Not long ago, VMware released VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 3 with many new features. It represents the most capable and fully-featured vSphere release to date, including the latest vSAN 7.0 Update 3 release for software-defined storage. The vSphere 7.0 Update 3 release has already had several minor patches applied to the base Update 3. Unfortunately, besides the great new features found in vSphere 7.0 Update 3, there have been a few bobbles along the way with patch releases to the base Update 3 release.
VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 3 New Features
First, let’s look at the new features included in the new VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 3 and what new capabilities it brings to the table for organizations running traditional and modern workloads in their environment. The newest vSphere 7 Update 3 release contains the following significant enhancements to the platform:
Modern workloads with VMware Tanzu
- Simplified setup of VMware Tanzu networking
- Improved Tanzu error handling messaging
- Support for Tanzu running on vSAN stretched clusters
- Tanzu Kubernetes now understands the underlying vSAN topology
VMware vSphere operations
- Setup NSX-T directly from the vSphere Client interface
- Deprecated support for SD Cards and USB flash drives
- Improvements to vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM)
- Reduced downtime migration-style updates to vCenter Server
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
- NVIDIA AI Enterprise Suite
- Bitfusion 4.0
Resource Management
- Better Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) logic
- Choose which datastores run vCLS VMs
- Better Maintenance mode logic
Modern workloads with VMware Tanzu
With VMware vSphere 7 Update 3, many new enhancements are related to VMware Tanzu. With vSphere 7 Update 3, VMware has introduced a more straightforward network configuration with Tanzu Kubernetes. In addition, it adds flexible DHCP support so you can choose DHCP to automatically populate IP addresses across Tanzu services, including having DHCP supply DNS, NTP, and other values.
There is also improved error handling messages. The Tanzu messaging may have been a bit cryptic as to the actual underlying issue in previous releases. VMware has been working to improve the error messaging with Tanzu, so errors are more human-readable and intuitive.
VMware vSAN stretched clusters are a great way to bolster the resiliency of production workloads across multiple sites. With vSphere 7 Update 3, this now includes VMware vSphere with Tanzu Kubernetes workloads. VMware now supports running your Tanzu workloads on top of vSAN stretched clusters.
In addition to the new stretched cluster support, Tanzu now understands the underlying vSAN topology, so Kubernetes data is placed intelligently with a complete understanding of availability zones (AZs) in vSAN.
VMware vSphere operations
VMware vSphere operations have been greatly simplified, streamlined, and improved in vSphere 7 Update 3. VMware has dramatically simplified the process to deploy VMware NSX-T. Now, you can install NSX directly from the vSphere Client interface. It makes the process to provision and integrate software-defined networking with vSphere 7 Update 3 much easier.
Another point to notice regarding VMware vSphere 7 Update 3 operations is the deprecation of support for booting from SD Cards and USB flash drives. Starting with vSphere 7.0, VMware has rearchitected the boot layout. There are now many more writes to boot devices with the new architecture. The number of writes to boot devices can wear out SD Cards and USB boot devices. VMware’s recommendation is to move away from these devices moving forward for booting vSphere 7.0 and higher.
VMware vSphere Lifecycle Management (vLCM) is the new lifecycle management tool built into vSphere 7.0. With each new release of vSphere, VMware has improved the built-in capabilities of vLCM. For example, new features in vSphere 7 Update 3 include depot editing to allow edits, such as adding or removing a driver or other components. In addition, hardware compatibility now includes firmware on top of the I/O controllers. Lastly, vLCM provides much-improved witness management for vSAN. Now it can manage the vSAN witness node during maintenance operations.
Finally, reduced downtime for migration-style updates to vCenter Server is on the list of operations improvements. VMware has rearchitected how vCenter Server updates happen, making these more intelligent and less impactful.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
VMware has partnered with NVIDIA to create the NVIDIA AI Enterprise Suite. It is a solution that provides businesses working with AI/ML to have a prebuilt framework to get up and running with AI/ML much more quickly than building solutions from scratch. In addition, VMware vSphere 7 Update 3 also supports the latest Bitfusion 4.0 release.
Resource Management
With VMware vSphere 7 Update 3, DRS now includes better logic for retrying maintenance mode if it didn’t succeed the first time. In addition, the new DRS keeps track of workloads such as wide VMs (a.k.a, monster VMs). It tries to move these as few times as possible to prevent performance or other issues.
