VMware announced VMware vSphere 7 on March 10, 2020. The introduction of VMware 7 made a splash in IT employees and the tech community. So what is VMware? VMware produces virtualization software. Thanks to these virtualization software, it can meet many needs of the users and use the virtualization technology easily. What is the difference from previous versions of VMware vSphere 7, which is a virtualization tool and radically changes the entire business process?
KUBERNETES COMPLIANCE
vSphere 7 is the most comprehensive version developed by vSphere for over a decade. When full compatibility with the open source project was not required with VMware Cloud Foundation 4, vSphere Pod Service could provide optimized performance and enhanced security through VM-like isolation. The major change in the new version is that Kubernetes is now integrated into vSphere, which allows developers to continue using the same industry standard tools and interfaces they use to create modern applications. vSphere Admins also benefits business processes because it can help manage the Kubernetes infrastructure using the tools and skills developed around vSphere. To help bridge the gap between these two worlds, a new vSphere structure called NSpaces was introduced, and vSphere Admins was created to create a logical set of resources, permissions and policies that provide an application-centric approach.
PERFORMANCE AND FLEXIBILITY FOR APPLICATION ACCELERATION
vSphere DRS has been redesigned. vSphere has always been successful in running large and critical workloads, but changes have been made to speed and flexibility in vSphere 7. Instead of focusing on cluster-level balancing, it is now possible to run larger workloads with Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), a workload-oriented approach, using VM DRS score as a metric on hosts to decide on placements. The DRS and algorithm used to focus on the cluster situation suggest a vMotion when it will benefit the balance of the cluster as a whole. This meant that DRS was used to achieve cluster balance using a cluster-wide standard deviation model.
So what about individual VMs? How does this vMotion affect the VM moved and its old or new neighbors? The new DRS logic takes a very different approach that addresses these questions. It calculates a VM DRS score on hosts and moves the VM to a host that provides the highest VM DRS score. The biggest difference from the old DRS version is that it no longer balances the host load. This means that DRS cares less about host use and prioritizes the VM “experience”. VM DRS score is also calculated every minute, resulting in a more detailed optimization of resources.
ASSIGNABLE HARDWARE
In vSphere 7, they created a new framework called Assignable Hardware, developed to extend support for vSphere features when customers use hardware accelerators. The computer and device hardware address are no longer mapped directly to the virtual machine's configuration (vmx) file. Dynamic DirectPath I / O, NVIDIA vGPU and Assignable Hardware together are a powerful new combination that unlocks some new functions. For example, let's look at a VM that requires NVIDIA V100 GPU. Assignable Hardware will now interact with DRS when the VM is turned on to find a host with such a device, claim that device, and register the VM on this host. If there is a host failure and vSphere HA is engaged, Assignable Hardware also allows this VM to be restarted on a suitable host with the required hardware.
vSPHERE LIFECYLE MANAGER
As VMware users began providing infrastructure services with a cloud consumption model, they needed a solution that enabled them to fully automate and simplify the lifecycle of the infrastructure software and firmware. With vSphere 7 for the solution, the new generation vSphere Lifecycle Manager and Update Planner are introduced. By using a desired paradigm, it is possible to manage the life cycle of the infrastructure without any problems. In addition, it is possible to see vCenter Server profiles in the new version, which provides the desired status configuration management for vCenter Server instances.
vMOTION
As with DRS, the vMotion process needed to be improved and new features added to vMotion to support today's workloads. The performance impact during the vMotion process and the potentially long wait time during the transition phase meant customers could stop using vMotion for large workloads. vSphere 7 VMware supports its customers in using vMotion as it greatly improves vMotion logic. At a high level, vMotion consists of several processes. For most virtual machines, these processes can be carried out very quickly, often noticeably faster. In large CPU and memory allocations, processes can take an undesirable time. Therefore, several of these processes have been developed to reduce vMotion problems for larger VMs. Developers to accelerate during the migration of vMotion are now used to accomplish such a process. Most of the pages are actually from the original transfer to the target host, so we can reduce the transfer time from seconds to milliseconds.
INTRINSIC SECURITY DEVELOPMENTS
One of the most effective ways to improve internal security is good password policies, and one of the easiest ways to do this is to implement multi-factor authentication (MFA). The problem, then, is that there are many ways to implement MFA and it is impossible to expand vCenter Server with all of them. In addition, even if VMware implements some of these, many customers replicate what they already have in their corporate identity management system does not meet the goal of simplifying the business process for vSphere Admins.
The solution is to use clear authentication and authorization standards such as OAUTH2 and OIDC. With vSphere 7 and Identity Federation, vCenter Server can interact with a corporate identity provider and process vSphere Admins and vCenter Server. This simplifies the work of vSphere Admin and helps reduce compliance auditing coverage. It also opens the door to many different MFA methods, as they already know how to connect to things like Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS).
In our review for vSphere 7, we cannot say all the innovations at once. However, it is useful to mention other improvements and additions. The architecture of vCenter Server has changed and its use has become simpler. NIC support added. A sensitive timer has been created for PTP support. As you can understand from what has been mentioned so far, vSphere 7 is a truly important and business-changing version. VMware has worked to take the customer's experience to the next level with life cycle and security improvements.