Here is the guide to all essential vSphere 5.1 links…!!

What’s New Links

What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 (Technical Paper)
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Storage (Technical Paper)
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Performance (Technical Paper)
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Platform (Technical Paper)
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Networking (Technical Paper)
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – VMware vCenter Server (Technical Paper)

Documentation Links

VMware vSphere Documentation
VMware vSphere 5.1 Release Notes
Configuration Maximums for VMware vSphere 5.1

Download Links

Download vSphere 5.1
ESXi 5.1.0 Installable
vCenter Server 5.1.0 and modules
vSphere Data Protection 5.1.0
vSphere Replication 5.1.0
vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1.0
vCenter Orchestrator Appliance 5.1.0
vCloud Networking and Security 5.1.0
vSphere Management Assistant 5.1 (vMA)
vShield Zones for vSphere 5.1
HP Custom Image for ESXi 5.1.0 GA Install CD
vSphere PowerCLI 5.1
vSphere 5.1 Virtual Disk Development Kit
vSphere CLI 5.1

ESXi Links

ESXi 5.1 Free with no vRAM limit but physical RAM limit of 32Gb (ESX Virtualization)
VMware vSphere 5.1 Hypervisor (Free – ESXi 5.1) Limitations (TechHead)
vSphere 5.1 – New ESXiShellInteractiveTimeOut (VMware vSphere Blog)
vSphere 5.1 – Full Admin Support for Named User Accounts (VMware vSphere Blog)
Joining vSphere Hosts to Active Directory (VMware vSphere Blog)
What’s New In ESXCLI 5.1 (VMware vSphere Blog)

General Links

VMware vSphere: What’s New [V 5.1] (Free VMware eLearning Course)
Read the vSphere 5.1 Release Notes!! (Technodrone)
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V compared to VMware vSphere 5.1 (UP2V)

Installing & Upgrading

Methods of installing ESXi 5.1 (KB Article)
Methods of upgrading to ESXi 5.1 (KB Article)
Installing or upgrading to ESXi 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Overview of upgrading from vCenter Server 5.0 to vCenter Server 5.1 (KB Article)
Methods of Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1 (KB Article)
Methods of installing vCenter Server 5.1 (KB Article)
Installing vCenter Server 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Upgrading vCenter Server, ESX/ESXi hosts, and vShield Edge Appliances for vCloud Director 5.1 (KB Article)
Installing ESXi 5.1 using the Interactive Installation method (KBTV Video)
Installing VMware vCenter Server 5.1 using the Simple Install method (KBTV Video)
vSphere 5.1 Generally Available – Important Upgrade Considerations (Long White Virtual Clouds)

Licensing Links

Behind vRAM – What’s VMware’s Deepest Fear? (Double Cloud)
VMware turns attention to small businesses with vSphere 5.1 Essentials Plus (Infoworld)
vRAM eliminated on both vSphere 5.0 and 5.1 (vCritical)
Upgrade paths from vSphere editions to VMware vCloud Suite 5.1 (KB Article)
Compare vSphere 5 Editions (VMware)
vCloud Suite Licensing Guide (VMware)
vSphere 5 Licensing, Pricing and Packaging (VMware)

Networking Links

vSphere 5.1 – New Features and Enhancements in Networking (ESX Virtualization)
vCloud Director 5.1 VXLAN Configuration (Punching Clouds)
ESXi 5.1 Network Health Check with Jumbo Frames (Rickard Nobel)
ESXi 5.1 Network Health Check VLANs (Rickard Nobel)
ESXi 5.1 and BPDU Guard (Rickard Nobel)
LACP and ESXi 5.1 (Rickard Nobel)
Distributed Virtual Switch 5.1 Health Check for VLAN configuration issues (Shogan.tech)
Single Root IO Virtualization (SR-IOV) Finally in vSphere 5.1 (Stretch Cloud)
DVMirror v2 aka Port Mirroring – Closing the competition with Cisco N1KV (Stretch Cloud)
What’s New in vSphere 5.1 – Networking (VMware vSphere Blog)
VXLAN Performance Evaluation on VMware vSphere 5.1 (VMware Technical Paper)
New 5.1 Distributed Switch Features Part 1 – Network Health Check (Wahl Network)
New 5.1 Distributed Switch Features Part 2 – Configuration Backups and Rollbacks (Wahl Network)
New 5.1 Distributed Switch Features Part 3 – Port Mirror and NetFlow Enhancements (Wahl Network)
New 5.1 Distributed Switch Features Part 4 – LACP, SR-IOV, Elastic Ports, and More (Wahl Network)
vSphere 5.1 networking enhancements (Yellow Bricks)

Scripting Links

PowerCLI 5.1 – What’s New ? (VMware PowerCLI Blog)

SRM 5.1/vSphere Replication

VMware SRM 5.1 and vSphere Replication – New release – 64bit process, Application Quiescence (ESX Virtualization)
SRM 5.1 and vSphere Replication as a Standalone Feature (VMware vSphere Blog)
Introduction to VMware vSphere Replication (VMware Technical Paper)

