VMware vSphere 4 U1 and Server Heartbeat 5.5 U2 Released

Yesterday was a busy day for releases at VMware:

vSphere 4.0 Update 1 Released

Key enhancements:

• VMware View 4.0 support (hint, hint…)
• Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 support
• Enhanced Clustering Support for Microsoft Windows
• Enhanced VMware Paravirtualized SCSI Support
• Improved vNetwork Distributed Switch Performance
• Increase in vCPU per Core Limit
• Enablement of Intel Xeon Processor 3400 Series
• HA Cluster Configuration Maximum
• IBM DB2 Database Support for vCenter Server
• Pre-Upgrade Checker Tool

For more details see the ESX release notes and vCenter release notes. Update 1 is currently available for download.

vCenter Server Heartbeat 5.5 Update 2 Released

Surprisingly many people are still not familar with vCenter Server Heartbeat, this add-on availability solution for VMware vCenter Server provides 360 degree protection for vCenter Server against a wide range of failure scenarios, including hardware failure, OS failure, network failure and application service failure resulting from natural occurrence or human errors. In addition to protecting vCenter Server, it also protects VMware vCenter Update Manager, VMware vCenter Converter, VMware vCenter Orchestrator, VMware vCenter Guided Consolidation, vCenter Server Database and VMware License Server.  And since it is licensed per vCenter that you want to protect, this protection is extremely cost effective.

Key enhancements:

• Support for the following new vCenter Server platforms:
  • VMware vCenter Server 4.0 Update 1
  • VMware vCenter Server 2.5 Update 5
• Support for the following new OS platforms relative to vCenter Server:
  • Windows Server 2008 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2008 SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2003 SP2 (64-bit)
• Availability protection for VMware vCenter Management Webservices
• Single-installer (self-extracting) executable for VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat across 32-bit and 64-bit OS platforms
• Built-in 60-day evaluation mode (triggered from the date of installation)
• Compatibility with vSphere based licensing
  • Note: Existing vCenter Server Heartbeat (vCSHB) customers will be fulfilled with new unique licenses to be used with vCSHB 5.5 U2 builds. These new licenses are only applicable to vCSHB 5.5 U2 builds and will not work with prior versions of vCSHB 5.5

For more details see Server Heartbeat release notes.  Update 2 is currently available for download.