Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

update

vCenter 2.5 Update 5 released!

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VMware vCenter Server 2.5 Update 5 – includes Converter Enterprise

Latest Version: 2.5 Update 5 | 2009/07/10

The list of resolved issues is quite short this time. But a really important issue has been resolved and that’s why I recommend everyone who’s still running vCenter 2.5 to look in to this upgrade!
Support for High Consolidation in VMware HA Clusters – VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 includes significant performance and scalability improvements to VMware HA. Use VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 for environments with more than 35 virtual machines per host in an HA cluster.
For information on the ESX Server host settings required for this scalability improvement, see ESX Server host settings required for environments with up to 80 virtual machines per host in an HA Cluster (KB 1012002).
This is especially important for those with a high server consolidation rate or for instance for VDI. Make sure to read the KB article cause you will need to change several settings!

Patches for ESX 3.X

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VMware just released a bunch of patches for ESX 3.5 and 3.0.x. Those of you who did not yet upgrade to vSphere 4 might want to look in to these new patches as they contain security and critical updates.

Change VUM download location from https to http

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One of my customers asked me if it is possible to change the download protocol for VMware Update Manager into http. Due to security regulations they are not allowed to have traffic over https on their server backbone.

To achieve this you will need to change the vci-integrity.xml file in the Update Manager directory.

The default url is: https://www.vmware.com/PatchManagementSystem/patchmanagement

When you change the https into http it works:

http://www.vmware.com/PatchManagementSystem/patchmanagement

Cheers,

Marco

Updating an ESXi server with Vendor agents…

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I just received a very useful email on a VMware internal mailing list and thought I would share it with you guys.

Here’s the question:

I want to update ESXi U3 to U4. My ESXi contains specific vendor modules for monitoring. (HP for instance) When I do the updates will these modules be removed or will they be upgraded?

And the answer:

Source article, page 10 : http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/ESXi_management.pdf

The core hypervisor code also can contain custom code provided by server vendors (OEMs) that provides additional functionality, such as hardware monitoring and support information. These customizations would be present, for example, if ESXi had been obtained in embedded form from the server manufacturer or if a custom version of ESXi was installed onto the hard drive. Any update to an existing ESXi installation automatically incorporates the proper update to this custom code. The process is described in greater detail in the following section.

In a doc that HP provides to its customers on updating ESXi, it states that the HP CIM providers are updated as well, provided they are installed before the Update. Does that mean that the Update that VUM pulls from our site includes newest versions of all CIM providers and the installer just upgrades any existing?

This is correct. VUM pulls a bundle with the latest customizations from all OEMs and will deploy that customization based on what is already on the user’s machine. As HP has stated, if the customer has a standard, VMware image, he will continue to get that image. However, if a customer has deployed a customized (by Dell, HP, IBM, etc.) image, then the update will also include any customization updates from the OEM. There is no additional dependence from the OEM.

Thanks Mr. Tom Vandenbosch. (My fav. inside SE – Benelux ;-))

SRM 1.0 Update 1, patch 3

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I just noticed this SRM update, it’s just a small patch but looking at the problems it corrects it might be beneficial to upgrade!

Site Recovery Manager 1.0 Update 1 Patch 3 Latest Release Version: 1.0.1.2587 | 04/09/09 | 154949

This patch corrects the following problems:

  • a problem that prevents protected virtual machines from following recommended Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) settings when recovering to more than one DRS cluster.
  • a problem observed at sites that support more than seven ESX hosts. If you refresh inventory mappings when connected to such a site, the display becomes unresponsive for up to ten minutes.
  • a problem that could prevent SRM from computing LUN consistency groups correctly when one or more of the LUNs in the consistency group did not host any virtual machines.
  • a problem that could cause the client user interface to become unresponsive when creating protection groups with over 300 members several problems that could cause SRM to log an error rmessage vim.fault.AlreadyExists when recomputing datastore groups.
  • a problem that could cause SRM to log an Assert Failed: “ok” @ src/san/consistencyGroupValidator.cpp:64 error when two different datastores match a single replicated device returned by the SRA.
  • a problem that could cause SRM to remove static iSCSI targets with non-test LUNs during test recovery several problems that degrade the performance of inventory mapping.