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VMware vSphere 5 - New Features and Editions

With the launch of vSphere 5, VMware is changing the way vSphere will be licensed.  Quotes provided to customer using current versions prior to August 22nd will be honored for 30 days after vSphere 5 releases.

vSphere 5 will be licensed per per processor with new entitlements. VMware has removed restrictive CPU Core and Physical Memory per sever entitlements and replaced them with a single virtualization-based entitlement, vRAM. vRAM is the amount of memory configured to a virtual machine. “vRAM Entitlement”: the different editions of vSphere will provide a certain vRAM Capacity Entitlement. The vRAM capacity can be pooled across all CPU licenses managed by a vCenter instance (or linked vCenter instances) to form a total vRAM capacity. In certain customer situations, clients may need to purchase additional CPU licenses above the # of CPUS.

vSphere 5 “Editions” include: Standard, Enterprise, & Enterprise Plus. The Advanced Edition will no longer be available. Customers with v4.1 Advanced will migrate to the Enterprise Edition in v5.

vSphere 5 “Kits” include: Essentials, Essentials Plus, and Acceleration Kits

vSphere 5 - Key New Features:

  • Scalability and Performance — Enables Virtual Machines (VM) to grow up to 32 virtual CPUs, can support 1TB vRAM, and a variety of next-generation hardware, such as 3D graphics processors and USB 3.0 devices.

  • High Availability — Deliver the right availability services with groundbreaking simplicity for any application.

  • Auto-Deploy — Deploy more vSphere hosts running the ESXi hypervisor architecture in minutes.

  • Flexible Hybrid Cloud Management — the vCenter Server Appliance is a Linux-based virtual appliance and the Web Client works from any browser anywhere in the world. vSphere 5 will utilize the ESXi hypervisor exclusively.

  • Scaling Virtual Machines — Create virtual machines with up to: 32 vCPUs, 1TB RAM.

  • New High Availability Architecture — Run and manage vSphere from any web browser anywhere in the world.


vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5

vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) is the market-leading disaster recovery product that ensures the simplest and most reliable disaster protection for all virtualized applications. Site Recovery Manager (SRM) leverages cost-efficient vSphere replication or storage-based replication to provide centralized management of recovery plans, enable non-disruptive testing, and automate site recovery and migration processes.

New Features include:
  • vSphere Replication – the industry ’s first hypervisor-based replication, Purpose built for vSphere and Site Recovery Manager.

  • Planned Migration — ensures clean site migrations of virtual machines in an application-consistent state and with zero data loss.

  • Automatic Failback — applications can move back and forth between sites automatically, without having to set up a new recovery plan for each step.