VMware vSphere 6.0 support

[jimbliss]

It's on the street, can we use it?

Jim

[Gostev]
3/18: Official blog post that summarizes the following 3 pages of this topic.
4/28: vSphere 6 support is now available

[Gostev]

Not yet, as currently available code does not support it.

We will estimate and communicate final support timelines once we deploy the RTM build of vSphere 6 in our lab, and evaluate the amount of changes since the latest vSphere RC code. Historically, it was taking us between 2 to 3 months since the RTM code availability to release support for the new vSphere releases. And with that, we have been consistently one of the first data protection ISVs to support new vSphere releases.

On a side note, vSphere 6.0 has certainly been the most complex release in the history of vSphere releases for us to support due to a brand new storage technology introduced (VMware VVOLs). For all the past years, we've only had to deal with VMFS, which did not change much from release to release...

[joey.dijulio]

So... Should we read that to mean, you expect 2 to 3 months to be an "optimistic" timeline? Saying that's been the norm, but then "side noting" that this is "certainly been the most complex release in the history of vSphere release for us to support" kind of makes it sound like you expect this to be a while.

Side note of my own...

You guys have access to the Betas and RCs that have been out for a while, right? If I can get onto the beta program, surely Veeam can too?

It would seem to me that if you just start looking a the Betas and RCs, you could at least have an idea of whats going on ahead of RTM so you can begin building in the code required in order to work with it, and be ahead of the game instead of playing catch up. I mean, isn't that kind of one of the big reasons VMware and other companies release Betas / RCs - so the development community can see what's coming and prepare for it?

While I'm certainly grateful that Veeam is faster to market than anyone else, wouldn't it make sense to make it a goal to continue to shorten that window? Increasing that delta between you and everyone else just gives Veeam that much more time to be the only backup vendor to support a new release, which should translate to better marketing and perhaps even better sales.

Just sayin'.



PS: Apologies in advance if the 2-3 month historical lag time already takes into account looking at Betas and RCs as soon as they come out (i.e., it's really 6 months worth of work, and you guys already do get started before RTM and just make tweaks when the final bits are released). I just recall chatting with a Veeam sales guy once back when you were getting close to supporting vSphere 5.5, and I remember him saying that you guys don't get started, at all, until the new version of vSphere goes RTM, which I thought was about the dumbest thing I had ever heard considering the release Betas and RCs months ahead of time.

[Gostev]

So... Should we read that to mean, you expect 2 to 3 months to be an "optimistic" timeline? Saying that's been the norm, but then "side noting" that this is "certainly been the most complex release in the history of vSphere release for us to support" kind of makes it sound like you expect this to be a while.

Not necessarily, as we have been working with VMware to deliver full support for vSphere 6 since the first vSphere 6 Technology Preview build, and we do have the code that works with RC. However, VMware has a history of implementing significant changes between RC and RTM, which once required us to rewrite the entire engine component - and when something like this happens, we can no longer rush the release due to long reliability stress testing being required.

And yes, on top of all the usual considerations, having the brand new storage technology in the picture most certainly adds significant risks and reduces predictability comparing to all previous vSphere releases.

[joey.dijulio]

We will estimate and communicate final support timelines once we deploy the RTM build of vSphere 6 in our lab, and evaluate the amount of changes since the latest vSphere beta code.

Okay, strike what I said in my side note - I obviously can't read

[joey.dijulio]

Not necessarily, as we have been working with VMware to deliver full support for vSphere 6 since the first vSphere 6 Technology Preview build, and we do have the code that works with RC. However, VMware has a history of implementing significant changes between RC and RTM, which once required us to rewrite the entire engine component - and when something like this happens, we can no longer rush the release due to long reliability stress testing being required.

Fair enough Gostev, that seems reasonable then.

As a lover of Veeam, can I simply ask you to do one thing for all of us eager to see full vSphere 6.0 support?

Give us a weekly update in this thread as you work closer to that milestone (or, if that seems too much, perhaps bi-weekly as a compromise).

That weekly / bi-weekly update can even be, "Nothing much has changed, but we're working hard!".

It just gives us loyal users *something* to go on (yes, even if that something, is nothing interesting - still better than nothing at all).

Pretty please?

[Gostev]

I usually give such updates in the weekly forum digests, that you will be receiving now that you have registered on our forums. Regardless, you will see this thread bumped by users a lot, so we will not be able to avoid posting updates here either

[joey.dijulio]

Awesome - Thank you, and keep up the great work!

