VMware vSphere 8.0 Update 1 Released – Download Now

VMware just released their latest VMware vSphere 8.0 Update 1. This is a significant update to their flagship product. This release brings a number of new features and improvements to the platform, including enhanced security, improved scalability, and better integration with the public cloud.

We have detailed the news in our post here – VMware vSphere 8.0 U1 announced and vSAN 8.0 U1 Announced. (Detailed screenshots included)

Link to the release notes:

There is really a lot of new in this release…. Check this out.

From the release notes:

• vSphere Configuration Profiles: vSphere 8.0 Update 1 officially launches vSphere Configuration Profiles, which allow you to manage ESXi cluster configurations by specifying a desired host configuration at the cluster level, automate the scanning of ESXi hosts for compliance to the specified Desired Configuration and remediate any host that is not compliant. vSphere Configuration Profiles require that you use vSphere Lifecycle Manager images to manage your cluster lifecycle, a vSphere 8.0 Update 1 environment, and Enterprise Plus or vSphere+ license. For more information, see Using vSphere Configuration Profiles to Manage Host Configuration at a Cluster Level.
• With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, vSphere Distributed Services Engine adds support for:
  • NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPUs to server designs from Lenovo (Lenovo ThinkSystem SR650 V2).
  • 100G NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPUs to server designs from Dell.
  • UPTv2 for NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPUs.
  • AMD Genoa CPU based server designs from Dell.
• Support for heterogenous virtual graphics processing unit (vGPU) profiles on the same GPU hardware: vSphere 8.0 Update 1 removes the requirement that all vGPUs on a physical GPU must be of the same type and you can set different vGPU profiles, such as compute, graphics, or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure workload, on one GPU to save cost by higher GPU utilization and reduced workload fragmentation.
• Integration of VMware Skyline™ Health Diagnostics™ with vCenter: Starting with vSphere 8.0 Update 1, you can detect and remediate issues in your vSphere environment by using the VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics self-service diagnostics platform, which is integrated with the vSphere Client. For more information, see VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics for vSphere Documentation.
• VM-level power consumption metrics: Starting with vSphere 8.0 Update 1, you as a vSphere admin can track power consumption at a VM level to support the environmental, social, and governance goals of your organization.
• NVSwitch support: vSphere 8.0 Update 1 adds support to up to 8 GPUs with NVSwitch connections between them on a single ESXi host. With the NVSwitch technology, you can run high-performance computing (HPC) and AI applications such as deep learning, scientific simulations, and big data analytics, which require multiple GPUs working together in parallel.
• Okta Identity Federation for vCenter: With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, you can use third-party identity security provider Okta to log in simultaneously to vCenter and NSX Manager by using the same token and password, which helps you improve your management efficiency and environment security.
• Support for Fault Tolerance of virtual machines that use a virtual TPM (vTPM) module: With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, you can use FT for VMs with a vTPM module to ensure continuous availability and security for your mission critical VMs.
• Quick Boot support for servers with TPM 2.0 chips: With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, you no longer need to disable TPM 2.0 for Quick Boot, which allows you to save time and eliminate security gaps.
• vSphere API for Storage Awareness (VASA) version 5 for vSphere Virtual Volumes: VASA version 5 for vSphere Virtual Volumes enhances security, certification management for multi vCenter deployments, and usability support. VASA version 5 deprecates self-signed certificates but provides backward compatibility support for earlier VASA versions. Before upgrading to ESXi 8.0 Update 1, see VMware knowledge base article 91387 to ensure continued availability of vSphere Virtual Volumes datastores.
• Sidecar files become regular files in Config-vVol instead of vSphere Virtual Volumes objects: To improve scalability and performance of vSphere Virtual Volumes, starting with vSphere 8.0 Update 1, sidecar files are no longer vSphere Virtual Volumes objects but regular files in Config-vVol. When sidecar files are created as vSphere Virtual Volumes objects, for solutions such as First Class Disk (FCD) that create a large number of small sidecar files, they can cause an overhead of VASA operations such as binding and unbinding the volumes to a protocol endpoint. Creating sidecar files under the Config-vVol home directory removes such overhead from VASA and storage.

After updating to ESXi 8.0 Update 1, new virtual machines, or virtual disks in the Config-vVol namespace are not supported on ESXi hosts of earlier versions. For more information and resolution, see VMware knowledge base article 90791.

