Conclusions by Bob Plankers

I think the data speaks for itself, but if there is a conclusion to be made it is that vSphere 7 is a solid release. Should you upgrade to it? Yes, but thoughtfully. It is very important to make sure that all the components in your environment, like backup systems, hardware, storage, and so on are compatible. The VMware Compatibility Guide is a great tool for determining hardware readiness, and if your servers aren’t on there yet ask your vendors, as they are the ones that do the testing.

In the meantime you can do what the VMware Hands-on Labs do and run vSphere 7 nested inside another vSphere environment. Did you know you can set the guest OS type to ESXi, and that ESXi has VMware Tools? While it isn’t officially supported, it’s great for testing at any time, especially since you can take a snapshot of the environment and reset it if you do something bad to it. It’s a very good way to practice the upgrade process to develop confidence in it.

Don’t forget the VMware Test Drive, either. Test Drive is a great way to experience quite a few VMware products in an environment that’s already configured.

As always the usual Disclaimer