VMworld: What's new in vSphere 5.5 Storage

Twitter: #VSVC5005; Kyle Gleed, VMware; Cormac Hogan, VMware

This session was a bit of a bust. The first 20 minutes storage wasn’t even mention; it was a recap of vSphere 5.5 platform features. The next 20 minutes was a super high level storage feature overview, and the session ended 20 minutes early. It really didn’t say much more than keynote sessions. The session title was misleading and I would have skipped it if I had known the agenda. But for what it’s worth, here are my session notes.

Agenda

vSphere 5.5 Platform Features
vCenter 5.5 Server Features
vSphere 5.5 Storage Features

vSphere 5.5 Platform Features

Scalability – Doubled several config maximums, HW version 10
Hardware version 10: LSI SAS for Solaris 11, new SATA controller, AHCI support, support latest CPU architectures
vGPU Support: Expanded to support AMD (including NVIDIA). vMotion between GPU vendors
Hot-Pluggable SSD PCIe Devices – Supports orderly and surprise hot-plug operations
Reliable Memory – Runs ESXi kernel in the more reliable memory areas (as surfaced by the HW server vendor)
CPU C-States – Deep C-states in default balanced policy;

vCenter Server Features

Completely new SSO service
Supports one-way, and two-way trusts
Built-in HA (multi-master)
Continued support for local authentication (in all scenarios)
No database needed
Web client: Supports OS X (VM console, OVF templates, attach client devices)

vCenter Application HA

Protects apps running inside the VM
Automates recovery from host failure, guest OS crash, app failure
Supports: Tomcat 6/7; IIS 6.0-8.0; SQL 2005-2012, and others
HA is now aware of DRS affinity rules

Storage

62TB VMDK maximum size
Large VMDKs do NOT support: Online/hot extension, VSAN, FT, VI client, MBR partitions disks
MSCS: Supports 2012, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, and round-robin multipathing