VMware has just released the new vSphere 6.7 only a few weeks ago, but now it’s the turn to update the previous version: vSphere 6.5 Update 2 is now available, with some interesting news. New builds will be 8307201 for vCenter and 8294253 for ESXi.
The official vSphere documentation is already updated to vSphere 6.5U2 version. All PDFs could be downloaded from this link.
The interesting aspect is that vSphere 6.5U2 includes some backported features from vSphere 6.7!
The main backported feature is about the Enhanced Linked Mode (ELM): before vCenter Server 6.5U2 it was supported only with external Platform Service Controller (PSC) deployment, but it’s now supported also with Embedded PSC, like it’s happened with version 6.7 (it’s supported only with the VCSA deployment).
Note that the KB 2147672 has not yet updated to reflect this changes… Also will be interesting see how this will impact the VCP6.5-DCV exam questions.
Will be interesting see if there will be any VMware KB to migrate from an external PSC to an embedded PSC.
For more information see also both sets of release notes for vCenter Server 6.5 U2 and ESXi 6.5 U2.
With vCenter Server 6.5U2, VM migration using vMotion and cold migration it’s supported only between vCenter Server 6.0U3 and later, vCenter Server 6.5 or later, and VMware Cloud on AWS.
Note that there are also some limitations, for example, cloning of virtual machines between vCenter Server 6.0 and vCenter Server 6.5 is not supported. For more information, see KB 2106952.
About the upgrade process, there are several limitations, for example, vSphere 5.5 requires a minimum version of vSphere 5.5 Update 3b to be upgraded to v 6.5U2.
Note: Actually, upgrading from vSphere 6.5U2 to vSphere 6.7 GA is not supported yet. But will probably change with a future v6.7U1.