VI3 Update 5 Notes
Last week, VMware released Update 5 for VMware Infrastructure 3. This is an important update as many organizations have not yet migrated to vSphere (version 4). There are a number of new features with this release, among them:
- Support for Intel Xeon 3400 series processors with Enhanced vMotion support.
- Driver updates for network and host bus adapter controllers as well as some new controllers are now supported.
- Increased guest operating system support to include Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Ubuntu 9.04 (Desktop and server).
This is on the heels of the vSphere Update 1 release that included the Windows operating system support for the recently released Microsoft products. When going about the upgrade, be sure to get vCenter upgraded first, then apply to the hosts.
I was a little surprised to see that ESX 3.5 Update 5 did not include the version 3.33 driver for vStorage VMFS when formatting VMFS volumes. VMFS versions are generally something that no one pays attention to, but it is important to know what versions are in play. ESX 3.5 Update 5 and ESXi 3.5 Update 1 still format new VMFS at version 3.31. When vSphere was released, we see the 3.33 version of the VMFS file system available on newly created VMFS volumes. VMFS is backwards and forwards compatible, so this difference is academic.
Many organizations are still on VI3 for their VMware platforms, so having continued development on the prior platform is important. VMware wants everyone to migrate to vSphere, if you haven’t noticed.
Did Update 1 seal the deal to start planning your migration to vSphere? Or is VI3 still your platform of choice? Share your comments here.
Posted by Rick Vanover on 12/10/2009 at 12:47 PM