This paper is particularly appropriate for this week, enriched with the VMworld 2012 in San Francisco.
The document summarizes the new features and enhancements introduced with release 5.1 of vSphere:
Compute
• Larger virtual machines: up to 64 vCPUs and 1TB vRAM
• New virtual machine format: with CPU performance counters and virtual shared graphics acceleration
Storage
• Flexible, space-efficient storage for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)
Network
• vSphere Distributed Switch: with Network Health Check, Configuration Backup and Restore, Roll Back and Recovery and Link Aggregation Control Protocol support
• Single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) support
Availability
• vSphere vMotion®: without the need for shared storage configurations
• vSphere Data Protection: based on EMC Avamar technology allows to backup VM data to disk without the need of agents and with built-in deduplication
• vSphere Replication: over LAN or WAN
• Zero-downtime upgrade for VMware Tools: no reboot required for subsequent VMware Tools upgrades after 5.1
Security
• VMware vShield Endpoint™
Automation
• vSphere Storage DRS™ and Profile-Driven Storage: with a new integration with VMware vCloud Director
• vSphere Auto Deploy™
Management (with vCenter Server)
• vSphere Web Client
• vCenter Single Sign-On
• vCenter Orchestrator