NEW VC, vSphere Client & VDP Version Releases this week from VMware!!

Well, not only has this week seen the belated by one month Patch Tuesday by Microsoft, VMware followed suit with two releases themselves...

VMware vCenter Server Release 6.5b

Updated on: 14 March 2017
vCenter Server 6.5.0b | 14 MARCH 2017 | ISO Build 5178943
vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.0b | 14 MARCH 2017 | ISO Build 5178943
vCenter Server 6.5.0b on Windows | 14 MARCH 2017 | ISO Build 5178943

http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/vsphere/65/vsphere-vcenter-server-650b-release-notes.html

You can use the link to see everything, but here's What's New:
This release of vCenter Server 6.5.0b delivers a number of bug fixes that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

• Updates to time zones in the Linux Guest Operating System customization. vCenter Server Linux guest operating system customization supports latest time zones. For more information on time zone changes and daylight saving time (DST) changes in Linux guest operating systems, see the Time Zone Database by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
• Updates to time zones in the Windows Guest Operating System customization. vCenter Server Windows guest operating systems customization supports the latest time zones. For more information on time zone changes and daylight saving time (DST) changes in Windows guest operating systems, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 3162835.
• Updates to JRE package. The Oracle (Sun) JRE package is updated to version 1.8.0_121 to support Turkish timezone.
• Additional functionality to the vSphere Client. This release delivers additional functionality to the HTML5-based vSphere Client. For more information, see Functionality Updates for the vSphere Client.

Here's more detail on the Updates to the vSphere Sphere Client in VC 6.5b:

First vSphere Client (HTML5) update debuts in VC 6.5b

https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2017/03/first-vsphere-client-html5-update-vsphere-6-5-b.html

New Features – Huge Jump

The online documentation for vSphere 6.5.0b is the best source for detailed documentation on what functionality is now available (http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/vsphere/65/vsphere-client-65-html5-functionality-support.html), but for comparison sake, the bits are just after Fling v3.2, plus a few minor things. The only notable addition beyond v3.2 is the “Accept License” page on OVF deploy, which we specifically pushed into this patch to enable OVF deploy.
This is the list of some of the additional functionality included. Note, some of these features are presented in a partially complete manner. For example, OVF deploy in 6.5.0b will only support URL deployment (no local file). The plan is to fill out all of these features, but the more feedback we get from you regarding what is most important will help us deliver faster.

• OVF Deploy
• Deploy VM from Content Library
• Drag and Drop
• VM conversion to/from templates
• Actions on multiple VMs
• Register VMs
• SDRS management
• Dashboard
• Advanced network operations – Distribute switch, Port group creation
• Datastore create, mount and unmount
• Storage overview
• Host configuration (PCI Passthrough)
• Host profiles compliance monitoring
• Roles and permissions
• Create Tags and categories

Some of these flows may have had minor tweaks to make them easier to use and learn. If you have feedback about any of the new behavior, or missing portions of features, of course let us know using the integrated feedback tool by clicking on the smiley face in the upper righthand corner.

vSphere Data Protection Release 6.1.4 (VDP)

http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/vdp/61/data-protection-614-release-notes.html#fixedproblems

List of fixed problems:

Fixed Problems

The following table lists the problems that have been fixed in this release of vSphere Data Protection:

Defect Number	Description
265470	When you perform an FLR, and you browse for a virtual machine, the vSphere Data Protection GUI displays a misleading error.
268134	A replication recovery job that runs on a target vSphere Data Protection appliance publishes the task by specifying the source server as unknown.
274652	Tivoli Java Collections Library is vulnerable that enables exploitation of port 7778 by running a command on a remote client.
	Fix common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) that are found in third-party libraries by updating vSphere Data Protection appliance with Avamar OS rollup version Q4 2016.
	On vSphere Data Protection appliance, update the Java runtime binaries version to 8u121.
	Provide support for vCenter Server 6.0 U3.
	On vSphere Data Protection appliance, enable TLS 1.2.
	Fix the error, System accounting is not in use: System accounting not found in /etc/cron.d/sysstat.