Virtual Machines:

• 8xvCPUs & 256GB RAM
• Hot-add of memory/cpu
• Thinly-provisioned disks
• New Guest OS – including more legacy OSes
• Record & Replay – You now have a PVR for a VM!
• VMCI – VMs can communicate directly to each other without the use of a NIC!
• vApp – collections of VMs which like virtual appliances can be downloaded/uploaded to make suite of applications

ESX4:

• 64-bit
• Support for 512GB RAM
• 64 cores
• Native SATA support
• Service Console is a VM with a virtual disk

vCenter4:

• Linked-Mode – Link 2 or more vCenters into a single management window
• Massively increase alarms/alerts – alarm to warn you about snapshot size! YEAH!
• No more license server – just license strings!
• Optional: vCenter Hearbeat Service (aka NeverFail)
• Optional: Mobile Access – manage VMs from your smartphone/pda

Networking:

• Native IPv6 support for the Management and VMkernel IP Stacks
• Distributed Virtual Switches – One switch to rule them all!
• Easy Migration from Standard vSwitches to the new DvSwitch

Storage:

• Improved UI – Visability from virtual down to the physical
• Increase – IF LUNs are made bigger so can the VMFS
• Plugable Storage Array – Vendors like EMC add plug-ins to vCenter
• Organize datastores into folders – set permissions – folks put their VMs in the RIGHT location
• New UIs to handle multipathing
• New CLIs to handle VMFS resignaturing

Access Control:

• New roles – “Datastore Consumer” and “Network Consumer”

Moving the VM:

• New simplier wizard – Change Host, Change Datastore, Change both
• Storage VMotion now integrated into the UI
• Linked with DvS and Port State Migration – zero packet loss on VMotions

Distributed Power Management:

• Now fully supported
• Based on ILO authentication, rather than Wake-On-LAN Magic Packets

Uptimes:

• Old Advanced HA Options – now available from the UI
• New advanced optionsHA to control memory and CPU alerts
• VMware Fault Tolerence (FT) – neverfail a VM even on death of an ESX host

Advanced Configuration Tools:

• All the main management tools get an upgrade – so new version of the RCLI, VIMA, PowerShell
• VMware Orchestrator – built-in to vCenter
• Host Profiles – Attach you configuration to an ESX host, and apply – the end of scripted builds???

Backup:

• On its way – a new version of VCB
• The Data Recovery Appliance. A virtual appliance to backup VMs pitched at SMBs…

VUM and Upgrade:

• Stage an ESX host – download all patches to it first, then later trigger the install process
• Collect baselines into baseline groups – and apply to ESX host/VMs
• Upgrading Baselines – Upgrade ESX and VMs using VUM