VMware Inc. has added a new HTML-5 Web interface to vSphere 6.0 in what is the second major update for the tool.

vSphere 6.0’s new Host Client is derived from what VMware calls a “Fling”, that is, unsupported code the company has written but not incorporated into its products, but which admins are encouraged to play around with if they so desire.

The Register says that the update doesn’t make vSphere 6.0 that much more user-friendly, but the move is still notable because it shows VMware is finally moving away from the old NPAPI plugin standard. The new enhancements will also be welcomed by admins who have long complained of the poor quality of VMware’s Web clients.

The biggest new feature is support for 25G and 50G Ethernet link speeds, while vSphere’s APIs for IO Filtering, called VAIO’s (not to be confused with the laptops!) have been upgraded to handle IPv6 environments better.

As well, VMware has included a number of security fixes in the new release, as well as some fixes for bugs like “Unable to perform vMotion with VMs that has two 2TB virtual disks.”

There’s also bad news for Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), who’s Opteron 12xx, 22xx and 82xx series CPUs are no longer supported by vSphere, probably because they’re no longer on-sale.

You can read the full release notes and download the new vSphere 6.0 from here.

Photo Credit: VMwareInc. via Compfight cc