Current version information VMware vSphere 5

You will find current version information regarding VMware vSphere 5 in this article.

General Information regarding VMware vSphere 5

• VMware vSphere 5 Documentation: English
• Hardware Requirements:
  • ESXi 5.0 requires a 64-bit x86 CPU with at least two CPU cores
  • Detailed Hardware Requirements
  • VMware Compatibility Guide
  • Third Party Hardware and Software Support Policy

Versions

Current Patches

The current patches can be downloaded from here:

• http://www.vmware.com/patchmgr/download.portal

ESXi 5.0 Update 1, vCenter Server 5.0 Update 1

Important changes (extracts) in this version:

• ESXi: Support for additional guest operating systems – ESXi 5.0 Update 1 adds support for Mac OS X Server Lion 10.7.2 and 10.7.3.
• ESXi: New or upgraded device drivers – ESXi 5.0 Update 1 adds support for native storage drivers for Intel C600 series chipset and upgrades LSI MegaRAID SAS driver to version 5.34.
• vCenter: Guest Operating System Customization Improvements – vCenter Server adds support for customization of the following guest operating systems: Windows 8, Ubuntu 11.10/11.04/10.10/10.04LTS, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2

Complete Release Notes with all changes:

• http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsp_esxi50_u1_rel_notes.html (15.03.2012, Build 623860)
• http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsp_vc50_u1_rel_notes.html (15.03.2012, Build 639890)

ESXi 5.0, vCenter Server 5.0, vCenter Server Appliance 5.0

Important changes (extracts) in this version:

• VMFS Version 5

Maximum LUN size: 64TB

Unified Block Size: 1MB

Maximum File Size: 2TB minus 512 Byte

The LUN must be re-formatted for migration

• Current VMware Storage DRS - vSphere 5
• Profile-driven Storage
• New virtual machine format (version 8) with support for 3D graphics for Windows Aero and USB 3.0 devices
• Newly developed VMware HA - vSphere 5
• vSphere Web Client
• VMware vCenter Server Appliance (Linux-based Virtual Appliance with vCenter Server)
• List of 140 changes: vSphere 5.0 Features (blogs.vmware.com, 24.08.2011)

Complete Release Notes with all changes:

• http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-esx-vcenter-server-50-release-notes.html (24.08.2011, ESXi Build 469512, vCenter Server Build 456005)

Additional Information

• What's New in VMware vSphere 5 - Technical White Papers (ntpro.nl/blog)
• vSphere 5.0 – up close and virtual (infosmackpodcasts.com), Podcast (Duration: 1h 16min)