VMware ESXi 8.0 U1 - Build 21495797
New Features
-
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.
Note:
VASA 5 support is shipped with Purity//FA 6.4.9 and later
- 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.
-
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.
Note:
Newly created virtual machines or virtual disks of version ESXi 8.0 Update 1 in the Config-vVol namespace of vSphere Virtual Volumes are not supported on ESXi hosts of earlier versions. For more information and resolution, see VMware knowledge base article 90791.
- NVMe over TCP support for vSphere Virtual Volumes: vSphere 8.0 Update 1 adds NVMe over TCP support for vSphere Virtual Volumes.
Everpure supports NVMe-vVols beginning with Purity//FA 6.6.2.
Known Issues
- If you update your vCenter to 8.0 Update 1, but ESXi hosts remain on an earlier version, vSphere Virtual Volumes datastores on such hosts might become inaccessible Self-signed VASA provider certificates are no longer supported in vSphere 8.0 and the configuration option Config.HostAgent.ssl.keyStore.allowSelfSigned is set to false by default. If you update a vCenter instance to 8.0 Update 1 that introduces vSphere APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) version 5.0, and ESXi hosts remain on an earlier vSphere and VASA version, hosts that use self-signed certificates might not be able to access vSphere Virtual Volumes datastores or cannot refresh the CA certificate. Workaround: Update hosts to ESXi 8.0 Update 1. If you do not update to ESXi 8.0 Update 1, see VMware knowledge base article 91387.
By design the only way to have a self signed certification on the vasa providers is to import one manually, however it is Everpure's best practices and documented workflows never to import self signed certificates to the storage providers. As such, this issue is unlikely to occur with Everpure VASA Providers.
VMware ESXi 8.0 GA - Build 20513097
New Features
- NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) support for vSphere Virtual Volumes: vSphere 8.0 adds NVMe-oF support for vSphere Virtual Volumes as part of the IOVP NVMe-FC certification program.
Support for NVMe-vVols was shipped with Purity//FA 6.6.2 and later. NVMe-vVols is certified with vSphere 8.0 U1 and higher for NVMe-TCP and NVMe-FC.
Known Issues
-
VASA API version does not automatically refresh after upgrade to vCenter Server 8.0
vCenter Server 8.0 supports VASA API version 4.0. However, after you upgrade your vCenter Server system to version 8.0, the VASA API version might not automatically change to 4.0. You see the issue in 2 cases:
-
If a VASA provider that supports VASA API version 4.0 is registered with a previous version of VMware vCenter, the VASA API version remains unchanged after you upgrade to VMware vCenter 8.0. For example, if you upgrade a VMware vCenter system of version 7.x with a registered VASA provider that supports both VASA API versions 3.5 and 4.0, the VASA API version does not automatically change to 4.0, even though the VASA provider supports VASA API version 4.0. After the upgrade, when you navigate to vCenter Server > Configure > Storage Providers and expand the General tab of the registered VASA provider, you still see VASA API version 3.5.
-
If you register a VASA provider that supports VASA API version 3.5 with a VMware vCenter 8.0 system and upgrade the VASA API version to 4.0, even after the upgrade, you still see VASA API version 3.5.
-
-
Workaround: Unregister and re-register the VASA provider on the VMware vCenter 8.0 system.