Storage Links

vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 1: VMFS-5 (Cormac Hogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 2: SE Sparse Disks (Cormac Hogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 3: vCloud Director (Cormac Hogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 4: All Paths Down (APD) (Cormac Hogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 5: Storage Protocols (Cormac Hogan.com)
vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 new features and enhancements (ESX Virtualization)
Storage DRS datastore correlation detector (Frank Denneman)
vSphere 5.1 storage vMotion parallel disk migrations (Frank Denneman)
Storage DRS datastore cluster default affinity rule (Frank Denneman)
VCSA 5.1- Deployment and upgrade (Juanma’s Blog)
vSphere 5.1 vCenter Virtual Appliance and vSphere Web Client Video Tutorial Series (Kendrick Coleman)
Space-Efficient Sparse Virtual Disks and VMware View (MyVirtualCloud.net)
Storage Changes in VMware vSphere 5.1 (Stephen Foskett)
vSphere 5.1 New Storage Features (VMware vSphere Blog)
New Features of the vSphere Storage Appliance version 5.1 (VMware vSphere Blog)
Storage I/O Performance on VMware vSphere 5.1 over 16 Gigabit Fibre Channel (VMware Technical Paper)
vSphere 5.1 All Paths Down (APD) enhancements (Yellow Bricks)

vCenter Server Links

vSphere 5.1 and New VMware Enhanced vMotion (ESX Virtualization)
vSphere 5.1 vMotion deepdive (Frank Denneman)
Where is my new vMotion functionality? (Frank Denneman)
vCenter Server 5.1 start up may take longer than previous versions (KB Article)
VMware vCenter Server 5.1 Database Performance Improvements and Best Practices for Large-Scale Environments (VMware Technical Paper)
VMware vSphere 5.1 vMotion Architecture, Performance and Best Practices (VMware Technical Paper)
Command-Line Installation and Upgrade of VMware vCenter Server 5.1 (VMware Technical Paper)
vMotion without shared storage requirement, does it have a name? (VMware vSphere Blog)
vMotion enhancement in vSphere 5.1 (Yellow Bricks)

vCenter Server Single Sign-On

Comparing behaviour of vCenter Single Sign On with earlier versions of vCenter Server (KB Article)
vCenter Single Sign On FAQ (KB Article)
Installing vCenter Single Sign On in a multisite deployment (KB Article)
Setting up Apache load balancing software with vCenter Single Sign On (KB Article)
Configuring vCenter Single Sign On for high availability (KB Article)
vCenter Single Sign On: Understanding the Administrators role (VMwareTechPubs Video)
vCenter Single Sign On: Managing Users (VMwareTechPubs Video)
vCenter Single Sign On in the vSphere Web Client (VMwareTechPubs Video)

vCloud Director 5.1

vCloud Director 5.1 released – what’s new (ESX Virtualization)
Design Considerations for vShield Edge Gateway HA feature in vCloud 5.1 (Punching Clouds)
Network port requirements for vCloud Director 5.1 (KB Article)
Installing vCloud Director 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Upgrading to vCloud Director 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Installing and configuring a vCloud Director 5.1 database (KB Article)
Supported web browsers in vCloud Director 5.1 (KB Article)
Supported guest operating systems in vCloud Director 5.1 (KB Article)
vCloud Director 5.1 Virtual Appliance Passwords (VMware vSphere Blog)
Announcing VMware vCloud Director 5.1! (VMware vSphere Blog)
What’s New In vCloud 5.1 API (VMware vSphere Blog)

Virtual Machine

VMware vSphere 5.1 – Virtual Hardware Version 9 (ESX Virtualization)

vSphere 5.1 Evaluation Videos

Auto Deploy Stateless Caching
Auto Deploy Stateful Install
Auto Deploy Stateless Mode
Enhanced vMotion
Replication – Protection
Replication – Recovery
Replication – Network Health Check
Network Rollback and Recovery
Network Config Backup and Restore
vSphere Data Protection – Install and Configure
vSphere Data Protection – File Level Restore
vSphere Data Protection – Create and Edit Backup jobs
VSA 5.1 – Installation
VSA 5.1 – ROBO environments
VSA 5.1 – Resilience
VSA 5.1 – Growing Storage

vSphere Data Protection

vSphere Data Protection – a new backup product included with vSphere 5.1 (ESX Virtualization)
Setting the record straight on VMware vSphere Data Protection (VMware vSphere Blog)
Introduction to VMware vSphere Data Protection (VMware Technical Paper)
VMware’s new vSphere Data Protection backup application (vSphere-land.com)

vSphere Web Client

vSphere Web Client – New in VMware vSphere 5.1 (ESX Virtualization)
vSphere 5.1 vCenter Virtual Appliance and vSphere Web Client Video Tutorial Series (Kendrick Coleman)
vSphere Web Client Navigation (VMwareTechPubs Video)
Using Search in the vSphere Web Client (VMwareTechPubs Video)
Back to Basics: Using the vSphere 5.1 Web Client to create a Datacenter object (Yellow Bricks)