Virtualization Technology: vSphere 4.1 Maintains VMware at the Front of the Virtual Infrastructure Pack

vSphere 4.1 Maintains VMware at the Front of the Virtual Infrastructure Pack

by Cameron Sturdevant

Network I/O Control

A vNetwork Distributed Switch can now assign priority to a variety of traffic types.

Memory Compression

vSphere 4.1 now adds a method to compress memory pages to reduce swapping and improve performance.

Storage I/O Control

vSphere 4.1 manages storage contention between VMs by enabling IT managers to assign priority to each machine.

Storage Performance

It was easy to track VM storage usage to help determine storage priority assignments.

vCenter 4.1

VMware did some housekeeping in this release. The vSphere Client is still available in the vCenter command and control center but has been removed from the ESX and ESXi bits.

ESX 4.1

There's nothing drastically different in the installation process of ESX 4.1. However, the significant new network, memory and storage management features will take some study to implement to your best advantage.