Core management layer – VMware vCenter 6.5

Unlike the previous releases wherein although the appliance was a neater solution, it still lacked something in terms of features and functionalities. Not every aspect of the vSphere management element layer was integrated into the appliance, but that is about to change with vSphere 6.5. VMware vCenter 6.5 Appliance (vCenter Server Virtual Appliance (vCSA)) is the new king. It has features that are not available with the Windows version of vCenter. Features such as Native High Availability (NHA) and Native Backup and Restore (NBR) are only available with the appliance version of vCenter Server. We will cover NHA and NBR in Chapter 2, Greenfield Deployment of vSphere 6.5. 

One component that always stayed out of the box was vCenter Update Manager (VUM). It was always required to have it installed on a Windows machine. VUM is now available as a component integrated into vCSA.

The vCSA Management has also been greatly improved, especially providing more insight into the built-in PostgreSQL database and its usage. VMware is slowly moving away from its dependence on Microsoft SQL and Oracle database instances.