VMware vSphere 6.5 & 6.7 End of Support and Planning the Upgrade to vSphere 7

by Michael Trantas
Senior Solutions Architect

VMware has previously announced the end of general support for vSphere versions 6.5 and 6.7 effective October 15, 2022. Although Technical Guidance will remain available in the support portal through November 15, 2023, VMware will not offer any new hardware support, server/client/guest OS updates, new security patches or bug fixes for the vSphere 6.5 and 6.7 products.

It is important to note that the end of support for vSphere 6.5 and 6.7 also means the end of general support for Windows based vCenter Server instances and for Flash based vSphere Web Clients.

To maintain a full level of support and subscription services, it is recommended to begin planning the upgrade to vSphere 7.0.x prior to October 15^th, 2022. Helient highly recommends that a thorough review of guest Operating Systems, Virtual Appliances, along with third-party product components and plug-ins be completed prior to embarking on the vSphere upgrades. It is likely that new OSes and appliances may need to be deployed in parallel, prior to this upcoming deadline.

Customers have been reporting a growing number of issues related to SD card reliability, and VMware is also strongly recommending that customers make plans to migrate from SD cards to more reliable boot devices (i.e. SSD or NVMe drives). Unfortunately, endurance ratings for SD cards are no longer able to guarantee the viability of SD cards as a boot device and should be replaced as soon as possible,

Helient can provide guidance and assistance in the planning and engineering of these upgrades across customer Server and Desktop VMware vSphere ESXi virtualization environments. If you would like more information or assistance, please contact our industry-leading team at service@helient.com.