Also, the new vSphere Cluster Services uses specialized VMs (vCLS) that run in the vSphere environment. The new vSphere Cluster Services have, before vSphere 7 Update 3, automatically chosen which datastore they run on. For many customers, this may not be desirable. With vSphere 7 Update 3, you can now select the datastores that run the vCLS VMs.
vSphere 7.0 Update 3 Critical Known Issues and Workarounds
While the vSphere 7 Update 3 release in GA form has been stable and running in production environments, subsequent patch releases have critical known issues that customers need to know. Two relevant KB articles detail the issues with the patch releases. These include:
- vSphere 7.0 Update 3 Critical Known Issues and Workarounds (86287) (vmware.com)
- vSphere 7.0 Update 3 Known Issues and Workarounds (86281) (vmware.com)
- vSphere 7.0 Update 3, Update 3a & Update 3b – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) (86398) (vmware.com)
After the GA release of vSphere 7 Update 3, VMware released ESXi and vCenter 7.0 U3a and U3b. Since their release, VMware has pulled ESXi 7.0 U3, U3a, and U3b. They have also pulled vCenter Server 7.0 U3b. The removal of these versions of ESXi and vCenter is related to critical issues identified in customer environments.
Critical issues identified in ESXi
| Summary | KB | Impact | Fix / Workaround |
|---|---|---|---|
| ESXi 7.0 Update 3 hosts can experience a PSOD when virtual machines on a VMFS6 thin disk execute UNMAP/TRIM functions. | 86100 | Potential ESXi host crash | This issue is planned to be resolved in an upcoming release. Please check KB for noted workaround. |
| Starting with vSphere 7.0 Update 3, the inbox i40enu network driver for ESXi changes name back to i40en. This can result in ESXi failing to update with the error: “host returned esxupdate code –1” | 85982 | Upgrade Blocking | This issue is planned to be resolved in an upcoming release. Please check KB for noted workaround. |
| In vCenter 7.0 Update 3 FIPS compliance was enabled by default; This has the impact of blocking the SMB protocol; VAMI backup fails using SMB Protocol on vCenter 7.0 U3 with the error: “Path not exported by remote file system” | 86069 | BCDR Impacting | This issue is planned to be resolved in an upcoming release. Please check KB for noted workaround. |
| Enabling vSphere HA might fail or never complete on hosts that were upgraded to ESXi 7.0 Update 3. | 86191 | Environmental Stability | This issue is planned to be resolved in an upcoming release. Please check KB for noted workaround. |
Critical issues identified in vCenter Server
| Summary | KB | Impact | Fix / Workaround |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lifecycle Manager will not be available in the vSphere Client when logging into vCenter Server 7.0 U3 with Active Directory or LDAP credentials. This is not apparent when using SSO domain credentials. | 85962 | Configuration Limiting | This issue has been fixed in vCenter 7.0 U3a. Please check KB for noted workaround. |
| In vCenter 7.0 Update 3 FIPS compliance was enabled by default; This has the impact of blocking the SMB protocol; VAMI backup fails using SMB Protocol on vCenter 7.0 U3 with the error: “Path not exported by remote file system” | 86069 | BCDR Impacting | This issue is planned to be resolved in a future release. Please check KB for noted workaround. |
| File based backups will fail when the database consistency check falsely detects that the DB is unhealthy in environments using VSAN. | 86084 | BCDR Impacting | This issue is planned to be resolved in a future release. Please check KB for noted workaround. |
| Patching vCenter Server to 7.0 U3 might fail during staging due to a stale configuration. | 86159 | BCDR Impacting | This issue is planned to be resolved in a future release. Please check KB for noted workaround. |
| File based backups will fail when the database consistency check falsely detects that the DB is unhealthy if a proxy is configured on the vCenter Server. | 86045 | BCDR Impacting | This issue is planned to be resolved in a future release. Please check KB for noted workaround. |
| Upgrading to vCenter Server 7.0 U3 will fail when a stale extension is leftover in the vPostgres database from a previous VCHA configuration. | 86073 | Upgrade Impacting | This issue is planned to be resolved in a future release. Please check KB for noted workaround. |
Wrapping Up
With the critical issues found in the U3, U3a, and U3b releases, customers will have to wait to experience the new features and capabilities of vSphere 7 Update 3, despite it being released as GA. Customers who downloaded the releases of vSphere 7 Update 3 prior to the removals by VMware will still be supported. Hopefully, we will see a patch release of vSphere 7 Update 3 that resolves the issues found in the GA, U3a, and U3b releases.
Customer environments may have to delay their upgrade plans if their backup vendor of choice does not support the latest versions of hypervisor technologies such as VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 3. Vembu BDR Suite supports the latest version of VMware vSphere, including vSphere 7.0 Update 3. It allows companies to upgrade their environment to the latest and greatest vSphere version and supports the recommended 3-2-1 backup strategy for protecting business-critical data.
Learn about the new features found in Vembu BDR Suite 5.0 here.
