When you create a virtual machine or upgrade an existing virtual machine, you use the virtual machine compatibility setting to select the ESXi host versions that the virtual machine can run on.
The compatibility setting determines the virtual hardware available to the virtual machine, which corresponds to the physical hardware available on the host. Virtual hardware includes BIOS and EFI, available virtual PCI slots, the maximum number of CPUs, the maximum memory configuration, and other characteristics. New virtual hardware capabilities are typically released once a year with major or minor releases of vSphere.
The new VCF and VVF 9.0 introduce the virtual hardware version 22 with new limites and new capabilities!
Supported Maximums:
- 960 logical processors
- 960 cores per socket
Latest Guest OS Support:
- ProLinux
- FusionOS
- Kylin
- Miracle Linux
Enablements:
- Peer-to-Peer for all Passthrough Devices
- NVMe 1.4
- Intel Trust domain Extensions (TDX)
- Next Generation of AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization SEV-SNP (Secure Nexted Paging)
- New Instruction Set (ISA) support introduced in Intel Granite Rapids and AMD 5th generation EPYC processors (formerly codenamed Turin).
- Support for 4KN VMDK and 4KN Local Drives
- Virtual I/O MMU for Enhanced DirectPath I/O
- Real-Time Virtual Switch
Span Limit Policy:
- The Span Limit policy allows you to establish the affinity relationship between a group of virtual machines and a specified number of hosts without explicitly identifying the hosts.
Snapshot Enhancements:
- ESX 9.0 enhances virtual snapshot tasks by adding more precise tracking of the progress of consolidation tasks and the ability to resume snapshot consolidation for offline VMs.
