vSphere 6.0 Features

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