VMware vSphere 5.5 Update 1 Released

Hot off the presses is VMware vSphere 5.5 Update 1. Unlike prior “update” releases which are mostly bug fixes, this update packs more of a punch. Full vCenter release notes can be found here. ESXi 5.5 Update 1 release notes are here.

What’s New:

• vCloud Hybrid Services vSphere client plug-in now works in the vSphere web client
• You can install vCenter on Windows Server 2012 R2 (Whoohoo!)
• Support for VMware VSAN (the “punch” in this update)

Notable Bug Fixes:

• vCenter fails to install on Windows Server 2012 R2
• A couple of Windows ‘workgroup’ related SSO bug fixes
• Performance chart bugs
• Trusted Platform Module attestation information reporting bug
• SSO Integrated Windows Authentication provider bug fixes
• Local OS group authentication failures
• Custom UPN SSO logon failure bug fix
• SSO appears to support more complex password characters such as ; ^ and “
• Updated JRE to 1.7.0 Update 45 to address security issues
• VCSA root password expires after 90 days and locks out
• NTP security bug fix
• Unable to disable weak ciphers on CIM port 5989
• VMXNET3 driver resets in Windows Server 2008 R2 when using RSS
• E1000 and E1000E purple screen issues
• Glib-c update to address security issues

Even if you don’t have a need for any of the ‘new’ features, the security fixes alone should prod you into doing due diligence testing then rolling it out into production. I see the GA of VSAN as a validation of the huge hyperconverged market which vendors like Nutanix have pioneered. As more vendors ‘see the light’ about web scale infrastructure, more and more customers will start to realize the centralized storage arrays are morphing into dodo birds faster than you think.

Download links:

ESXi 5.5 Update 1
vCenter 5.5 Update 1
vSphere CLI 5.5 Update 1
Other Software