datacenter has some ESX infrastructure up for retirement within the year.
3. Remote CLI is now out of experimental/beta status – this was needed.
4. Fixed HA “flakeyness” which was highly dependent/vulnerable to DNS infrastructure.
5. VirtualCenter alarms updated – always room for granular improvement here.
6. Consolidation updates – Very much needed for larger organizations with gigantic AD domains and subnet browser limitations making the addition of consolidation candidates on remote subnets impossible. Now you can simply type in consolidation candidates to be converted among other things.
7. Live cloning – I’m with you here Scott. Interesting, but I’m curious about a) how it works, b) practicality?
8. Windows Single Sign On Support – VC SSO has been around as a hidden feature for a few months but now it is no longer a secret. Some security concerned folks have big problems with this but I say bah humbug. Let’s move forward with the innovation.
9. Plug-in updates – I’ll always welcome these. Hopefully a bit more stable than the initial releases. Previously the plug-ins have been very sensitive to back end availability, crashing and unloading themselves at any presence of issues. -
Jason,
The Enhanced VMotion stuff was first discussed last year at VMworld 2007, and you’re absolutely right on target–this will greatly facilitate hardware migrations.
As for live cloning, it really depends upon the specific details of how it’s implemented. Once I’ve had a chance to actually use it (hopefully in the next week or so), I’ll be able to speculate about some ways in which live cloning could be used. Duncan at Yellow Bricks already mentioned one–live cloning a machine with problems, disconnecting the network, and then troubleshooting the clone. However, I really suspect that there are some very innovative things that could be done with live cloning. It will be interesting to see how that develops.
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Just updated 2 ESXi hosts.
Finally there is more to see under health status (hardware monitoring), but still not all that I want to see. Sticking to ESX until then i guess
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Scott,
Any idea about the new support for Storage VMotion on iSCSI/FC? I assume this is still in shared storage/VMFS, and I thought that worked already! Do they now support it in RDM?
Stephen
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I found some really good information about how EVC works on VMware’s website:
http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/1022 -
Scott, I know it is not the correct form to contact you but in your article:”VMware ESX network redundancy via Fibre Channel multipathing” in SearchVMware.com, I think that the images are in wrong order.
BR,
Jon -
Jon,
Thanks for letting me know. I’ll have a look at the article and contact SearchVMware.com.
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