This week, VMware released vSphere 7.0 Update 2 on its 6-month release schedule for its vSphere product. It is available to download right away, both through VMware Customer Connect and from within vSphere Lifecycle Manager itself.

What’s New

In case you missed it, the key focus areas in which VMware is making investments in vSphere 7.0 Update 2 are:

• Deliver AI & Developer Ready Infrastructure
• Boost Infrastructure and Data Security
• Simplify Operations

The latest vSphere 7.0 Update 2 release further highlights vSphere as the industry’s leading compute virtualization platform that transforms bare metal server, CPU, and GPU-based hardware into virtual machines and containers. vSphere optimizes performance, increases availability, tightens security, and streamlines maintenance to create an agile, efficient, resilient, and intrinsically secure infrastructure platform to support existing workloads and next-gen applications.

The release blogpost on its vSphere Blog provides all the additional information you need.

What 7.0 Update 2 means to me

As a Microsoft-oriented Identity-focused admin managing virtualized Domain Controllers on top of VMware vSphere, two improvements really stand out to me:

It’s Easier to get up and running with VM Encryption and vTPM

I’ve shared how to protect virtual Domain Controllers on vSphere with VM Encryption earlier. To get this going requires a KMIP 1.1-compliant Key Management Server (KMS) like Hytrust’s KeyControl.

With vSphere 7.0 Update 2, VMware introduces the vSphere Native Key Provider. This mechanism exists fully within vSphere to enable data-at-rest protections like vSAN Encryption, VM Encryption, and vTPM out of the box, making it a lot easier to take advantage of these security features.

VMware Tools Enhancements

Ultimately, in Active Directory Domain Services, the hardware clock of Domain Controllers rules out replication conflicts. Previously, I’ve shared how to Manage Active Directory Time Synchronization on VMware vSphere and how to Configure Accurate Time in Active Directory.

VMware Tools enhancements in vSphere 7.0 Update 2, includes Precision Clock drivers for Windows Time Service, enabling easy use of the Precision Time Protocol for situations where you need even more precise time.

Get going with vSphere 7.0 Update 2

Download vSphere 7 Update 2 through VMware Customer Connect to get going or download it from within vSphere Lifecycle Manager itself.

Further reading

Protecting virtual Domain Controllers on vSphere with VM Encryption 
Managing Active Directory Time Synchronization on VMware vSphere 
HOWTO: Configure Accurate Time in Active Directory 
VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1 introduces an interface for advanced time synchronization configuration