vSphere 6.0 Features:
vSphere Platform (including ESXi)
- Increase in vSphere Host Configuration Maximums
- 480 Physical CPUs per Host
- Up to 12 TB of Physical Memory
- Up to 1024 VMs per Host [Updated from 1000 per Product Management]
- Up to 8000 VMs per Cluster [Updated from 6000 per Product Management]
- Virtual Hardware v11
- 128 vCPUs per VM
- 4 TB RAM per VM
- Hot-add RAM now vNUMA aware
- Serial and parallel port enhancements
- A virtual machine can now have a maximum of 32 serial ports
- Serial and parallel ports can now be removed
- ESXi Account & Password Management
- New ESXCLI commands to add/modify/remove local user accounts
- Configurable account lockout policies
- Password complexity setting via VIM API & vCenter Host Advanced System Settings
- Improved Auditability of ESXi Admin Actions
- Prior to vSphere 6.0, actions taken through vCenter by any user would show up as ‘vpxuser’ in ESXi logs.
- In vSphere 6.0 actions taking through vCenter will show the actual username in the ESXi logs
- Enhanced Microsoft Clustering (MSCS) Support
- Support for Windows 2012 R2 and SQL 2012
- Failover Clustering and AlwaysOn Availability Groups
- IPv6 Support
- PVSCSI & SCSI controller support
- vMotion Support
- Clustering across physical hosts with Physical Compatibility Mode RDMs (Raw Device Mapping)
- Supported on Windows 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, and 2012 R2
vCenter 6.0
- Scalability Improvements
- 1000 Hosts per vCenter
- 10,000 VMs per vCenter
- 64 Hosts per cluster (including VSAN!)
- Up to 8000 VMs per Cluster [Updated from 6000 per Product Management]
- Linked Mode no longer requires MS ADAM
- New Simplified Architecture with Platform Services Controller
- Centralizes common services
- Embedded or Centralized deployment models
- Content Library
- Repository for vApps, VM templates, and ISOs
- Publisher/Subscriber model with two replication models
- Allow content to be stored in one location and replicated out to “Subscriber” vCenters
- Certificate Management
- Certificate management for ESXi hosts & vCenter
- New VMware Endpoint Certificate Service (VECS)
- New VMware Certificate Authority
- New vMotion Capabilities
- Cross vSwitch vMotion
- Cross vCenter vMotion
- Long Distance vMotion
- vMotion across L3 boundaries
Storage & Availability
- VMware Virtual Volumes (VVOLS)
- Logical extension of virtualization into the storage world
- Policy based management of storage on per-VM basis
- Offloaded data services
- Eliminates LUN management
- Storage Policy-Based Management
- Leverages VASA API to intelligently map storage to policies and capabilities
- Polices are assigned to VMs and ensure storage performance & availability
- Fault Tolerance
- Multi-vCPU FT for up to 4 vCPUs
- Enhanced virtual disk format support (thin & thick disks)
- Ability to hot configure FT
- Greatly increased FT host compatibility
- Backup support with snapshots through VADP
- Now uses copies of VMDKs for added storage redundancy (allowed to be on separate datastores)
- vSphere Replication
- End-to-end network compression
- Network traffic isolation
- Linux file system quiescing
- Fast full sync
- Move replicas without full sync
- IPv6 support
- vSphere Data Protection
- VDP Advanced has been rolled into VDP and is no longer available for purchase (the features of VDP-A are now available for free to Essentials Plus and higher editions of vSphere!)
- Protects up to 800 VMs per vCenter
- Up to 20 VDP appliances per vCenter
- Replicate backup data between VDP & EMC Avamar
- EMC Data Domain support with DD Boost
- Automated backup verification