New Features in Vsphere 5.5

Changes to the Esxi Server

1. Logical Cpus 320 vs 160
2. Numa Nodes  16 vs 8
3. Virtual Cpus 4096 vs 2048
4. Ram 4TB vs 2TB
5. 512 vms x host

Note: Minimum amount of RAM to install 4 gbs vs 2 gbs

Changes to Virtual Machines

1. Virtual Hardware 10 (9 in 5.1, 8 in 5.0). 64 vcpus and 1TB of ram still
2. 30 devices x controller (vs 15)
3. 4 Controllers x vm
4. 120 devices x vm
5. New Sata Controller (AHCI)
6. Enhanced vGPU (support for AMD, not just Nvidia)
7 Support for 3.2 Linux Kernel (vmware tools a must)

Note: Some of these features require the use of the web client

Changes to Vcenter

1. Improved SSO (version 2), simpler install, no more database
2. Faster Web Client, html 5 support (console works with macosx)
3. Better propagation for Active Directory (multiple forests)
4. Application HA, support for MSSQL 2008 R2, apache, tomcat
5. 62 tb vmdk in both vmfs and nfs
6. 62 tb virtual mode rdm
7. 64 tb physical mode rdm
8. 5 node MS cluster support (quorum disk now iscsi/fcoe and fiber0)
9. Can be installed in 2008 and 2012 (2003 no longer supported)
10. DB2 as a database no longer supported
11. 100 hosts and 3000 vms with embedded vpostgres database (appliance)
12. 1000 hosts and 10000 vms with oracle database (appliance)

Changes to Replication Appliance

The 5.5 replication appliance allows up to 24 historical snapshots. One can retain one replica per day for 24 days or 24 replicas (one per hor) for 24 hours. Recovery always draws the most recent copy but the snapshot manager allows you to revert to an older recovery point.

Changes to Web Client

The vSphere Web Client reflect customer feedbacks, such as the "10 most recent objects). Other
improvements include the new drag and drop support and the ability to filter search results for larger
installations.

Vsphere Flash Card Read

Used to speed up vms; vms page to flash cache (for ssds)

VSAN

Create virtual datastore across spinning disks and ssds
3 hosts minimum
i/o goes first to ssds, then moved to disks
automatic mode and manual mode (similar to drs)
Compatible with vdp, ha, drs, vmotion and vcops
New command: esxcli vsan

Examples:

esxcli vsan cluster get
esxcli vsan network list
excli vsan storage list