[SKiNNiEH]

Hi Veeam!

What about VMware vCenter 6, but VMware vSphere 5.5 hosts? Is that supported?
I want to get to grips with vCenter 6, because apparently the web client is much faster.

Thx

[foggy]

We will be able to say something definite only after deploying and testing the RTM code thoroughly in our lab, just as Anton has already stated above.

[Gostev]

What about VMware vCenter 6, but VMware vSphere 5.5 hosts?

Most likely, this will not work, because the VDDK version current B&R build uses requires SSLv3, which is disabled by default in vSphere 6 in favor of TLSv1.

[bbaydar]

I hate to do this but there doesn't seem to be any way to subscribe to the thread without posting.

[mysidia]

Suppose we don't care for support for new vSphere 6 features such as VVOLs, as none of our storage vendors even support the technology....
Are there still likely issues using Veeam 8 with the new version of vCenter;
is it worth even trying it in our test environment?

And Support for VVOL feature won't be allowed to delay basic vSphere 6 support, will it?

[Gostev]

I hate to do this but there doesn't seem to be any way to subscribe to the thread without posting.

Actually, doing this does not subscribe you to the thread (except that it will start appearing in "My Contents" section of the weekly forum digest).

To subscribe to native thread notifications, look for a blue band at the bottom of each topic page.
On its left side, you will find the following 3 links: Board index, Subscribe topic, Bookmark topic.

[Gostev]

And Support for VVOL feature won't be allowed to delay basic vSphere 6 support, will it?

There is no such thing as "basic vSphere 6 support" for us. Most people upgrade to new vSphere releases to be able to get access to the new features, otherwise what's the point of upgrading? Sure, some people are willing to upgrade just for enhancements in the existing functionality - but based on our experince, most want to leverage new functionality.

Likewise, most users do fully expect to be able to protect all workloads running on the vSphere version that their vendor claims support for. "Yeah, with support this vSphere release, but we can't backup this and that VM just yet, because it uses new features of this vSphere release" just does not cut it for most users. In the end, everyone needs to have their backups done. So, based on our previous experience, we always go straight for the full support (including all new features).

I know it's not uncommon in the industry to claim new vSphere version support without really providing one. Here's the most recent story, for example. One of our major competitors rushed to claim vSphere 5.5 support before us - and after that, there was a storm of their customers who have upgraded, deployed new VMs with larger than 2TB disks - just to find out they cannot back them up. And it took that competitor many months to actually provide such support. While we had quite a few of those unhappy folks switching to Veeam during the same time frame, because we did release full support promptly. We now expect the story to repeat with VVOLs.

In any case, we don't really have a choice anyway. Over the past year, I've talked to many customers who told me plan on using VVOLs since day 1 after they upgrade (and some are very large, which I thought was surprising - but they said they've been testing those for a very long time, and are confident in this technology). And they do fully expect us to have VVOLs support right when we announce vSphere 6 support, they simply cannot wait for another few months until the next update. There is no way I will be able to explain them this "basic" support thing

That said, remember that we do have fully functional code that works with RC, so it's not like we have to design and implement VVOLs support from scratch now - all we need to do is just fix a few things that got broken since RC. Did I make it sound easy enough?

[dellock6]

all we need to do is just fix a few things that got broken since RC. Did I make it sound easy enough?

Uhm, let's ask to Devs if it's as easy as you described it

Anyway, I'm totally in for the "complete" support. There's no such thing as basic vs advanced support, either we support vSphere 6 or we don't.

[justind]

One of the new features of v6 is the ability to vMotion between Virtual Center servers. Do you plan on supporting this feature straight up so that a backed up VM doesn't disappear if migrated?

[Gostev]

The results of full regression testing will determine the list of supported functionality. I cannot really say much at this point, when the testing has just started. However, we will definitely be able to keep protecting the VM regardless of vCenter Server it is in, as we have always supported multiple vCenter servers in the single job.

[stanthewizzard]

The only risk is with Vcenter
Migrate ESXI is possible or not ?

Thanks for your work and infos

[Gostev]

No, ESXi 6 is not supported either.

[stanthewizzard]

thanks

[jameshyde]

Could Veeam backup support VMware VSAN 6.0? I am not sure if VSAN 6.0 could run on top of vSphere 5.5 or whether it is tied to vSphere 6. if VSAN6 could run on top of vSphere 5.5, I guess Veeam already has support for VSAN 6.0?

