What’s New in ESXi and vCenter 6.5 Update 3?
VMware has released ESXi 6.5 update 3 and vCenter 6.5 U3 at July 2, the new releases are including some new features and lot of resolved issues.
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
andbnxtnet
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 of1
, thecom.vmware.etherswitch.ipfixbehavior
property enables sampling in both ingress and egress directions. With a value of0
, you enable sampling in egress direction only, which is also the default setting.
Note: You can update current ESXi version (According to upgrade path) to ESXi 6.5 U3 by update file or vendors images. Vendor images are my preferred way.
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.
Further Reading
New ESXi 6.7 Patch Released (ESXi670-201901001)
vSphere Central, The Messenger of God