VMware vSphere 8 U2 Announced at Explore 2023

At VMware Explore US 2023 in Las Vegas, VMware announces vSphere 8 U2!.

vSphere 8 U2 — What’s new #

Like with vSAN 8 U2, there are really no new stand-out features in the vSphere 8 U2 announcement. It is an evolutionary release, with a number of welcome improvements both to hardware support and sane defaults for security and hardening, but no eyepopping new features. I do appreciate everything that makes certificate management easier though, so I’m glad to see improvements there.

Here’s a quick rundown of the improvements in vSphere 8 U2 #

vSphere+ #

• vCenter Lifecycle Management

  • Now available with Free Trial
  • Test Upgrades for cloud-connected environments
  • Upgrade of vCenter Instances in vCenter HA mode is now supported
  • One-time configuration
  • Supports vCenter HA instances deployed using automated configuration

• Global Subscription Usage reports

  • Overall subscription usage
  • Actual vs billable
  • Commitments, unused cores, overage and more.

• ESXi Lifecycle as a Service (vSphere+ Early Access)

  • Create ESXi image definitions and apply to multiple clusters and across vCenters
  • Rollout upgrades to one or more clusters from a single interface
  • Monitor upgrade process using a cloud dashboard

Update vCenter with Minimal Downtime #

• Reduced Downtime Upgrade for on-premises deployments
  • Migration-based upgrade
  • New vCenter appliance deployed
  • Downtime only during switchover (~5 minutes)

Resilient vCenter Patching #

• Prompt to take a vCenter backup before patching
• Automatic LVM snapshot taken during patching
• Patching can be resumed on failure or rolled back

Non-Disruptive Certificate Management #

• Renew or replace vCenter Server certificates without service restart
• No need to schedule downtime
• May require other systems to reauthenticate or re-accept

Reliable Network Configuration Recovery #

• vSphere Distributed Switch changes pushed from cluster(s) to vCenter
• Supports vSphere Distributed Switch using VMware NSX

vSphere Identity Federation with Entra ID/Azure AD #

• Microsoft Entra ID/Azure AD added to direct Federation options
• All other identity choices still available

vSphere Security Configuration & Hardening #

• Updated product defaults mean out-of-box protections
• Updated hardening guidance to reflect changes in the security landscape

Lifecycle Managing vSAN Clusters with enhanced vSAN Witness Support #

• vSphere Lifecycle Manager can manage the image of vSAN witness nodes independent of the vSAN cluster
• Supports shared vSAN witness nodes

End to End Desired State Configuration Management #

• End to end UI workflows
• Edit and apply configuration

Streamlined Windows Guest Customization #

• Active Directory OU path can be specified during Windows guest customization

Descriptive Error Messages when Files are Locked #

• Easily identify the source of locked VM files from the vSphere Client.
• No need to run CLI commands or review busy logs
• IP Address and MAC of the host holding the file lock is reported

Improved Placement for GPU Workloads #

• DRS makes smarter placement decisions for vGPU enabled VMs
• vGPU enabled VMs are automatically migrated to accommodate larger VMs

Quality of Service for GPU Workloads #

• Estimated stun time calculated based on assigned vGPU profile
• Administrators can define max acceptable stun time

Virtual Machine Hardware Version 21 #

• 16 vGPU devices per VM
• 256 Disks per VM (64 disks x 4 vNVMe adapters)
• NVMe 1.3 support for Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022
• Support WSFC using NVMe adapters
• RHEL 10 / Oracle Linux 10 / Debian 13 / FreeBSD 15

Streamlining Supervisor Cluster Deployments #

• Export Supervisor configuration
• Import to streamline new Supervisor deployments
• Clone Supervisor Configuration to new cluster

Expanding NSX Advanced Load Balancer Support #

• NSX Advanced Load Balancer supported in NSX based Supervisor Clusters.
• Greenfield Supervisor Clusters

Introducing Windows VM support for VM Service #

• VM Service compatible with Windows based templates
• Transport type Sysprep used for customization

Self-Service VM Image Registry #

• DevOps users manage content library items using kubectl
• DevOps users publish new items to the library
• Content Libraries shared between namespaces or individual
• Read and write permissions defined per namespace

This is a post in the VMware Explore US 2023 series. Posts in this series:

Related Posts

• VMware vSAN 8 U2 Announced at Explore 2023 — Published 22 Aug, 2023
• VMware vSAN 8 U2 to the Max — Published 22 Aug, 2023
• VMware by Broadcom Promises Free Security Updates for vSphere — Published 16 Apr, 2024
• vSAN 8 ESA VMware Compatibility Guidance — Published 7 Dec, 2022
• VMware vSAN 8 ESA in my Homelab — Published 24 Nov, 2022