vSphere 7 Update 3 – What’s New

This blogpost was under embargo until 28th of September 2021 8:00am (PT) / 17:00 (CEST). The fact that you can read this now means that vSphere 7 Update 3 has (probably) already been released.

[Update 29th Sept 2021]: Download is not yet available. Maybe we need to wait until VMworld2021 next week.

What’s New

VMware vSphere 7 Update3 comes with a wide range of innovations. They can be categorized into the sections below:

  • Tanzu with Kubernetes
  • Lifecycle, Upgrade and Patching
  • Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
  • Resource Management
  • Availability & Resiliency
  • Security & Compliance
  • Guest OS and Workloads
  • Storage
  • Networking
  • vSphere Management & APIs

Another bunch of features goes into vSAN. But these features will be covered in an extra post.

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Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance to vSphere 7

Recently I’ve upgraded my homelab from 6.7U3 to vSphere7. The workflow is straightforward and very easy. The VMware Design team did a very good job with the UI.

First steps

I cannot point that out enough: check the VMware HCL. Just because your system is supported under your current vSphere version, doesn’t mean it’ll be supported under vSphere7 too. On the day I’ve upgraded, vSphere7 was brand new and there were just a few entries in the HCL. But it’s a homelab and if something breaks I don’t care to rebuild it from scratch. Don’t do this in production!

Although my Supermicro E300-9D is not yet certified for version 7.0, it works like a charm. I guess it’s just a matter of time, because the VMware Nano-Edge cluster is based on that hardware.

Before we can start, you need to download the vCenter Server Appliance 7.0 (VCSA) from VMware downloads (Login required). You also need to have new license keys for vCenter, ESXi and vSAN (if yor cluster is hyperconverged).

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VCSA 6.7 archive partition filling up

During a cluster routine check with RVtools I’ve seen a warning.

Warnings like this on a vCenter appliance let my alarm bells ring. Partitions filling up close to 100% are not a desirable condition. But let’s have a look into VAMI (vCenter Appliance Management Interface).

https://<vcsa_FQDN>:5480

Now that’s strange. Everything seems to be in a green state. It’s a VCSA 6.7 Update 2a (6.7.0.31000). Older versions did show a storage warning. “File system /storage/archive is low on storage space“. But this appliance seems to be happy. Let’s have a look at the shell, to see what’s really happening.

It looks like mount point /storage/archive is almost filled up.

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