vSphere 5.5 is already GA. Earlier than I thought, already downloading and installing, will have more impressions on the next blog posts. For now, I can say installation procedure is the same using the ISO, no changes on that.
vSphere Client 5.5 also available, no changes on the software as far as I could see, and as stated by VMware. There seems to exist some problems on manipulating the new VMDK sizes (in fact I could not create a VMDK greater than 16TB, or even increase an existing one).
Some thins I could see so far and I liked:
- VMDK size now can be up to 62TB (before it was 2TB-512B - the new size is available only for VMFS-5, and only in VMs that resides on an ESXi 5.5 - be very careful with mixed environments). RDMs with virtual compatibility also can be up to 62TB.
- Double physical memory limit for the ESXi box, from 2TB to 4TB. Consequently, the maximum number of vCPUs per logical processor increased from 25 to 32 (meaning, for example, you can have up to 256 single CPU VMs on a 2 x QuadCore processor, or 128 VMs with 2 vCPUs, just examples). The number of maximum logical CPUs also was increased to 320, with HT enabled for example.
- Fault Tolerance still have all the same limitations - mainly the only one vCPUs on FT protected VMs.
vCenter Server Appliance (VCVA) brought one good new: using the internal vPostgres database, you no longer have the 5 hosts and 50 VMs limit (this is only reserved for SQL Express with Windows installations). The limit is not 400 hosts and 4000 VMs, but you need to be sure your VM supports this. Check KB http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2057376 for more information on this.
Full release notes for the ones who want more details: https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-esx-vcenter-server-55-release-notes.html