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ADJACENT PRODUCTS
vSphere is not a product unto itself; other VMware products and third-party prod- ucts rely on vSphere, and not all of them are, or will be, compatible with vSphere 6.5. VMware knowledgebase (KB) article 2147548 lists the VMware products that will work with it. VMware products are being updated and certified to work with vSphere all the time; for example, Horizon 7 wasn’t initially compatible with vSphere 6.5, but became compatible with the release of Horizon 7.0.2. Check the KB note and VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes, as shown in Figure 4, to make sure that your VMware products are compatible with vSphere 6.5.
VMware announced that by the end of 2016 it had 7,000 vSAN users. With vSAN 6.5, all flash-based vSAN is now supported in the standard vSAN editions. vSAN 6.5 came with new certified hardware components, but VMware also removed some hardware components from it. A long-term support commitment for vSAN hardware compo- nents is needed, and it continues to be one of the major problems I see with the prod- uct. Be sure to check the HCL before decid- ing to upgrade to vSAN 6.5.
Two other notes here:
• vSphere 6.5 and other VMware com- ponents need to be installed in a specific order, so check KB article 2147289 to devise the sequence in which to update your environment.
• Third-party products also need to be certified to work with vSphere 6.5, so check with your vendor to check for compatibility. That said, most vendors have been quick to make their products compatible with vSphere 6.5.
SHOULD YOU STAY
OR SHOULD YOU GO?
Now for the big questions: Is this the right time to update your datacenter to vSphere 6.5? Should you wait a while longer? Or should you skip this release altogether? So far, this release has been clean, and the new
features in it are helpful. Yes, there are a few gotchas here and there: hardware compatibility may be an issue, and you’ll probably want to keep the C# and old Flash-based Web clients around for the fore- seeable future. But there doesn’t appear to be any showstoppers, or any major reason for the majority of users not to upgrade to vSphere 6.5.
On the other hand, companies that still rely on infrastructure (hard- ware or software) that has yet to be certified should wait. And, fi- nally, those that have infrastructure that won’t be supported should take a hard pass on updating to vSphere 6.5.
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.
Remember that upgrading needs to be a holistic process, and ev- erything in your datacenter, from servers to thin clients, should be investigated for compatibility with vSphere 6.5. You should check the latest release notes, pertinent KB articles, and the VMware HCLs. As an added safety measure, you should also check with your hard- ware and third-party vendors, as well as with your VMware systems engineer, for their latest recommendations.
Tom Fenton, a columnist for Virtualization Review magazine, works in VMware’s Education department as a senior course developer. He has a wealth of hands-on IT experience gained over the past 20 years in a variety of technologies, with the past 10 years focused on virtualization and storage. Before re-joining VMware, Tom was a senior validation engineer with The Taneja Group, were he headed their Validation Service Lab and was instrumental in starting up its vSphere Virtual Volumes practice. He’s on Twitter: @vDoppler.
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