Virtualization and VMware are practically synonymous, and this pioneer in the field of virtualization still retains nearly 60% of the virtualization market share. VMware vSphere, their control suite to manage virtual data centers, has incorporated more than 100 improvements and additions in its recently released version 5.1. The hypervisor has been improved and can often match, or sometimes even exceed the performance of virtual machines, over that which they would realize if they were running on native hardware. Its Enterprise Plus edition’s capabilities have been expanded to 64 virtual CPUs, and all versions support up to 1TB of RAM. It also supports nVidia’s Grid series video boards which now provide virtualized GPUs, which serve multiple virtual desktops and offload some of the CPU processing from the data center.
In addition to the hypervisor, the suite includes Vcloud Director for provisioning and managing virtual applications, which can now manage up to 30,000 virtual machines on multiple virtual clusters. Provisioning a new application requires just a few mouse clicks and minimal configuration, after which the server spins up in minutes.
The migration tool, vMotion, now migrates live virtual machines without shared storage, and its storage complement, Storage vMotion, similarly permits live migration of virtual storage assets without interruption to the user. This combination results in the complete elimination of periodic planned downtime for these migrations.
This is but a sampling of the enhancements introduced in version 5.1 of vSphere for VMware, and for those who would like more information, a complete listing of these improvements can be found here, and a complete specification sheet here. We try to keep our clients informed of the latest developments invirtualization, VMware, and cloud computing in general. If you have questions or comments about anything mentioned here, or if you think we can be of service to you, please contact us at your convenience. Meanwhile, please keep following our blog for more industry news.