I’ve been testing vSphere for a few months and have collected various samples of new and different management interfaces. VMware has informed me that I am no longer under vSphere NDA and bloggers are welcomed to help showcase VMware’s new vSphere product. In no particular order, here are some of my observations. By the way, the very first thing I noticed out of the gate when installing vSphere (other than I needed 64 bit hardware) was that although ESXi4 is small enough to fit on a CD, ESX4 is now a DVD. For those who install from physical media, you’ll want to be sure you’ve got a DVD-ROM reader in your host.

The VIC now has integrated authentication built into the GUI. We had this in VI3 but through command line parameters that launched the client:

A Hyper9-like quick search in the top right area of the vSphere Client:

Complete license management overhaul evident in many areas:

An improved Plug-in Manager:

Host Profiles will assist us with automated configuration and consistency. This may sunset much of the deployment scripting you have in place today and I think it’s especially helpful for ESXi users as it offers yet another option for automating the configuration of VMware’s console-less hypervisor.  Along with being responsible for making configuration changes across a container, it can also be used to verify compliance of host configurations.  It works similar to VMware Update Manager and remediation:

vCenter Server configuration Advanced Settings. Take a look at what’s highlighted: VMotion encryption. Those worried about vampire taps on their VMotion network can sleep better at night:

My favorite and most used – the Home button, which brings you back to the “root” of all configurable items in vCenter Server. This feature alone will reduce VI Administrator mousing carpel tunnel by 20%:

vCenter Service Status. Keeping vCenter Server healthy is becoming increasingly important in vSphere. This tool helps us keep tabs on it:

VMware HA configuration. Note the new Admission Control Policies:

Back on the Cluster view, VMware HA offers Advanced Runtime Info, while DRS offers some standard deviation numbers:

…along with fancy new bar charts for resource distribution:

4,088 ports supported on vSwitches… 3,000 more than VI3 supported:

Resource Allocation at the VM level. The bar graphs look similar to the old ESX or GSX MUI, I forget which:

That’s all for now. I wanted to get into vNDS (vNetwork Distributed Switch) but that in and of itself is about 35 screenshots. Good material for later. vSphere looks and feels very promising. I like most of the changes but there are still some lingering enhancements that I will continue to pester VMware about.

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