What’s New with VMware vSphere 6.5 Update 1?

VMware released vSphere 6.5 Update 1  on 27-July-2017 with great enhancements. All the prior patches released for vSphere 6.5 are included in vSphere 6.5 Update 1. vSphere 6.5 U1 release includes vCenter Server 6.5 Update 1 for Windows , vCenter Server appliance 6.5 U1  and VMware ESXi 6.5 Update 1. Along with the release of vSphere 6.5 U1, There are other products such as VMware vSAN 6.6.1, VMware Site Recovery Manager 6.5.1, vSphere Replication 6.5.1 and  VMware Tools 10.1.10. All these new product releases are compatible with vSphere 6.5 Update 1. In this article, We will discuss in detail about What’s New with vSphere 6.5 Update 1.

Graphic Thanks to VMware.com

What’s New with VMware vSphere 6.5 Update 1?

• Upgrade Support: vSphere 6.5 Update 1 allows customers who are currently on vSphere 6.0 Update 3  can directly upgrade to vSphere 6.5 Update 1 . Customers who are still on vSphere 5.5 will need to be on at least vSphere 5.5 U3b in order to upgrade to vSphere 6.5 U1. This may mean a two-step process for some customers to get to vSphere 6.5 U1 but this is necessary in order to ensure the best possible outcome for the upgrade.
• Removal of 3rd party switch support: After vSphere 6.5 Update 1, customers using 3rd party virtual switches such as the IBM DVS 5000v, HPE 5900v, and Cisco Nexus 1000v will need to migrate off of those switches prior to upgrading to any future release.
• Guest OS Support for VCSA Installers : Installing vCenter Server appliance via GUI and CLI are now even supported on the latest version of windows Servers such as Microsoft Windows 2012/2012 R2 x64 bit, Windows 2016 x64 bit, and macOS Sierra for Apple lovers.
• Guest OS Customization for Ubuntu 17.04: vCenter Server 6.5 Update 1 supports Guest OS customization for Ubuntu 17.04 OS.
• TcServer Replacement: TcServer is now replaced with Tomcat 8.5.8 for better performance and stability
• VADP Support for Windows Server 2016 & RHEL 7.3: VMware vSphere Storage APIs – Data Protection (VADP) now also support Windows Server 2016 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux RHEL 7.3 as operating systems to perform proxy backup
• vSAN software upgrades via Update Manager: you can now enable vSAN software upgrades through integration with vSphere Update Manager which provides a unified and common Workflow
• External DB Support for vCenter Server: Microsoft SQL Server 2016\2016 SP1, and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 SP2 are now supported as the External database for vCenter Server
• Enhancements to HTML5-based vSphere Client: Content library and OVF deployment operations,as well as operations on roles and permissions, basic customization of the Guest OS, and additions to virtual machine, host, datastore, and network management are now supports on HTML5-based vSphere Client and also The HTML5-based vSphere Client now supports French, Swiss-French, and Swiss-German keyboards.
• JRE Upgrade : The Oracle (Sun) JRE package is updated to version 1.8.0_131.
• 4 ESXi Host support in vCenter Server Foundation: With vSphere 6.5 Update 1, VMware has increased the number of hosts that vCenter Server Foundation will support from 3 host to 4.
• Extended vSphere 6.5 General Support : VMware wants to make the customer’s decision to upgrade easier by extending general support for vSphere 6.5 for a full 5 years.  This means that support for vSphere 6.5 will now end November 15, 2021.

New Configuration Maximums with vSphere 6.5 Update 1

• In vSphere 6.5 Update 1,Linked vCenter Server instances now support upto 15 vCenter instances (10 vCenter instances in vSphere 6.5)
• In vSphere 6.5 Update 1, 5000 ESXi hosts are supported in Linked vCenter Server (4000 in vSphere 6.5)
• VMware vSphere 6.5 Update 1 supports upto 50,000 powered on virtual machines in linked vCenter server instances (30,000 in vSphere 6.5) and 70,000 registered virtual machines in linked vCenter servers (50,000 in vSphere 6.5)

What’s New with ESXi 6.5 Update 1

• If you prefer to use Update Manager for the upgrade of ESXi and vSAN stack, you can now enable vSAN software upgrades through integration with vSphere Update Manager.
• Driver Updates:
  • Cavium qlnativefc driver
  • VMware nvme driver
  • Intel i40en driver with Lewisburg 10G NIC Support
  • Intel ne1000 driver with Lewisburg 1G NIC Support
  • Intel igbn driver
  • Intel ixgben driver
  • Broadcom ntg3 driver

Build Numbers for vSphere 6.5 Update 1

• vCenter Server 6.5 Update 1 | 27 JULY 2017 | ISO Build 5973321
• vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 Update 1 | 27 JULY 2017 | Build 5973321
• ESXi 6.5 Update 1 | 27 JULY 2017 | ISO Build 5969303

Download VMware vSphere 6.5 Update 1

• Download VMware vCenter Server 6.5 U1
• Download VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) 6.5 U1 

We are now aware of enhancements available with vSphere 6.5 Update 1. It’s time to upgrade our lab environment with vSphere 6.5 Update 1. I will write a detailed posts about each of the enhancements, once lab is upgraded to vSphere 6.5 Update 1. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!!. Be social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

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