Download VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Virtualization has gained a prominent place in recent decades. Well-known names include Xen and VMware. VMware’s complete platform is called vSphere and consists of various components, such as vCenter Server, with which a complete virtual environment can be managed, and of course the hypervisor ESXi, on which virtual machines can do their work. Version 8.0 of both vCenter Server and ESXi has been released and the changelog looks as follows:

What’s New

• This release of VMware vSphere 8.0 includes VMware ESXi 8.0 and VMware vCenter Server 8.0. Read about the new and enhanced features in this release in the Technical Overview Blog. The vSphere 8.0 release notes do not include the following release notes:
  • VMware vSphere With Tanzu
  • Tanzu Kubernetes releases
  • VMware vSAN
  • VMware Host Clienti>

Initial Availability

• vSphere 8.0 delivers its Initial Availability (IA) release. The IA release is the first release of vSphere 8.0 and is available to all customers. Custom ISO images that use ESXi 8.0 IA as a base image and include OEM firmware and drivers will be available. IA allows all customers access to the latest production-ready vSphere features as early as possible. Once the vSphere 8.0 IA build becomes broadly available through all channels, such as OEM custom images and our partners’ hardware offerings, VMware plans to designate this build as its General Availability (GA) build.
  For more information, read New Release Model for vSphere 8.

Internationalization

• VMware vSphere 8.0 is available in the following languages:
  • English
  • Italian
  • French
  • German
  • Spanish
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Simplified Chinese
  • Traditional Chinesei>

  Components of vSphere 8.0, including vCenter Server, ESXi, the vSphere Client, and the VMware Host Client, do not accept non-ASCII input.

Compatibility

• ESXi and vCenter Server Version Compatibility
  The VMware Product Interoperability Matrix provides details about the compatibility of current and earlier versions of VMware vSphere components, including ESXi, VMware vCenter Server, and optional VMware products. Check the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix also for information about supported management and backup agents before you install ESXi or vCenter Server.
  The vSphere Lifecycle Manager and vSphere Client are packaged with vCenter Server.
• Hardware Compatibility for ESXi
  To view a list of processors, storage devices, SAN arrays, and I/O devices that are compatible with vSphere 8.0, use the ESXi 8.0 information in the VMware Compatibility Guide.
• Device Compatibility for ESXi
  To determine which devices are compatible with ESXi 8.0, use the ESXi 8.0 information in the VMware Compatibility Guide.
• Guest Operating System Compatibility for ESXi
  To determine which guest operating systems are compatible with vSphere 8.0, use the ESXi 8.0 information in the VMware Compatibility Guide.
  The following guest operating system releases are deprecated or terminated in this release. Future vSphere releases will not support these guest operating systems:
  • Windows Vista, Windows 2003/R2, Windows XP: Deprecated
  • Oracle Linux 5.x: Deprecated
  • Oracle Linux 4.9: Terminated
  • CentOS 5.x: Deprecated
  • Asianux 3.0: Deprecated
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4: Terminated
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4: Deprecated
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12: Deprecated
  • Ubuntu releases 12.04, 18.10, 19.04 and 19.10: Terminated
  • Debian 7.x and 8.x: Deprecated
  • Debian 6.0: Terminated
  • Photon OS 1.0: Terminated
  • Flatcar Container Linux non-LTS releases: Terminated
  • All OS X and macOS releases: Terminated
  • FreeBSD 9.x and 10.x: Deprecated
  • FreeBSD 7.x and 8.x: Terminated
  • Solaris 10.x: Deprecated
  • All eComStation releases: Terminated
  • All SCO releases: Terminated
  • All CoreOS releases: Terminated>
• Virtual Machine Compatibility for ESXi
  Virtual machines that are compatible with ESX 3.x and later (hardware version 4) are supported with ESXi 8.0. Virtual machines that are compatible with ESX 2.x and later (hardware version 3) are not supported. To use such virtual machines on ESXi 8.0, upgrade the virtual machine compatibility. See the ESXi Upgrade documentation.i>