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VMware ESX Patches out today

VMwarewolf — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:18:44 +0000

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VMware ESX Patches out today

Quickie news flash

VMwarewolf — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:10:12 +0000

VMware Opens the VMware Solution Exchange, an Online Virtualization and Cloud Solutions Marketplace for Partners.

Read the release here, and visit the VSX here.

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Quickie news flash

New low price set for VMware Fusion

VMwarewolf — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:25:58 +0000

VMware Fusion 4 has transitioned from a promotional price of $49.99 (when the usual price was $79.99) to a permanent price of $49.99.

In other words, the price is the same $49.99, but it is no longer a promotional price.

VMware Fusion 4 lets you run your Windows and Mac applications side by side without the need to reboot. With more than 90 new features and optimized for multi-core Macs and OS X Lion, VMware Fusion 4 is better than ever.

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New low price set for VMware Fusion

Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager

VMwarewolf — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:37:37 +0000

Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.0 (VMware Press Technology)
is the complete, technical, hands-on guide to VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 5.0 installation and configuration for experienced VMware professionals.

VMware forum moderator and vExpert Mike Laverick fully explains SRM 5.0’s failover/failback procedures, walks readers through configuring storage replication with hardware from several leading suppliers, and shows how to efficiently implement fast, automated, centralized disaster recovery.

Drawing on his extensive experience with SRM and vSphere, Laverick identifies common pitfalls and errors, explains why they occur, and shows exactly how to fix them. Fully up to date for SRM 5.0, this book delivers “in-the-trenches” technical knowledge you won’t find anywhere else, including expert guidance for utilizing SRM 5.0’s advanced new vSphere Replication (VR).

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Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager

Search the VMware KB

VMwarewolf — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:19:23 +0000

Have you tried VMware’s new Google powered KB search tool?

Recently, VMware revamped the ‘File an SR’ page on their site. This is the webpage you need to visit when you wish to open a Support Request online.

What you may not have noticed is that there is a search facility on that page to help you find self-help resources, after all, most of us know the answer to our problem is probably already documented, we just need the answer – and we need it now!

What’s interesting about this search is that it’s completely new, and independent from the old Knowledgebase search, which many will agree, has been poorly lacking in returning the most relevant results. Well, as I said in my opening sentence, this search is Google powered! They have one of those neat blue colored rack-mount Google appliances indexing the Knowledgebase and serving up the most relevant content using Google’s proprietary algorithms.

Try it!

URL: http://www.vmware.com/srfile/

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Search the VMware KB

ESX 4.0 Patch 10

VMwarewolf — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:55:24 +0000

ESX 4.0 Patch 10 is now available for download from VMware’s website: http://www.vmware.com/patch/download/

Resolves an issue where ESX host might fail with PSOD when a physical NIC that does not support VLAN offload is moved from a vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) to a vNetwork Standard Switch (vSS) or from one vDS to another vDS.
Resolves an issue where powering on virtual machines might report some virtual machines in an invalid state due to exhaustion of VMkernel socket resources on ESX hosts.
Resolves an issue where a cache error occurs when a user name or group name that uses mixed case is fetched from an Active Directory Server through LDAP or QAS.
Updates the ESX service console kernel to kernel-2.6.18-238.9.1.el5.
Upgrades qlogic-fchba-provider to version 1.3.5, which contains updated QLogic CIM provider libraries.
Updates the krb5-libs and krb5-workstation RPMs to version 1.6.1-55.el5_6.1.
Updates mptsas, mpt2sas, and mptspi drivers.

Documentation & Release Notes
VMware ESX 4.0, Patch Release ESX400-201110001 http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1036391
VMware ESXi 4.0, Patch Release ESXi400-201110001 http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1036397

More KBs on the patches:

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ESX 4.0 Patch 10

New Desktop Virtualization Product Releases

VMwarewolf — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:56:50 +0000

Today is an exciting day as VMware advances their End-User Computing vision with the general availability of View 5, Workstation 8, and Fusion 4. VMware is shipping to customers a simple way to deliver Windows based desktops as-a-service, locally or on a Mac. The combination of empowered users and flexible IT as a service, enables a new working style that leads to a more connected enterprise.

VMware View™ 5 is here!

VMware View 5 represents a significant milestone in simplifying IT manageability and control, while providing a high fidelity desktop virtualization experience across the network. PCoIP enhancements that greatly reduce bandwidth utilization over LAN and WAN connections, advanced support of 3D graphics, and scalable unified communications integration for voice and video media services provide customers with the best user experience on their virtual desktops.

