Yesterday, February 10th, VMware made available for general consumption U1 to their vSphere 4.1 product line. This update includes all prior patches as well as a number of new enhancements to the vSphere product suite.

This release provides the following improvements, I’ve included some notes along with the high-level updates:

VMware ESX/ESXi

• Support for up to 160 logical processors
  • Prepared for the release of the Westmere-EX processor
• Inclusion of additional drivers
  • 3ware and Neterion drives are now included
• Enablement of Intel Trusted Execution Technology (ESXi only)
  • More information on this can be found in KB 1033811 
• Additional guest operating system support
  • Provides support for RHEL 6, RHEL 5.6, SLES 11 SP1 for VMware, Ubuntu 10.10, and Solaris 10 Update 9 guest operating systems
• Bug and security fixes
  • A listing of resolved issues can be found in the release notes

VMware vCenter

• Additional guest operating system customization support
  • Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, RHEL 6, RHEL5.5
• Additional vCenter Server database support
  • SQL 2008 R2, SQL 2005 SP3, Oracle 11g R2, DB2 9.7.2
• Bug and security fixes
  • A listing of resolved issues can be found in the release notes

VMware vCenter Update Manager

• The VMware vCenter Update Manager Utility to help users reconfigure the setup of Update Manager.
• Bug and security fixes.

VMware vCenter Orchestrator

• Bug Fixes

For additional details regarding the new fixes and improvements, please refer to the following release notes:
VMware ESX
VMware ESXi
VMware vCenter

VMware vSphere 4.1 Update 1 is available for download from the VMware website as well as through VMware Update Manager (for your ESX and ESXi hosts). Keep in mind, the only way you can switch from ESX to ESXi is to do a fresh install. I’d highly recommend using Host Profiles to make this migration quicker and easier.

Jason Boche has already noted one potential issue with using VMware Update Manager (VUM) to upgrade from 4.1 to 4.1 U1, check that out here.

Posted under vSphere

Just about an hour ago VMware lifted the NDA on VMware vSphere 4.1 and made available all of the information on this latest release as well as the bits for download available to the public.

I will be covering a more in-depth review on this latest release really soon but I did want my readers to know that the bits are available for download from the VMware website.

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_vsphere_4/4

The upgrade to ESX(i) 4.1 should be relatively easy by using traditional update methods such as VMware Update Manager (VUM).  However, the upgrade to vCenter Server 4.1 is more of a migration since it will only support a full 64-bit environment. Still don’t fret, a vCenter server migration is pretty simple just make sure you have a FULL backup of your vCenter Server database.

Also a little FYI….rumor has it that this will be the final build containing a full ESX install (Service Console). Today might be a good day to start planning that migration to ESXi.

Posted under vCenter, vSphere

A big issue for companies making the upgrade to vSphere 4 Enterprise Plus from their existing VI3 Enterprise License wasn’t the low $295 price per CPU (VMware Part VS4-ENT-ENT-PL-UG-PROMO), it was the hassle of having to renew their SnS Entitlement! What if your company just renewed their 1 Year Enterprise SnS? You’d basically need to purchase another 1 Year Enterprise Plus SnS. Even though it would push out your support another year, this additional cost could be quite high for some companies, especially if you have dozens or even hundreds of hosts!

Customers complained and VMware Listened…

VMware will be releasing a 2 Month Enterprise Plus SnS package for customers in this exact boat.  The price will be reasonably priced at $140 per CPU for Platinum and $120 per CPU for Gold (both estimated retail). Well thank you VMware!  IMHO the best thing you could have done was just given all your Enterprise customers a free upgrade to Enterprise Plus, but I suppose this is the 2nd best thing I could ask for….seeing that I’m upgrading about 20 licenses in the next week.

For more information on the Enterprise to Enterprise Plus upgrade promotion, please contact your local VMware Retailer!  There is also an upgrade promotion that includes the Nexus 1000V Virtual Switch (VMware Part VS4-N1K-UG-C), this is priced at $795 per CPU.

Posted under vSphere

During an upgrade of vCenter 2.5 to 4.0 at a customer site I decided it would be a good idea to record the steps required.  In this video you will see how to upgrade VMware vCenter 2.5 to vCenter 4.0 that uses a Microsoft SQL database.  The steps are trivial and I have done more than a handful of these on customers production servers.

The most important thing is to follow the best practices, give your ODBC user db_owner privledge on the MSDB and vCenter database prior to any install or upgrade - then remove the privledge after the installer is complete.  Also make sure that IIS or any other webserver is disabled.

Posted under vCenter, vSphere

I had a situation this past week where a customer was attempting to upgrade their vCenter 2.5 U3 install to U4 and during the installer (just after where it asks for the DSN, Username and Password) it would error saying that it cannot connect.  This is where I come in.

After looking at their VMINST.LOG on the vCenter server, I see the following;

VMware VirtualCenter-build-147658: 05/05/09 22:15:25 Error returned while checking the Virtual Center database for jobs. This could be because the installer could not connect to the database pointed to by the DSN, or due to insufficient privileges to query the database.

This does not tell me very much, but the most common problem with this error is that the user they’re attempting to connect as does not have db_owner rights on MSDB (needed only during install and upgrade).  So, I ask them to give the user db_owner privilege and we try again.   No luck,  same exact error.

After a few hours of clicking, searching and twittering I ask them what version of SQL they are running - come to find out they have recently upgraded their SQL Server from 2005 to 2008 — BINGO!

Microsoft SQL 2008 is not supported in vCenter 2.5, however it will be supported in vCenter 4.0 - so I tell the customer they can either wait until 4.0 comes out to do the upgrade, or they will need to revert the 2008 database back to 2005….which is a lot easier said than done.

Biggest Takeaway from this experience… VM Administrators need to work closely with their DBAs, do not allow upgrades of any part of the Virtual Eco-System that may take it out of support!  Also, check the Compatibility lists before doing any such upgrade.

Posted under vCenter