vSphere 6.5 Update 3 released

While waiting for vSphere 6.7 Update 3 (currently in Beta), VMware released recently the third update for vSphere 6.5. The vSphere 6.5 Update 3 is a maintenance release only which does not bring any new functionality, but rather adds some new drivers and fixes few bugs.

Few minor enhancements to point out, for example for ESXi, you can track license usage, refresh switch topology and see improvements in the search and Developer Center.

Or for the vCenter server which adds external database support for vCenter on Windows which now supports Microsoft SQL Server 2014 SP3.

One of the new driver releases also fixes a bug which prevented to see the LED for disks for locating the disks. This has been added as a fix within the latest security patch for ESXi.

• You might not be able to locate and turn on the LED for disks under a lsi-msgpt3 controller using a lsi-msgpt3 async driver. This fix updates the lsu-lsi-lsi-msgpt3-plugin to work with the inbox and async lsi-msgpt3 drivers.

What’s New in ESXi 6.5 Update 3

The ESXi 6.5 Update 3 release includes the following list of new features.

• The ixgben driver adds queue pairing to optimize CPU efficiency.
• With ESXi 6.5 Update 3 you can track license usage, refresh switch topology and see improvements in the search and Developer Center in the vSphere Client.
• ESXi 6.5 Update 3 provides legacy support for AMD Zen 2 servers.
• Multiple driver updates: ESXi 6.5 Update 3 provides updates to the lsi-msgpt2, lsi-msgpt35, lsi-mr3, lpfc/brcmfcoe, qlnativefc, smartpqi, nvme, nenic, ixgben, i40en and bnxtnet drivers.
• ESXi 6.5 Update 3 provides support for Windows Server Failover Clustering and Windows Server 2019.
• ESXi 6.5 Update 3 adds the com.vmware.etherswitch.ipfixbehavior property to distributed virtual switches to enable you to choose how to track your inbound and outbound traffic, and utilization. With a value of 1, the com.vmware.etherswitch.ipfixbehavior property enables sampling in both ingress and egress directions. With a value of 0, you enable sampling in egress direction only, which is also the default setting.

What’s New in vCenter 6.5 U3

The vCenter Server 6.5 Update 3 release includes the following list of new features.

• With vCenter Server 6.5 Update 3, events related to adding, removing, or modifying user roles display the user that initiates the changes.
• vSphere Auditing Improvements: vCenter Server 6.5 Update 3 improves VMware vCenter Single Sign-On auditing by adding events for the following operations: user management, login, group creation, identity source, and policy updates. The new feature is available only for vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller and not for vCenter Server for Windows or vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller. Supported identity sources are vsphere.local, Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA), and Active Directory over LDAP.

• External database support: vCenter Server 6.5 Update 3 adds support to Microsoft SQL Server 2014 SP3.

Sources:

VMware ESXi 6.5 Update 3 Release Notes

VMware vCenter Server 6.5 Update 3 Release Notes

Part of this release is also new version of VMware tools.

What's new in VMware Tools 3.1.10?

• VMware Tools 10.3.10 release freezes support for Solaris guests.
• pvscsi driver is now available through Microsoft's Windows Update service for Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019. vmxnet3 driver update will be made available through the same service when the driver publication process completes.
• This version of VMware Tools includes prebuilt kernel modules with the Spectre mitigation (retpoline) enabled for SLES11SP4 (kernel versions 3.0.101-108.84 and higher) and RHEL6.6 (kernel versions 2.6.32-754.9.1 and higher).
• OSPs for SLES11SP4 include a set of kernel module packages with the Spectre mitigation enabled, which are installed by upgrading OSPs to this version.
• OSPs for RHEL6.6 include a set of kernel module packages with the Spectre mitigation enabled, which are installed by installing vmware-tools-esx-kmods-retpoline with YUM.
• Resolved Issues: There are some issues that are resolved in this release of VMware Tools which are documented in the Resolved Issues section of this release notes.

Note that VMware tools support internalization.

VMware Tools 10.3.10 is available in the following languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese.

More from ESX Virtualization

• What is ESXi Compatibility Checker?
• What is VMware Platform Service Controller (PSC)?
• What is vCenter Embedded Linked Mode in vSphere 6.7?
• VMware vExpert 2019 – This is vExpert x11
• VMware I/O Analyzer updated – what's new?
• How to Patch VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 6.7 Offline

Stay tuned through RSS, and social media channels (Twitter, FB, YouTube)