Right on the heels of VMware Workstation 11 being released, VMware has released vSphere 5.1 U3. No major new features, but according to the release notes there is support for new guest operating systems (without being specific) and it also resolves a number of issues. Also updated in this release are VMware tools and the SCSI MegaRAID SAS VIB. Some security patches are also included, so be sure to start testing this release and planning your change control windows.
One interesting change in 5.1 U3, which was included in 5.5 U2, is the resetting of the CBT counter when doing a storage vMotion. Now if you do a svMotion CBT state will be maintained. New to vCenter 5.1 U3 is the support for Oracle 12c, and Microsoft SQL 2014. It’s great to see VMware keeping up with database support. vCenter 5.1 U3 also includes an updated Java engine, which addresses a plethora of security issues. So once again, view 5.1 U3 as a security update which you need to plan on rolling out in your environment.
ESXi 5.1 U3 Release notes are here
vCenter 5.1 U3 Release notes are here
As always, you can download the newest updates from My VMware portal. Be sure to conduct thorough testing in a lab environment before deploying this into product. Nutanix supports “U” releases day zero. But remembering back to NFS issues introduced in “U” releases, a good amount of testing is advised before putting this into production.
