What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1?
vSphere 5.1 is VMware’s latest release of its industry-leading
virtualization platform. This new release contains the following
new features and enhancements:
Compute
• Larger virtual machines – Virtual machines can
grow two
times larger than in any previous release to support even the
most advanced applications. Virtual machines can now have
up to 64 virtual CPUs (vCPUs) and 1TB of virtual RAM (vRAM).
• New virtual machine format – New features in the
virtual machine format (version 9) in vSphere 5.1 include
support for larger virtual machines, CPU performance
counters and virtual shared graphics acceleration designed
for enhanced performance.
Storage
• Flexible, space-efficient
storage for virtual
desktop infrastructure (VDI) – A new disk format
enables the correct balance between space efficiency and I/O
throughput for the virtual desktop.
Network
• vSphere Distributed Switch – Enhancements such as
Network Health Check, Configuration Backup and Restore,
Roll Back and Recovery, and Link Aggregation Control
Protocol support and deliver more enterprise-class networking
functionality and a more robust foundation for cloud computing.
• Single-root I/O virtualization
(SR-IOV) support
– Support for SR-IOV optimizes performance for sophisticated
applications.
Availability
• vSphere vMotion® – Leverage the
advantages of vMotion
(zero-downtime migration) without the need for shared
storage configurations. This new vMotion capability applies
to the entire network.
• vSphere Data Protection – Simple and cost
effective
backup and recovery for virtual machines. vSphere Data
Protection is a newly architected solution based EMC
Avamar technology that allows admins to back up virtual
machine data to disk without the need of agents and with
built-in deduplication. This feature replaces the vSphere
Data Recovery product available with previous releases
of vSphere.
• vSphere Replication – vSphere Replication
enables efficient
array-agnostic replication of virtual machine data over the LAN
or WAN. vSphere Replication simplifies management enabling
replication at the virtual machine level and enables RPOs as low
as 15 minutes.
• Zero-downtime upgrade for
VMware Tools – After
you upgrade to the VMware Tools available with version 5.1, no
reboots will be required for subsequent VMware Tools upgrades.
Security
• VMware vShield Endpoint™ – Delivers a proven
endpoint
security solution to any workload with an approach that is
simplified, efficient, and cloud-aware. vShield Endpoint enables
3rd party endpoint security solutions to eliminate the agent
footprint from the virtual machines, offload intelligence to a
security virtual appliance, and run scans with minimal impact.
Automation
• vSphere Storage DRS™ and
Profile-Driven Storage
– New integration with VMware vCloud® Director™ enables
further storage efficiencies and automation in a private cloud
environment.
• vSphere Auto Deploy™ – Two new methods for
deploying
new vSphere hosts to an environment make the Auto Deploy
process more highly available then ever before.
Management (with vCenter Server)
• vSphere Web Client –The vSphere Web Client
is now the
core administrative interface for vSphere. This new flexible,
robust interface simplifies vSphere control through shortcut
navigation, custom tagging, enhanced scalability, and the
ability to manage from anywhere with Internet Explorer or
Firefox-enabled devices.
• vCenter Single Sign-On – Dramatically simplify
vSphere
admin- istration by allowing users to log in once to access all
instances or layers of vCenter without the need for further
authentication.
• vCenter Orchestrator – Orchestrator
simplifies installation
and configuration of the powerful workflow engine in vCenter
Server. Newly designed workflows enhance ease of use, and
can also be launched directly from the new vSphere Web Client.
Learn More
For information on upgrading to vSphere 5.1, visit the vSphere
vSphere is also available with the new vCloud suites from
