I’ve just seen VMware has announced a revision to their expected release date of vSphere & vSAN 8, and for the right reasons!

The VMware vSphere 7.0 Legacy

I won’t go on a bashing spree of VMware vSphere 7 release, but… it wasn’t good. The highlights of which include aggressive wear & tear, and subsequent killing of, SD cards and lower durability storage. Additionally, VMware had to temporarily pull some v7 U3 releases due to Quality Assurance (QA) issues.

With the issues mentioned above being part of the story of the infamous v7 release history, I felt positive when my RSS reader pulled [UPDATE: Link has been pulled by VMware] this article [/UPDATE] from VMware this morning. In summary, General Availability (GA) of vSphere & vSAN 8.0 have both been pushed to the 11th October 2022, with VMware specifically calling out addition time wanted for QA. [UPDATE] As this link has been pulled, I can’t confirm if this is still VMware’s proposed date, or if it was a placeholder. [/UPDATE]

What’s new in vSphere / vSAN 8?

Want to learn more about vSphere 8? Check out VMware’s ‘What’s New’ article here. More interested in vSAN 8? Don’t worry, there’s a ‘What’s New’ for that too!

I’m still on vSphere / vSAN 6.x

On a vSphere 6.x release still? Remember, as I discussed in my blog post last year, vSphere 6.5 & 6.7 support will meet its ‘End of General Support’ milestone in under a month! On the 15th October. Check out my blog post here for all information related to the exact end of life for these products, and an overview of the VMware support lifecycle. And if you’re on 6.0 or older, you’re already past the End of Technical Guidance phase.

How do I prepare for vSphere / vSAN 8.0?

As eager as you might be to deploy vSphere 8.0 in production on day one, please ensure that your supporting infrastructure and applications all support running on vSphere 8.0. This includes (but is not limited to):

• Server & Installed Hardware
• Storage Systems
• Guest Operating Systems
• Managed Virtual Appliances
• Data Protection Solutions

For VMware’s compatibility matrix, you can search for Server, Component, Storage/SAN, Guest OS compatibility and more here.

For a Data Protection Solution such as Veeam Backup & Replication, you can find their support KB article here. Remember, most vendors won’t explicitly state support until 90-180 days after vSphere 8.0 goes GA, but it will completely depend on the vendor, especially for managed virtual appliances.

If you are in doubt as to your platform’s compatibility with vSphere 8.0, you should seek to gain feedback from your hardware/software manufacturers, and then plan your upgrade accordingly.

Click here to see the full VMware Product Lifecycle Matrix.