VMware vCloud Director 1.5 release notes

Lots of people have asked me where they can find information on the new features and the release notes for vCloud Director 1.5.

To view the release notes click here.

Quick abstract from the page

What’s in the Release Notes
The release notes cover the following topics:

What’s New
System Requirements and Installation
Known Issues

What’s New

Fast Provisioning: Utilizing linked clones dramatically speeds up provisioning time and reduces storage costs.
vApp Custom Properties: Allows developers and other users to easily pass user data into guest OSes using OVF descriptors.
Blocking Tasks and Notifications: Programmatically connect vCloud Director to enterprise systems (e.g. CMDB) enabling end-to-end system automation.
Expanded vCloud API: Additional commands added to the vCloud API namespace to include all GUI-accessible actions and enable broader integration and scripting using the API.
Microsoft SQL Server Support: For new deployments of vCloud Director, Microsoft SQL is supported for the vCloud database in addition to the previously supported database servers.
vShield Edge VPN integration: Programmatically create site-to-site IPSec-VPN tunnels to connect across clouds.

System Requirements and Installation

For information about system requirements and installation instructions, see the VMware vCloud Director Installation and Configuration Guide.

The most current information about supported databases and supported versions of ESX/ESXi and vCenter Server is available from the VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes.

VMware vCenter Chargeback 1.6.2 supports vCloud Director 1.5, but does not support vCloud Director 1.0.x. Make sure you upgrade vCloud Director before you upgrade vCenter Chargeback. See the VMware vCenter Chargeback 1.6.2 Release Notes for more information about vCenter Chargeback 1.6.2.
Known Issues

The following known issues have been discovered through rigorous testing and will help you understand some behavior you might encounter in this release.

The known issues are grouped as follows:

General Issues
Installation and Upgrade Issues
I18N Issues
Networking Issues
Organization vDC Issues
Upload and Download Issues
Virtual Machine Issues
Notification and Extension Issues
vCloud API Issues