vSphere 5 Top 10 Countdown: ESXi Firewall, vSphere Web Client and Storage vMotion at #6

Six is a party and at number six are three features I put at a tie: ESXi Firewall, vSphere Web Client and Storage vMotion.

Let's start with Storage vMotion. Up until VMware vSphere 5 you were unable to use Storage vMotion if the VM had a snapshot attached to it. With vSphere 5, that limitation will be lifted thereby allowing a storage vMotion operation to successfully complete . This makes a lot of sense as an enhancement in vSphere 5. Without it, vSphere 5 wouldn't be able ot implement one of the most anticipated features: Storage DRS.

Also tied at number six is the new and enhanced vSphere Web client. In older vSphere versions, we had access to a Web-based administration interface to vCenter and the ESX/ESXi host. That interface, though, had limited functionality. vSphere 5 extends the reach of the vSphere Web client, allowing you to perform the vast majority of tasks that you could perform from the regular vSphere client today. My only disappointment here is that the vSphere 5 Web client is not HTML5-compliant.

The third in this trinity-featured countdown goes to the new ESXi Firewall. It's a new service-oriented, stateless firewall used to protect the management interface of ESXi. It also eliminates the reliance on IP tables and rule sets to define port rules for services. The firewall can be configured either from a GUI through the vSphere client or via the command-line using esxcli.

As the countdown to the number one vSphere 5 feature continues, which features do you think will land in the top 3 spots, and in which order?

Posted by Elias Khnaser on 08/02/2011 at 12:49 PM