What is new in VSphere 7

VMWare vSphere 7

On March 10, 2020, VMware has released the next generation of VMware vSphere: vSphere 7.  Back in 2019 VMworld, was called Project Pacific. vSphere 7 has massive improvements and simplified management for system administrators, network engineers, and security engineers. vSphere 7 provides truly modern hybrid cloud services to the users.

vSphere 7 has the integration of Kubernetes and this is natively present in the hypervisor, no more plugins for this. Users can run the containerized applications very easily and scale rapidly. It is available with VMware Cloud Foundation 4(VCF-4).

Here are the major improvements made in vSphere 7.

1. Kubernetes Integration with vSphere 7
2. vSphere Life Cycle Management
3. Intrinsic Security
4. Improved Distributed Resource Scheduler 
5. vMotion enhancements
6. vSphere Trust Authority
7. vCenter 7 Features
8. vSAN 7 Features

Kubernetes Integration with vSphere 7

• vSphere 7 has integration with Kubernetes.
• Virtual Machin and container can run all together in one hypervisor
• The container will help administrators and developers to build rapid application development more alike DevOps over vSphere itself.
• vSphere admins now can be Kubernetes admins.
• New construct “Namespace” came in the picture, Namespace allowing vSphere Admins to create a logical set of resources, permissions, and policies that enable an application-centric approach for the users.

vSphere Life Cycle Management

• vSphere Life Cycle Management (VLCM) is a new feature in vSphere 7.
• VLCM will replace the VMware update manager (VUM) with new things.
•  VLCM works on ‘Desired State Configuration (DSC)’ methodology.
• DSC enables admins to create a configuration setting and apply and monitor.
• DSC applies to vCenter Server Profile and Cluster Image Management both.
• vCenter Server Profile, enable administrators to standardize on a configuration for all of their vCenter Servers and monitor to protect against configuration drift and this can be achieved by DSC.
• Cluster Image Management, allows administrators to create images at the cluster level that dictate how hosts within the cluster will be configured.
• vSphere 7 has a vCenter Server Update Planner (VCSUP).
• VCSUP will help to discover, plan, and migration or upgrade customer environments. We also can see the update notification directly in the vSphere console. vCenter Server Update Planner only works with vSphere 7 and onwards, the user will not be able to use from 6.7 to 7 vSphere up-gradation.

Intrinsic Security

• Intrinsic security enables users to use multifactor authentication (MFA) to access their environment securely.
• With vSphere 7 and Identity Federation, vCenter Server can talk to an enterprise identity provider and get the vSphere Admins and vCenter Server out of the process.
• Introduction of vSphere Trust Authority(vTA).
• Many more new features on the way to secure the customer environment.

Improved Distributed Resource Scheduler 

• vSphere 7 has re-designed the DRS management of VMs and containers.
• DRS uses the cluster state and algorithm which would recommend vMotion where it balances the whole cluster by utilizing a cluster-wide standard deviation model.
• It computes the VM DRS score the hosts and moves VM to the hosts having the highest score.
• This way it would be VM centric rather than hosts.
• The VM DRS score is also calculated every minute and this results in a much more granular optimization of resources.

vMotion enhancements

• While vMotion a large VM there is slight performance degradation, vSphere has come with new improvements in a vMotion component called ‘Page Tracers’. Now page tracer will have a dedicated vCPU for its operation.
• Another improvement is made with “Memory Copy’.
• Prior to vSphere 7 memory copy was transferred between hosts in 4K pages but not it has 1GB pages. This will increase the speed of vMotion for large size VMs.

vSphere Trust Authority (vTA)

• This is a new utility in vSphere 7.
• vTA creates a hardware level root of trust using a small, managed clusters of ESXi hosts which take care of attestation.
• vTA gives attestation to the ability to enforce the rules by having the trusted hosts take over the communications with the key management systems (KMS).

vCenter 7 Features

VMware vCenter Server 7 provides great new features, including vCenter Server profiles, much-improved vCenter Server lifecycle management, NIC multihoming, and VM template check-in and check out functionality.  The new vCenter Server will drive the new functionality that is offered in vSphere 7 in general.

• vCenter Server Profiles – This allows exporting of vCenter Server configurations via a new set of APIs that allow easy export of configurations from one server to another without a reboot of the target appliance.
• Update Planner – This is part of the new vSphere Lifecycle Manager mentioned above. We can do vCenter Updates, patches, and upgrades using the new update planner for vCenter Server.
• Multihomed NICs support – vCenter Server NIC multihoming is now supported with vCenter Server 7. This will allow more options and flexibility for management networks and network segmentation.
• VM Template management and versioning – This new feature provides “Github-like” versioning to VM templates that are stored in the vSphere Content Library. When making updates or changes to a VM template, check out the template allows changes to be tracked and version information recorded when the template is checked back in.

vSAN 7 Features

Software-defined storage moves forward in this release as well with vSAN 7.0.  The new vSAN offering will continue to simplify operations and lifecycle management for vSAN as well as extend the services offered natively by vSAN such as the new file services.

• Simplified Management – VMware vSAN 7.0 benefits from the new vSphere Lifecycle Manager functionality. VLCM will allow consistently managing the lifecycle of both vSphere software components and host firmware, including storage firmware.
• Native File Services – New with vSAN 7.0, native file services are included. This allows vSphere administrators to enable NFS 3 and 4.1 shares as part of the storage services offered natively by vSAN 7.0.
• Enhanced cloud-native storage – Using the new functionality offered as part of the native file services, VMware vSAN 7.0 will provide file-level persistent storage for containers
• Enhanced 2-node and stretched cluster functionality – Many new features are found in vSAN 7.0 related to 2-node and stretched clusters. These new features include improved VM placement intelligence in the event of a failure, improved resilience, and intelligent capacity management.

Overall we can say VMware has given many new features in vSphere 7, which will help admins and engineers to build, deploy, and manage their virtual infrastructure very much effectivity in upcoming days. Too many cool new features were introduced to secure the environment like vTA and MFA.