Page 19 - COMPASS, Q1 2017

VSPHERE 6.5 SHIPS WITH TWO WEB-BASED CLIENTS TO ACCESS VCENTER SERVER: THE OLD FLASH-BASED WEB CLIENT AND THE NEW HTML5 CLIENT.
Sphere is the beating heart of most modern data- centers. Because of this, any updates to it should be approached very carefully, to avoid breaking critical functionality in your environment. That means in part knowing when it’s time to move to a new version, or stay put on the current one. The decision requires an understanding of what new stuff is offered, and how it might interoperate with your existing infrastructure.
vSphere 6.5 was released in November 2016, and since then has had time to mature. Moreover, the VMware community has had time to discover issues with it. What follows is a rundown of benefits and challenges to consider when deciding whether upgrading to vSphere 6.5 makes sense for you.
ESXI IMPROVEMENTS
VMware’s hypervisor (ESXi) was updated for vSphere 6.5; and as usual, scalability and performance were enhanced. Beyond that, it also has a few new features. The most notable is the new HTML5 Web-based client, which was introduced to manage ESXi hosts (see Figure 1).
Other significant upgrades include:
• New and improved I/O device drivers, in- cluding those for NVM Express (NVMe); USB 3.0 Ethernet; IB; SATA; and HBA
• The latest releases of popular OSes, certi- fied as guest OSes
• Security, which became a point of focus in this release through the encryption of vMotion migrations and guests, and the addition of secure boot support for ESXi host and guest VMs
DOWNGRADES
This upgrade did come with some down- sides, however. The most notable change is
that the native—or C#—client is no longer shipped with vSphere. I found I could use the old native client to connect to my ESXi 6.5 host, but not my 6.5 vCenter Server.
Another change is that some hardware has dropped off the hardware compatibility list (HCL), and some host components will need to have a firmware upgrade to work with vSphere 6.5; be sure to check the VMware HCL before deciding to upgrade. That said, just because a product isn’t on the HCL doesn’t mean that it won’t work; only that it hasn’t gone through VMware’s rigorous certification process.
vCENTER UPGRADES
As for management, vSphere 6.5 ships with two Web-based clients to access vCenter Server: the old Flash-based Web client and the new HTML5 client. The HTML5 client is faster and more intuitive, and will eventually become complete enough to replace the
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Figure 1. The HTML5 Client.