Updated: vSphere 6.5 & vSphere 6.7 End of Support on Oct 15, 2022

Updated: vSphere 6.5 and vSphere 6.7 End of Support

vSphere is the famous server virtualization software suite of VMware. If you use vSphere 6.7, you may be aware that according to VMware’s product announcement on June 3, 2020, the End of General Support (EoGS) for vSphere 6.7 has been extended from originally November 15, 2021 to October 15, 2022.

Which means by now, both vSphere 6.5 and vSphere 6.7 has End of Support. If you are running on these old versions, it is recommended that you upgrade your infrastructure to new version of vSphere as soon as possible, for example, upgrade ESXi from 6.7 to 7.0, or upgrade to ESXi 8, the newest release of vSphere.

The original End of Technical Guidance (EoTG) date of November 15, 2023 still applies for vSphere 6.7. It means while VMware does not offer new hardware support, server/client/guest OS updates, new security patches or bug fixes unless otherwise noted, you can still open a support request online via their Customer Connect portal to receive support and workarounds for low-severity issues on supported configurations only.

Extended reading: VMware product lifecycle phase definition

VMware provides support for its products from the general availability data of the product as per the Support and Subscription Terms and Conditions. Upon the general availability of the next major release, VMware will support the immediately preceding major release and its minor releases for an additional 18 months.

Currently, VMware divides the Support Lifecycle for product into 3 phases, each offering different levels of support. Customers can access VMware Customer Connect through all three phases of the support lifecycle.

General Support Phase

The General Support phase begins on the date of general availability of a Major Release (“GA”) and lasts for a fixed duration.

During the General Support phase, for customers who have purchased VMware support, VMware offers maintenance updates and upgrades, bug and security fixes, and technical assistance as per the Support and Subscription Terms and Conditions.

Technical Guidance Phase

Technical Guidance, if available, is provided from the end of the General Support phase and lasts for a fixed duration. Support Services available are reduced where products are in the Technical Guidance Phase. During the Technical Guidance phase, VMware does not offer new hardware support, server/client/guest OS updates, new security patches or bug fixes unless otherwise noted.

This phase is intended for usage by customers operating in stable environments with systems that are operating under reasonably stable loads. Customers are encouraged to use the Self-Help portal as priority. If required, customers can open a support request online via their Customer Connect portal to receive support and workarounds for low-severity issues on supported configurations only.

End of Support Life (EOSL)

A product has reached its end of support life when it is no longer generally supported by VMware.

End of support life for a specific product is either end of General Support or end of Technical Guidance, if available for that specific product.

End of Availability (EOA)/ End of Distribution (EOD)

A product has reached its end of availability when it is no longer available for purchase from VMware.

A product has reached its end of distribution when VMware can no longer make it available as a download from vmware.com or distribute the product in other ways.

The end of availability and end of distribution may coincide.

Introducing the new vSphere 8

VMware just released the stable new version of vSphere 8.0 on October 11, 2022. The new vSphere 8.0 supports up to 8 vGPUs per VM – a 2x increase compared to vSphere 7 U3, allowing you to run more and more powerful virtual machines, and perform tasks faster. In addition, there are more new vSphere 8 features.

• vSphere Distributed Services Engine
• Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 2.0
• Lifecycle Management
• ...

By upgrading to the new version of vSphere, you will be able to adapt and enjoy these new features ahead of time, and you can enable your organization to easily run, manage, connect and secure your applications in a common operating environment across your hybrid cloud.

A dedicated vSphere backup software – AOMEI Cyber Backup

You may need an effective backup software for VMware vSphere to protect your virtual environment and gain the ability to quickly recover your virtual machines when needed. In this article, I will introduce an efficient vSphere backup software - AOMEI Cyber Backup, which enables you to backup multiple VMs either managed by vCenter Server, or on a standalone ESXi host.

It simplifies the backup process and present the steps with intuitive GUI interface. In addition, it offers you the following benefits.

✦ Agentless Backup: create complete and independent image-level backup for VMware ESXi and Hyper-V VMs.
✦ Flexible vSphere Backup: batch backup large numbers of VMs managed by vCenter Server, or multiple VMs on a standalone ESXi host.
✦ Multiple Storage Destinations: backup to local drive, or network destinations like Windows share or NAS.
✦ Automated Execution: create backup schedules to automate backups daily, weekly, monthly.
✦ Role Assignment: allows one administrator to create sub-accounts with limited privileges.

AOMEI Cyber Backup supports both paid and free versions of VMware ESXi 6.0 and later versions. Next, I will show you how to perform vSphere VM backup and restore via AOMEI Cyber Backup. You can click the following button to download the free trial.

*You can choose to install this VM backup software on either Windows or Linux system.

Steps to perform vSphere backup and restore via AOMEI Cyber Backup

▶ Backup multiple VMs:

1. Bind Devices: Access to AOMEI Cyber Backup web client, navigate to Source Device > VMware > + Add VMware Device to Add vCenter or Standalone ESXi host. And then click … > Bind Device.

2. Create Backup Task: Navigate to Backup Task > + Create New Task, and select VMware ESXi Backup as the Backup Type.

3. Set the Task Name, Device, Target, Schedule and Cleanup as needed.

• Task Name: you can change the task name or use the default name with an ordinal.
• Device: batch backup multiple VMs on vCenter or standalone host within one backup task.

• Target: select to back up to a local path, or to a network path like NAS.
• Schedule (optional): perform full, differential, or incremental backup, and automate execution according to the frequency you specified.

• Cleanup (optional): automatically delete the old backup copies that exceed the retention period you specified.

4. Run Backup: Now you can click Start Backup and select Add the schedule and start backup now, or Add the schedule only.

Created backup tasks will be listed and monitored separately for restoring, progress checking and schedule changing.

▶ Restore VM from backup:

5. Restore from Backup: Select the backup task you want to restore, and click ... > Restore to open the wizard.

Or you can click Backup Management > History Versions. Specify a VM and select a restore point from the left list.

6. Start Restore: Choose to Restore to original location or Restore to new location. And click Start Restore to recover the virtual machine in place.

▶ Restore to new location: Create a new VM in the same or another datastore/host directly from the backup to perform out-of-spacre recovery, saves the trouble of re-configuring the new VM.

Summary

VMware supports the immediately preceding major release and its minor releases for an additional 18 months. Although the End of General Support for vSphere 6.7 has been extended to October 15, 2022, it has reached the time by now.

As vSphere 6.5 and vSphere 6.7 End of Support, you can choose to upgrade your environment to vSphere 7 or the newly released vSphere 8. In addition, to avoid unexpected error and data loss, you may need to backup VMware ESXi VMs before your upgrade.