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

VMware has just dropped the second major update bundle (Update 2) for their flagship virtualization management product, VMware vCenter server.  This update addresses a number of issues found since the release of Update 1 as well as a number of improvements, such as:

Guest Operating System Customization Improvements: vCenter Server now supports customization of the following guest operating systems:

• Windows XP Professional SP2 (x64) serviced by Windows Server 2003 SP2
• SLES 11 (x32 and x64)
• SLES 10 SP3 (x32 and x64)
• RHEL 5.5 Server Platform (x32 and x64)
• RHEL 5.4 Server Platform (x32 and x64)
• RHEL 4.8 Server Platform (x32 and 64)
• Debian 5.0 (x32 and x64)
• Debian 5.0 R1 (x32 and x64)
• Debian 5.0 R2 (x32 and x64)

Here are some of the key issues that are resolved in this update;

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Posted under vCenter, vSphere

Last week I came across a problem that really stumped me, it even stumped the Tier-1 and Tier-2 support at VMware.  I’m posting the symptoms on here in a hope that someone else has experienced this issue and can share some light.

How about a little background on the environment, vCenter Server 4.0 U1 and multiple ESX(i) hosts (3.5, 4.0, 4.0 U1).   The vCenter Server as well as a number of ESXi 4.0 hosts were upgraded to U1 a couple days after it was released,  this problem however happened ~8 days after the upgrade.

Symptom 1: All ESX(i) hosts disconnect from vCenter Server, however, they are still online and no VMs went down.  Within 15 minutes all hosts appear to be reconnected.

Symptom 2: After the hosts reconnect, the ESX hosts appear to be functioning normally. However, the ESXi hosts display an error on the Overview tab as well as in the Events tab; “Unable to Synchronize with host that is unavailable.”

Symptom 3: Random VMotions start, for no apparent reason (DRS engaged, yet no constraints causing DRS to be invoked).  However, these VMotions fail at 10% due to the fact that the source and destination host is not available.

Symptom 4: /var/log/messages file displays errors with keywords: [VpxdVmomi] Error getting vpxa info: SSL Exception: Unexpected EOF From hosts, blacklisting showing up.   — I apologize for paraphrasing.

So, all this starts happening and I start investigating….pulling logs, restarting vCenter, and just sit there stumped.  I did notice that the rui.crt on the vCenter server expired, but back in 2008.  I went ahead and renewed the certificate and even restarted the entire vCenter server.  No luck.  I engaged VMware Support and their Tier-1 and Tier-2 support were stumped,  nothing even showed up in their internal database on this issue.

Then it all disappeared.  Roughly 90 minutes after it started, the problem just went away and everything was good.

Have you seen this issue?  What were your troubleshooting steps?  Did you resolve it or figure out the resolution?

Posted under vSphere

Sometime yesterday ESX(i) Update 5 finally hit VMware Update Manager, about 2 days after the official announcement and release on the VMware website. This announcement includes updates for ESX, ESXi and vCenter Server. In addition to Update 5 being released there were about 20 additional updates made available for ESX(i), including 16 which were marked as critical.

The following information provides highlights of some of the enhancements available in this release of VMware ESX Server, this information can be found in the VMware ESX(i) 3.5 U5 Release Notes:

Enablement of Intel Xeon Processor 3400 Series– Support for the Intel Xeon processor 3400 series has been added. Support includes Enhanced VMotion capabilities. For additional information on previous processor families supported by Enhanced VMotion, see Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support (KB 1003212).

Driver Update for Broadcom bnx2 Network Controller– The driver for bnx2 controllers has been upgraded to version 1.6.9. This driver supports bootcode upgrade on bnx2 chipsets and requires bmapilnx and lnxfwnx2tools upgrade from Broadcom. This driver also adds support for Network Controller - Sideband Interface (NC-SI) for SOL (serial over LAN) applicable to Broadcom NetXtreme 5709 and 5716 chipsets.

Driver Update for LSI SCSI and SAS Controllers – The driver for LSI SCSI and SAS controllers is updated to version 2.06.74. This version of the driver is required to provide a better support for shared SAS environments.

Newly Supported Guest Operating Systems – Support for the following guest operating systems has been added specifically for this release:

For more complete information about supported guests included in this release, see the VMware Compatibility Guide: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software.

• Windows 7 Enterprise (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Professional (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Standard Edition (64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition (64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition (64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Web Server (64-bit)
• Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Ubuntu Server 9.04 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Newly Supported Management Agents – See VMware ESX Server Supported Hardware Lifecycle Management Agents for current information on supported management agents.

Newly Supported Network Cards –This release of ESX Server supports HP NC375T (NetXen) PCI Express Quad Port Gigabit Server Adapter.

Newly Supported SATA Controllers – This release of ESX Server supports the Intel Ibex Peak SATA AHCI controller.

In addition to the enhancements found in ESX(i) 3.5 U5, there is also one lonely enhancement made to vCenter Server 2.5 U5:

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).

Updating your ESX servers can and should be done with VMware Update Manager. To upgrade your vCenter Server installation you’ll need to download the installation ISO or ZIP from the VMware website and perform an in-place upgrade. Be sure to create a backup of your vCenter Server database then follow the steps in the Installation Guide.

Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips, vCenter

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

I recently ran into a situation with a customer where they needed to add another host to their cluster.  Problem is, their original hosts had single core AMD Opteron processors (Opteron 285) and the host they wanted to purchase came with either a Dual-Core or Quad-Core Opteron.  The customer was scared about the VMotion Compatibility between their older AMD hosts and the newer hosts they would be purchasing….so much that they wanted me to find them an old single-core system. I know EVC is nothing new, I’ve been enabling it when needed for almost 8 months now.  You may run into a situation where your customer (or boss) is a little hesitant in enabling this advanced feature. But rest assured, VMware has KB 1003212 to answer all your questions.

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Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips

VMware has released the latest update to its ESX(i) 3.5 flagship product, Update 4.  It is strongly recommended that you upgrade to VMware vCenter 2.5 Update 4 prior to upgrading your ESX hosts.  Updates such as this one typically include a number of system improvements and also all of the patches available in-between it and the previous update available. Numerous driver additions and updates have been added to this update roll-up, including;

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Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips

I guess I posted a little too soon about Rove’s Mobile Admin release that has full support for VMware vCenter.   VMware has just announced VMware vCenter Mobile Access (vCMA) which is due to be released BETA in April, this is a Virtual Appliance that links your mobile device/smart phone to your vCenter Server. More information can be found on the Technology Preview Site.

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Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips, Monitoring, vSphere

For those of you upgrading to vCenter 2.5 U4 and and are planning to use the new Performance Overview Plugin, there are some additional steps required to making this work.  Pretty much the biggest thing is that you need the Java Development Kit installed on the vCenter server. All of this is covered in VMware KB 1008296, but for your convenience I’ve included the steps here.

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Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips, Monitoring