vSphere 5.5 Update 3 released

Yesterday, 2015-09-16, VMware released vSphere 5.5. Update 3 which includes new versions for:

• vCenter Server
• ESXi

I have identified at least two problems i have seen that are now resolved in vCenter Server

• Defined permissions behave differently in vSphere Client and Web Client
  • Moving VMs between the folders is disabled in the Web Client when permission are defined only at the folder level and displays an error similar to the following:
• vpxd service is unstable and it fails with an error
  • The VirtualCenter Server service (vpxd) causes service instability and fails if it encounters an unknown type of controller in a virtual machine.

Updates for ESXi includes e.g.:

• Support for PVSCSI adapterwith MSCS, core clustering and applications including SQL and Exchange.
• Supported Kerberos communication encryption between ESXi and Active Directory is AES256-CTS/AES128-CTS/RC4-HMAC.

Issues are resolved in the following areas for ESXi:

• API
• Backup
• CIM
• Configuration
• Installation
• Network
• Security
• Storage
• Upgrade
• VM
• Client issues
• HA
• vMotion and Storage vMotion
• VMware Tools

The vCenter Server release notes can be found here and the ESXi release notes can be found here.

Two additional software updates were released yesterday:

• VMware vCenter Orchestrator Appliance 5.5.3. Release notes can be found here.
• vSphere Replication 5.8.1. Release notes can be found here.