Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

Management & Automation

VMware vCenter 2.5 Update 4 released today!

· ·

I just noticed that VMware vCenter 2.5 Update 4 has been released. I wanted to say: download it and install, but looking at the attendee numbers most of my readers will probably be at VMworld!

What’s new?

  • Guest Operating System Customization Improvements – VirtualCenter now supports customization of Windows Server 2008 guest operating systems.
  • Performance Overview Charts – VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4 introduces the Performance Overview plug-in, which provides a single view of key performance metrics for CPU, memory, disk, and network without having to navigate through multiple charts. The aggregated charts show high-level summaries of resource distribution.
    To install the Performance Overview plug-in, see Installing the Performance Overview Plug-In in VirtualCenter 2.5 Update4 (KB 1008296)

And not totally unimportant Update 4 included two security updates which is why I recommend to take it for a test drive soon and start planning the implementation!

If you get the change install the Performance Overview plugin and email me a screenshot, I don’t think I will have the time today to actually test it…

New version of ESX Deployment Appliance(EDA)

· ·

Herco van Brug aka “brugh” just released a new version of ESX Deployment Appliance(EDA), 0.87.

New in 0.87:

  • editing the order of the scriptparts
  • bulk creation and deletion of ESX hostnames/ip
  • an fs.php page that allows for small remote updates
  • ESXi support fixed again

So if you want to install your ESX hosts in a consistent way and faster than ever before, look into EDA now. If you need a guide on how to set it up take a look at Simon Long’s post on GabesVirtualWorld.com.

VMware vCenter Converter 4.0

· ·

VMware vCenter Converter 4.0 has just been released. Don’t let this name fool you cause Converter is still also available as a stand alone solution for P2V’ing your servers! You can find the release notes here.

So what’s new?

  • Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Linux (RHEL, SUSE and Ubuntu) as source
  • Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Windows Server 2008 as source
  • Hot cloning improvements to clone any incremental changes to physical machine during the P2V conversion process
  • Support for converting new third-party image formats including Parallels Desktop virtual machines, newer versions of Symantec, Acronis, and StorageCraft
  • Workflow automation enhancements to include automatic source shutdown, automatic start-up of the destination virtual machine as well as shutting down one or more services at the source and starting up selected services at the destination
  • Target disk selection and the ability to specify how the volumes are laid out in the new destination virtual machine
  • Destination virtual machine configuration, including CPU, memory, and disk controller type

I think especially the hot cloning improvement, which copies incremental changes, and the workflow automation are really cool features. These are the kind of enhancements that will make your life a lot easier during migration projects.

Minor Update: RVTools 2.3.1

· ·

Rob de Veij just released a minor update for RVTools, 2.3.1. Rob was notified by several users that an error occured while using RVTools. Here is the relevant section from the release notes:

Bug on vDatastore tab fixed: System.InvalidCastException: Unable to cast object of type ‘VimApi.NasDatastoreInfo’ to type ‘VimApi.VmfsDatastoreInfo’.

If you are running RVTools, be sure to pick up the latest version here.

Cool Tool Update: RVTools 2.3

· ·

RVTools is getting more and more the attention and appreciation it deserves. This also means that more and more people are emailing Rob with all kinds of feature requests. Version 2.3 contains a couple bug fixes and a couple of cool new additions:

  • New vHost tab. The “vHost” tab displays for each host the name, datacenter name, cluster name, CPU model, CPU speed, number of CPU’s, CPU usage %, total amount of memory, memory usage %, memory reserved for the service console, number of NIC’s, number of HBA’s, number of VM’s running on this host and the ESX version of this host.
  • All tab pages (except the datastore tab) now also display the datacenter name and cluster name.
  • New VMFS “Block size”, “Max Blocks”, “Number of extents”, “Major Version number”, “Version string” and “VMFS upgradeable” fields on the vStorage tab.
  • New “Virtual machine version string” field on the vInfo tab page.
  • Divide by zero bug on vDatastore tab is now fixed.
  • The vInfo fields “upgrade policy” and “Sync.time with host” which where introduced in version 2.2 caused some problems in combination with the 2.0 version of the VI API. This is now fixed!

Now head over to Rob’s website and download the new version. Don’t forget to give Rob feedback!