VMware released vSphere 5 on July 12, 2011. Some of of the new features:
- vSphere ESXi convergence – vSphere 5 is converging on the ESXi hypervisor architecture.
- vSphere Auto Deploy – Auto Deploy is a new deployment and patching model for new vSphere hosts running the ESXi hypervisor.
- New virtual-machine format (version 8) – the new virtual machine format in vSphere 5 has several new features including 3D graphics for Windows Aero and USB 3.0 devices
- Support for Apple products
- Profile-driven storage – identify the appropriate storage to use for a given virtual machine depending on service level.
- vSphere Storage I/O control – improve management and enforcement of SLAs.
- vSphere Network I/O control – new per virtual machine controls
- vSphere Distributed Switch
- ESXi Firewall
- vSphere Web Client
- VMware vCenter Server Appliance