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VMware vsphere 5.5

VMware has released the latest version of vSphere in VMworld 2013 .Release 5.5 includes a number of significant improvements as well as new features over the past releases. Lets have a look.

What is new?
  • Application HA: The HA feature extended to applications like MSSQL,Tomcat,IIS,TC server runtime etc.It can monitor applications and take actions liek restarting the application, resetting the VM , raise an alarm or send email notifications .A vFabric Hyperic should be installed in each guest OS.Also an AppHA virtual applicance and Hyperic server is required for thsi to work
  • Reliable memory Technology:This enables ESXi to analyze the reliability of memory ,predict failures and stop using unreliable parts of memory. It will also help put critical processes like watchdog and hostd in the reliable area. 
  • Flash Read Cache: This was previously avaliable in Beta as vFlash. This technology leverages the local flash devices reources in a host to provide a clustered flash resources for VMs and Hosts.These flash devices could be PCIe flash cards or SAS/SATA SSD drives.Flash resources can be used for VM I/O request read caching as well as storing the host swap file.
  • Big Data Extension: A big-data plugin is introduced to manage enterprise Hadoop clusters.It provides an graphical interface for easy administration of hadoop clusters running in vSphere.
  • Hot plug SSD PCIe devices: Now you can hot plug SSD PCI express devices just like Sata or SAS Hard drive.
  • Enhanced DPM using policy setting: You can  finegrain your power management using the following policies







  • VM hardware version 10: The latest VM hardware comes with enhancements like advanced host controller interface(AHCI). It comes with a new Virtual SATA controller which supports upto 30 devices per controller and a total of four controller per VM.It also provides graphic acceleration for Linux OS including Ubuntu 12.04 and later,Fedora 17 & later and RHEL 7

What is changed?
  • Maximum VMDK size increased from 2 TB to 62 TB for VMFS5 and NFS
  • Removed the 32 GB physical memory limitation of ESXi free version
  • Maximum RAM per host increased from 2 TB to 4 TB
  • Virtual CPUs per host increased from 2048 to 4096
  • Logical CPUs per host changed from 160 to 320
  • Extnded support for AMD and Intel GPUs
  • Support for windows 2012 guest clustering
  • Support for 40 Gpbs NICs
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