Hot on the heels of VMware Explore Europe, Veeam announced its support for VMware vSphere 8.0.

About VMware vSphere 8.0

vSphere is VMware’s advanced server virtualization solution, consisting of ESXi (the core virtualization product that is installed on host machines – a type 1 hypervisor) and vCenter Server (the solution to manage multiple ESXi hosts as a platform).

vSphere 8.0 is currently the most recent version of vSphere. VMware announced this version on August 30th, 2022, to supersede its troubled v7.0 releases. This release was 6 weeks ahead of VMware’s end or support for both vSphere 6.5 and vSphere 6,7, offering organizations a choice again between two versions.

About Veeam support

But alas, this choice was not a realistic choice, as a new release of one infrastructure component might negatively affect other components. To be in a supported state, the entire organizational ecosystem surrounding the virtualization platform should consist of supported components.

Up to Veeam’s communications this Friday, Veeam Backup & Replication didn’t officially support VMware vSphere 8.0.  Veeam shared that their goal is to support new versions of hypervisors within 90 days of General Availability. Veeam made their announcement after only 73 days.

Veeam Backup and Replication v11a supports Vmware vSphere 8

Veeam's Research and Development team has performed extensive testing with version 11a P20220302 (build 11.0.1.1261 P20220302) of Veeam Backup & Replication.

Testing and has determined that this version is functional with vSphere 8.0.

Limitations

However, in Veeam Backup and Replication v11a, the following limitations apply:

• Continuous Data Protection (CDP) is not supported.
• Virtual Machines using Hardware Version 20 are not supported.
• The new Guest OS Family/Version options included with vSphere 8 are not recognized by Veeam Backup & Replication and, as a result, are not supported.
  • debian12_64Guest
  • rockylinux_64Guest
  • almalinux_64Guest
• The Veeam vSphere Web Client Plug-In is longer supported by VMware due to the deprecation of legacy local plugins in vSphere 8.

Full support

Full support for VMware vSphere 8.0 will be available with a future Veeam Backup & Replication release.

Concluding

A supported Disaster and Recovery solution for vSphere 8 workloads means that at least one box can be checked on the path to adopting vSphere 8 for many organizations.