The release of the much awaited vSphere platform (formerly VMware Infrastructure) is very near now.
VMware is supposed to announce its availability or at least its RTM status next week, in an online and live event scheduled for April 21.
The community is already divided between the early adopters that look forward to implement the new product as soon as possible, and the cautious customers that want to extensively test vSphere to verify its reliability and compatibility.
On this last point there may be some early issues. The blog VMGuru.nl (not associated with the Scott Herold’s VMGuru.com) published an interesting insight:
Yesterday we had a meeting with VMware and they revealed that the next version of VMware ESX, vSphere, has very limited support for the VMware management and automation suite.
vSphere will of course be available with vCenter for basic management and automation tasks but the rest of VMware’s great product suite is not supported in the initial release of vSphere.
So there won’t be support for:
- VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager
- VMware vCenter Lab Manager
- VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager
- VMware vCenter Stage Manager
- VMware View
If confirmed, this may be a major issue for the early adopters.
Of course VMware is expected to release updated versions of the products above but because each of them depends on VI, it really depends on how much time VMware will need to get out the proper updates.
And of course each new version will require some testing for reliability and compatibility as well.
Thanks to DABCC for the news.