For the second time this year, Nutanix has released a major feature upgrade to AOS and companion software. Now available, is AOS 5.1! Top of the list of new features is vSphere 6.5 support for NX platforms (Nutanix branded gear). vSphere 6.5 support for OEM platforms is coming soon. But that’s not the only new feature. Here’s a rundown of some (not all) of the new features:
- 1-click controller VM (CVM) memory upgrade
- XenServer support on NX-1065-G5, NX-3060-G5, NX-3175-G5 (optionally with NVIDIA M60)
- All-flash clusters now support adding hybrid nodes (e.g. cold storage only nodes). Minimum 2 AF nodes.
- Automatic “admin” account password sync across all CVMs, Prism Web console, and SSH interfaces.
- Docker container management through self-service portal.
- Prism 1-click feature to install Docker host VM
- Post-process compression is enabled by default on all new containers with Pro and Ultimate licenses
- 1-click centralized upgrades from Prism Central
- 1-click Prism central cluster registration and Prism Central Deployment
- Pulse (telemetry) enabled for Prism Central
- Auto-resolved alerts
- User defined alerts
- Graphics and compute mode for NVIDIA M60 GPU
- CHAP authentication for Acropolis Block Services
- Hot-plug CPU and memory on AHV VMs
- Metro availability and synchronous replication supported across hardware vendors (NX, Dell, Lenovo). Async support continues.
- VirtIO drivers updated to v1.1
- Dynamically increase EC-X strip size as cluster is expanded
- Much improved storage efficiency reporting in Prism (compression, dedupe, EC-X, etc.)
- Disk rebuild time estimation
- AFS supports Mac OS v10.10, v10.11, v10.12
- Acropolis Block Service enhanced OS support (Solaris 11, RHEL 6, 7, 6.8)
Tech Preview Features include:
- Software only support for UCS B-series blades
- GPU pass-through for AHV guest VMs
- Support 3rd-party network function VMs (e.g. load balancer, firewall, etc.) routed through Open vSwitch (OVS).
Companion Software Updates
- Prism Central 5.1
- Acropolis File Services (AFS) 2.1
- Acropolis Container Services (ACS) 1.0
- Foundation 3.7.2
Helpful Links
- AOS 5.1 Download
- AOS 5.1 Release Notes
- Prism Central Download
- Prism Central Release Notes
- AFS 2.1 Download
- AFS 2.1 Release Notes
- ACS 1.0 Download
- ACS 1.0 Release Notes
- Foundation 3.7.2 Download
- Foundation 3.7.2 Release Notes
As of 5/1/2017, AOS 5.1 has not been enabled for automatic download and 1-click upgrades. As always, if you don’t want to wait for the automatic download switch to be flipped (in the near future), you can grab the AOS binary from the support portal and use our 1-click upgrade process. As always, thoroughly read the full release notes on the support portal before attempting an upgrade.
