Yesterday, PernixData announced the General Availability of version 3.0 of FVP. FVP is a software solution that enables the use of host-installed Flash and RAM to accelerate storage performance in a VMware environment. The performance increases that FVP can provide are often quite significant. If you’re not familiar with FVP I wrote an overview of the product back in March when PernixData announced version 2.5.

Since I’ve written an FVP overview before, I’ll skip ahead to talking about what’s new in this version.

Support for vSphere 6.0

FVP 3.0 adds support for VMware vSphere 6.0. In fact, current customers will need to upgrade FVP to 3.0 in order to get full vSphere 6.0 support. With this, PernixData also offers support for a migration plan for clusters on earlier versions of ESXi running earlier versions of FVP, making it easier to migrate to both vSphere 6.0 and FVP 3.0. As part of making these migrations easier, FVP 3.0 will support mixed-version host environments running under vCenter 6.0, with hosts running ESXi 5.1 or later.

This expanded support comes with a cost — FVP 3.0 no longer supports vSphere 5.0 or earlier.

New User Interface

FVP 3.0 introduces a completely-new standalone HTML5-based webclient that admins can use to monitor and configure all of their FVP clusters, even clusters managed by a different vCenter interface.

FVP 3.0 still includes the vCenter plug-in their customers are used to. The plug-on can still be used to get basic FVP analytics. All FVP 3.0 configuration and in-depth analytics will only be available through the new standalone webclient.

Separate Audit Log

FVP 3.0 adds a separate audit log. FVP actions and alarms will still be provided through vCenter’s Tasks/Events tab. The new audit log, accessible through the new webclient, provides a quick and easy way to view all FVP-related actions and alarms for a given FVP cluster. The Audit Log can be found on the “Reports” tab in the new interface.

Streamlined License Activation Process

In 3.0, the process of activating FVP licenses is now much easier. Customers can manage all of their licensing through the new interface. Simply enter your license key and the new FVP License Activation process will automatically do the rest.

The new interface also gives customers the ability to easily see more details on what is and isn’t licensed.

Availability

FVP 3.0 is available for download now from the PernixData site.