• Increased default capacity for vSphere Virtual Volumes objects of type Config-vVol: Starting with vSphere 8.0 Update 1, to allow the use of folders over vSphere Virtual Volumes datastores as content repositories, vSphere Virtual Volumes objects of type Config-vVol are created by default as thin-provisioned 255 GB, up from 4 GB in earlier releases. Also, starting with ESXi 8.0 Update 1, Config-vVol objects use VMFS-6 format instead of VMFS-5.
• NVMe over TCP support for vSphere Virtual Volumes:  vSphere 8.0 Update 1 adds NVMe over TCP support for vSphere Virtual Volumes.
• Extended XCOPY support: With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, you can use EXTENDED COPY (XCOPY) commands to optimize the data copy between VMFS datastores that are in different storage arrays, not only between datastores within the same array. XCOPY operations across storage arrays are supported only for VMFS 6 datastores and allow you to offload, migrate and clone workloads. While ESXi enables this feature, the actual data migration across the arrays must be implemented on the storage array side. For more information on how to use SCSI T10 commands, see Managing Hardware Acceleration on Block Storage Devices.
• New file type for OSDATA volumes on SSD devices: vSphere 8.0 Update 1 adds a new file system type, VMFSOS, specifically for the ESX-OSData system partition on local SSD devices, which allows you to continue using virtual flash resources on other devices. The new file type prevents cases when you format an ESX-OSData volume on a local SSD device, and fsType returns a file of type Virtual Flash File System (VFFS). As a result, the disk backing of the ESX-OSData volume is listed under the Virtual Flash resources in vCenter, but such a disk belongs to the ESX-OSData volume and is not a part of the Virtual Flash resource pool.
• NFS traffic isolation enhancements: With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, to isolate NFS traffic, you can bind an NFS3 datastore on an NFS share over the network to a VM kernel adaptor on an ESXi host from a cluster. VMKNIC port binding is not supported in this release for vSphere Virtual Volumes datastores backed with NFS3 configurations. For more information, see Configure VMkernel Binding for NFS 3 Datastore.
• Fourfold increase in NVMe-oF namespace capacity: Starting with vSphere 8.0 Update 1, you can use 32 paths to a NVMe-oF namespace from 8 in earlier releases.
• Support for end-to-end NVMe stack without protocol translation: With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, the Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA) extends NVMe capabilities to support end-to-end NVMe stack without any protocol translation in any of the layers.

vSphere 8.0 Update 1 also extends NVMe functionality by adding support for third-party multi-pathing plug-ins to control and manage NVMe arrays.

• Increased maximum for Windows Server Failover Clusters (WSFC): vSphere 8.0 Update 1 increases the maximum WSFC clusters per ESXi host to 16 from 3.
• Scale the number of NVMe over TCP adapters: vSphere 8.0 Update 1 increases the number of NVMe over TCP storage adapters per ESXi host to 8 from 2 to allow more redundancy and better bandwidth.
• Support hot-add and hot-remove for VMDirectPath I/O devices: With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, by using vSphere API you can add or remove a VMDirectPath I/O device without powering off VMs. For more information, see Hot-add Support for VMDirectPath I/O Devices.
• Increased number of PCI passthrough devices per VM: With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, you can add up to 64 PCI passthrough devices per VM, up from 32 in previous releases, to allow better support for Virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) use cases.
• Local depot overrides for Remote Office and Branch Office (ROBO) standalone ESXi hosts: Starting with vSphere 8.0 Update 1, to meet demand of certain business use cases, you can manage local depot overrides for Remote Office and Branch Office (ROBO) standalone ESXi hosts in the vSphere Client and by using the vSphere Automation API. For more information, see Manage Depot Overrides for a Cluster or a Standalone Host.
• Advanced filters in the vSphere Client: With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, in addition to the existing quick filter option, you can set advanced filters on most inventory objects in the vSphere Client, such as VM lists, Hosts and Clusters, Datastores, and linked vCenters. You can use strings, such as Name, Status, and Guest OS, and enumerations, such as IP address. To refine your filters, you can use various logical operators and 2 conditions.
• Increased maximum number of NFSv3 datastores that can be mounted with multiple connections: Starting with vSphere 8.0 Update 1, you can configure up to 8 connections to NFSv3 datastores on an ESXi host, from 1 in earlier releases, and have up to 256 connections used by the NFSv3 datastores on the host, depending on the combination of the number of datastores and the number of connection configured for each datastore. For more information, see VMware knowledge base article 91481.
• This release resolves CVE-2023-1017. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the low severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 3.3.
• This release resolves CVE-2023-1018. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the low severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 3.3.

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