Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

upgrade

vCenter Server 4.0 Patch 1

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Don’t think many people have noticed this KB article yet or even experienced this issue with HA but nevertheless it’s worth mentioning. Apparently there’s an issue with HA in vCenter 4.0 when a class A network is being used. When a node fails this will not be detected and thus the fail-over of VMs will not occur. Although not many customers are using these class A ranges it is something I think you all should be aware of. This issue has been resolved and VMware released the following KB article which contains a link to the patch:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1013013
A vSphere 4.0 VMware High Availability cluster may not failover virtual machines when ESX is configured with certain IP addresses

You experience these symptoms:

  • In vCenter 4.0, VMware HA might not failover virtual machines when a host failure occurs.
  • When the ESX host’s IP address in a VMware HA enabled cluster is configured with certain IP addresses, the node failure detection algorithm fails.
  • You are susceptible to this issue when all of your Service Console Port(s) or Management Network IP address(s) on your ESX host fall within the following range:
    3.x.x.x – 9.x.x.x
    26.x.x.x – 99.x.x.x

Note: You are not affected if one of Service Console Port(s) or Management Network IP address(s) on your ESX host falls outside of this range.

ESXi and the update manager part II

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A couple of days ago I posted about Update Manager wanting to install updates regarding the Nexus while I did not have the Nexus installed. I’ve rebuild my entire test environment with the latest(GA) build and noticed that I’m not experiencing these issues anymore. Now I’ve either had an outdated version of VUM, a screwed up database or I was sleeping when I wanted to apply the patches. Normally I take screenshots when things like this happen but because I did not have much time I did not take them.

I reinstalled my test environment again this morning and again I’m not able to reproduce it. The patch only installs when the Cisco Nexus 1000v is installed. It seems like my observation was wrong, I do however think it’s a smart thing not trust on technology for 100%, check your baseline before you apply it.

vSphere ESXi and the update manager

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I was playing around with vSphere ESXi 4.0 and the Update Manager. As Jason Boche already reported several patches have been released and I wanted to test Update Manager. After downloading all the patches I noticed that there was a patch regarding the Cisco Nexus 1000v.

Although I did not have the 1000v installed Update Manager did want to install the patch. Kind of weird because why install the patch when you are not using the plugin? I decided to exclude it from my baseline to make sure I did not install it.

I was lucky to notice it because according to this KB article it can and probably will cause issues. If you did install it read the KB article on how to remove the patch!

Now this made me rethink my patching strategy. Normally I just install every single patch out there to make sure I am running the latest and greatest version, but apparently this is not the best practice anymore. My recommendation: review your patches and if it doesn’t apply to you exclude them!

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.