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All vSphere 6.5 release notes & download links

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It looks like the announcement for general availability for vSphere 6.5 was published a bit earlier than expected. However, it is true that vSphere 6.5 has GA'ed and you can now download it! Below is a nice aggregated list of all the relevant release notes, documentation and download links related to the GA of vSphere 6.5.

I have also created a short URL which you can access this exact same page using vmwa.re/vsphere65

Enjoy and happy vSphere'ing 6.5 😀

Release Notes:

Downloads:

Documentation:

Updates to VMDK partitions & disk resizing in VCSA 6.5

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Similiar to the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 6.0 release, the new VCSA 6.5 is also composed of multiple virtual machine disks (VMDKs). Each VMDK maps to a specific function and OS partition within the VCSA. There are now a total of 12 VMDKs, two of which are new in vSphere 6.5: vSphere Update Manager (VUM) and Image Builder. The following table provides a break down of the VMDKs in VCSA 6.5 compared to VCSA 6.0:

Disk 6.0 Size 6.5 Size Purpose Mount Point
VMDK1 12GB 12GB / and Boot  / and Boot
VMDK2 1.2GB 1.8GB VCSA's RPM packages N/A as it is not mounted after install
VMDK3 25GB 25GB Swap SWAP
VMDK4 25GB 25GB Core  /storage/core
VMDK5 10GB 10GB Log  /storage/log
VMDK6 10GB 10GB DB  /storage/db
VMDK7 5GB 15GB DBLog  /storage/dblog
VMDK8 10GB 10GB SEAT (Stats Events and Tasks)  /storage/seat
VMDK9 1GB 1GB Net Dumper  /storage/netdump
VMDK10 10GB 10GB Auto Deploy  /storage/autodeploy
VMDK11 N/A (Previously InvSrvc 5GB) 10GB Image Builder /storage/imagebuilder
VMDK12 N/A 100GB Update Manager  /storage/updatemgr

In addition to the VMDK/partition changes, there are a couple of enhancements when needing to increase disk capacity in the VCSA. Just like in VCSA 6.0, you will still be able to hot-extend any one of the VMDKs while the system is still running.

  • The first change is that instead of the old vpxd_servicecfg command which is used expand the logical volume(s) making the new storage capacity available the OS/application, it has been replaced with the following command: /usr/lib/applmgmt/support/scripts/autogrow.sh 
  • The second change is that instead of having to perform the above command using only SSH which may be disabled by default. There is now a new Virtual Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) REST API that can be called remotely: POST /appliance/system/storage/resize
  • The final difference is that in previous releases, you could only resize the Embedded VCSA or External VCSA node, but not the Platform Services Controller (PSC) node. In 6.5, this has changed and you can apply this method on any one of the VCSA nodes. Thanks to Blair for reminding me on this one!

Lets walk through an example of increasing the Net Dumper partition (VMDK9) and exercising this new VAMI API.

Step 1 - Login to VCSA using SSH to run a quick "df -h" to check the current size of your Net Dumper partition which by default will be 1GB as seen in the screenshot below.

increase-disk-capacity-vcsa-6-5-0
Step 2 - Next, we will increase the VMDK to 5GB. In this example, I am using the vSphere Web Client but if you wanted to completely automate this process end-to-end, you can use the vSphere API/PowerCLI to perform this operation.

increase-disk-capacity-vcsa-6-5-1
Step 3 - To quickly try out the new VAMI API, we will use the new vSphere API Explorer that is included in the VSCA 6.5. Simply open a web browser and enter the following URL: https://[VCSA-HOSTNAME]/apiexplorer Select the "appliance" API and then click on the login button and enter your vCenter Server credentials.

increase-disk-capacity-vcsa-6-5-2
Step 4 - Scroll down to the POST /appliance/system/storage/resize operation and expand it. To call this API, just click on the "Try it out" button. If the operation completely successfully, you should see a  200 response as shown in the screenshot below.

increase-disk-capacity-vcsa-6-5-3
Step 3 and 4 can also be called directly through PowerCLI using the new CIS cmdlets (Connect-CisServer & Get-CisService) which exposes the new VAMI APIs. Below is a quick snippet that performs the exact same operation:

Connect-CisServer -Server 192.168.1.150 -User *protected email* -Password VMware1!
$diskResize = Get-CisService -Name 'com.vmware.appliance.system.storage'
$diskResize.resize()

Step 5 - Lastly, we can now log back into the VCSA and re-run the "df -h" command to verify we can see the new storage capacity.

increase-disk-capacity-vcsa-6-5-4

Will I get Photon OS when I upgrade my VCSA 5.5/6.0 to VCSA 6.5?

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upgrade-vcsa-55-60-to-vcsa65
There seems to be a bit of confusion on how the upgrade from an existing vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 5.5/6.0 to the upcoming VCSA 6.5 release will work. I suspect part of the confusion is also due to the fact that the underlying OS in the VCSA in vSphere 6.5 is changing from SLES to VMware's very own Photon OS. Before going into the upgrade details, I do want to mention that with this change, VMware will now own the entire software stack within the VCSA (OS + Application). This will allow VMware to quickly respond and deliver OS and security updates to customers at a much quicker rate than it was possible before. In addition, Photon OS is also a very optimized Linux distribution which has allowed VMware to significantly improve the reboot and startup time of the vCenter Server application. To be clear, the vCenter Server application itself is NOT running as a Docker Container nor are there any other application or services within the VCSA that is running a Docker Container, I know this was something folks were also assuming because the OS changed to Photon OS.

Now going back to the upgrade question, how would an upgrade work if the underlying OS is changing? The answer is actually quite simple. VCSA upgrades are "Migration" based upgrades and has been since the very first release of the VCSA in vSphere 5.0.

So how does it work? Here is the high level workflow:

  1. The new VCSA 6.5 is deployed using the standard VCSA UI or CLI installer using the "Upgrade" option. It does require a temporarily IP Address (DHCP or Static)
  2. The VCSA 6.5 then connects to the existing VCSA 5.5/6.0 and starts copying (migrate) the data from the old VCS to the new VCSA
  3. The existing VCSA 5.5/6.0 is then shutdown, the new VCSA 6.5 now takes over the personality of the original VCSA and you have now successfully upgraded

As you can see from this workflow, your existing VCSA is not actually being upgraded but rather its data is migrated over to the new VCSA. Once the upgrade has completed, you will now be on the new Photon OS based VCSA. Hopefully this clears up any confusion 🙂

Lastly, I should also mention that in vSphere 6.5, we have an updated version of the VCSA Migration Tool simliar to the one release with vSphere 6.0 Update 2m. It will now support migrating from a Windows-based vCenter Server running either vSphere 5.5 or vSphere 6.0 to VCSA 6.5.