[oscarm]

Situation: Test rig. Installed previously with esx 5.5, has been updated to esx 6.0

installed veeam 8.0.0.917 when esx 5.5 was installed. After that esx has been updated to 6.0, made a backup of all vms in the datastore then the datastore got scrapped and recreated.

Installed a windows 2008 server and reinstalled veeam 8.0.0.917, imported the backups and the veeamconfig. But it seems not able to connect to the esx host. When I remove the host and try to readd it it throws the following error:
failed to login to "esx-name" by SOAP, port 443, user "root", proxy srv: port:0
Unknown API version format: "dev".

am I doing something wrong, or is esx 6.0 not supported yet?

[Wad4iPod]

Most likely, this will not work, because the VDDK version current B&R build uses requires SSLv3, which is disabled by default in vSphere 6 in favor of TLSv1.

I deployed (upgraded) vcenter 5.5 (latest ver) to VCenter 6 (Windows) in my lab. I also upgraded the esxi host to ESXi 6.

I ended up re-installing ESXi 5.5 (latest build) on the ESXi host. My Host v6 kept hanging/locking. After a few minutes of runtime my datastores would go inactive. Then - I could not access via vsphere client, ping it or guests, etc . Shutdown on the console would never actually shut down and I had to power off.. I have NFS datastores and a vmfs 3 (which ESXi 6 identified as deprecated).

I am sure VMWare would say my hardware is not on the HCL... but... V5.5 u2 works great so I might just try a later v6 esxi build down the road.

Prior to my upgrade I ran a backup using veeam 8sp1. After my journey and backout (ending in the wee hours of a Monday morning) - I am now running vcenter 6 with an esxi 5.5 us host. A VEEAM 8. sp1 backup fails with the error:

Processing Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Error: Failed to open VDDK disk [[NFSDStore1] Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise/Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise.vmdk] ( is read-only mode - [true] )
Failed to open VMDK.
Logon attempt with parameters [VC/ESX: [vcenterbox];Port: 443;Login: [leveled\ratcage];VMX Spec: [moref=vm-1352];Snapshot mor: [snapshot-2242];Transports: [nbd];Read Only: [true]] failed because of the following errors:
Failed to open disk for read.
Failed to upload disk.
Agent failed to process method {DataT

I'll rely on my Veeam 5 server to backup my esxi 5.5 u2 host until an update is available for vc6.

Thank you Gostev and Crew for all YOU do..

[andreasender6840]

Any new information or timeline for vSphere 6 support?

VMWare hast released the final version of vSphere 6...

[Shestakov]

am I doing something wrong, or is esx 6.0 not supported yet?

ESXi 6.0 is not supported for now. Thanks.

[seb1410]

Like everyone I might have been a bit too enthusiastic. Upgraded my vcenter and some of my hosts to the last release and so far everything worked fine until I noticed that the backups were taking unusually way longer.
In the Veeam 8 action screen I see for all vm’s I am backing up “xx/xx/xxxx xx:xx:xx :: CBT data is invalid, failing over to legacy incremental backup. No action is required, next job run should start using CBT again. If CBT data remains invalid, follow KB1113 to perform CBT reset. Usual cause is power loss.” Resulting in full pass for all vm’s.
Tried resetting the cbt as per the kb but doesn’t seem to help.
Is this a known issue with vsphere 6 that should keep away people from upgrading ? Of course the hosts that haven't been upgraded are still backed up at the same speed.

Tkx for any input

[dellock6]

Well, technically we do not have any known issue simply because vSphere 6 is not supported yet in Veeam Backup & Replication...

[Gostev]

What Luca means is that we are not even trying the currently generally available version of Veeam Backup & Replication against vSphere 6 because of well known and expected incompatibilities. So, potentially there can be anywhere between a few to a few thousands of known issues.

What we are currently testing against vSphere 6, is the pre-release code of Veeam Backup & Replication 8.0 Update 2, which was built by us in the past months based on the pre-release builds of vSphere 6. Based on our testing, we did already determine at least one area where RTM brings a significant change comparing to RC code, and are now working on addressing it.

Overall though, things look pretty good so far - and as it stands right now, based on the current test results, we expect to be able to deliver full support for vSphere 6 by the end of April 2015, as a part of Veeam Backup & Replication Update 2 (subject to change, as every page of these forums states at the bottom)

[seb1410]

Thanks for your feedback. It s highly appreciated
Looking forward to update 2