Learn more:

Website – http://www.vmware.com/products/view/

View 5 Anthem – Music Video! Now on youtube, you must watch this if you haven’t already!
http://bit.ly/q5MMeD

EUC Blog – more detailed information around features, vision, tips and trickshttp://blogs.vmware.com/euc/view/

What the Press are saying:

“It appears that VMware wants to own virtualization not only in the data center and on public clouds, but also on the desktop – or, more precisely, on your workspace, no matter where you are or what device you’re using to access your applications… Most of us in the business world still work from PCs most of the time, so the rollout of the View 5 desktop virtualization software is probably the most immediately useful update coming out of VMware for end user devices this week.” – The Register, Timothy Prickett Morgan
“VMware’s vision is to deliver a more user-centric, IT-as-a-service experience for the connected enterprise. In this new model, enterprises leverage hybrid cloud resources, while maintaining a managed, secure environment, and providing new ways for employees to collaborate across applications and data from any device, where and when a user needs it.” – ZDNet, Dana Gardner

Announcing VMware Fusion 4

You all know VMware Fusion 4 makes it a breeze to run your Windows and Mac applications side by side with incredible speed and reliability. With more than 90 new features, including optimization for today’s multicore Macs and OS X Lion, it’s never been easier to run Windows on a Mac. VMware Fusion 4 is available today at an introductory promotional price of $49.99 (instead of $79.99).

Learn more:

Web page – http://www.vmware.com/products/desktop_virtualization/fusion/overview.html
Blog – http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/

Introducing VMware Workstation 8

We are incredibly excited about the release of VMware Workstation 8. VMware Workstation is going to change the way technical professionals work with their VMs. With over 50 new features including remote connectivity to vSphere, drag and drop uploads to vSphere, revamped UI, support for Micro Cloud Foundry, and the ability to run as a server, it’s going to help customers with their journey to the cloud.

Learn more:

Web page – http://www.vmware.com/workstation
Blog – http://blogs.vmware.com/workstation

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New Desktop Virtualization Product Releases

ESX/ESXi 4.1 Patch #3 now Available

VMwarewolf — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 19:20:05 +0000

ESX/ESXi 4.1 Patch #3 is now GA. Please review the following links for details on the payload.

Build Number: 433742

Download: https://www.vmware.com/patch/download/

KB Article: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2000612

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ESX/ESXi 4.1 Patch #3 now Available

VMware Cloud Infrastructure Launch Today

VMwarewolf — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:57:43 +0000

This morning at 9:00 AM Pacific, VMware announced vSphere 5 and their cloud infrastructure suite from a live webcast in San Francisco to thousands of employees, customers, partners, media and analysts around the world. This is a milestone launch for VMware and further positions them among the leaders of the Cloud era. Beyond San Francisco, they will be hosting launch events in the UK, Germany, Israel, Australia, Singapore, Korea, China, Japan and India, and viewing parties in many other countries.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

VMware Unveils VMware vSphere® 5 and Comprehensive Cloud Infrastructure Suite

Major Platform and Product Upgrades Strengthen Infrastructure Foundation for the Cloud Computing Era

SAN FRANCISCO, July 12, 2011 — At a live event today, VMware CEO Paul Maritz unveiled VMware vSphere® 5 and a comprehensive suite of cloud infrastructure technologies built to help customers transform IT to drive greater efficiency of existing investments and improve operational agility.

With nearly 200 new and enhanced capabilities, VMware vSphere 5 will continue to set the standard in virtualization, delivering better application performance and availability for all business-critical applications while automating the management of an increasingly broad pool of datacenter resources. VMware today also announced VMware vShield™ 5, VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager 5, and VMware vCloud® Director 1.5, products that together with VMware vSphere 5 will amplify the value customers can realize from virtualized resources by enabling cloud-scale operations.

“The market has fully embraced virtualization as a key transformative technology at the heart of the next era of computing,” said Paul Maritz, VMware CEO. “With vSphere® 5 and our cloud infrastructure suite, VMware is helping customers accelerate towards more efficient and automated cloud infrastructure, redefining how resources are managed and secured, and ultimately, driving a more productive relationship between IT and the businesses they serve.”

The VMware cloud infrastructure suite will help organizations build intelligent virtual infrastructures, which infuse highly virtualized environments with the automation, self-service and security capabilities customers need to:

Deploy Business-Critical Applications with Confidence – Dramatic performance and scalability gains in VMware vSphere 5 will enable customers to run even the most resource-intensive business-critical applications in virtual and cloud environments.

Respond to the Needs of the Business Faster with Cloud Agility – From rapidly provisioning new resources to intelligently managing ongoing operations, VMware’s cloud infrastructure suite will radically simplify infrastructure management.

Move to Cloud Computing with Trust – VMware is evolving security from a physical model to a virtual software model, driven and managed by policy, enabling customers to trust in the security of their applications and data regardless of where they reside or how frequently they move across various private, public and hybrid cloud environments.

“A recent Gartner contextual research study revealed that end user organizations overwhelmingly consider x86 virtualization an essential foundational component of private cloud infrastructure-as-a-service architectures,” said Chris Wolf, Research VP, Gartner. “In addition, many organizations consider the x86 VM as the default infrastructure platform for new applications. Cost savings and business agility remain the two most frequently cited drivers behind both virtualization and cloud computing investments.”

VMware vSphere 5: Advancing the Cloud Infrastructure Foundation

VMware vSphere, the most trusted, most widely deployed virtualization platform in the world, forms the foundation of VMware’s cloud infrastructure suite. Architected to support the broadest range of virtual and cloud infrastructure needs, VMware vSphere is broadly utilized by enterprises, small and midsized businesses (SMBs), public cloud service providers and as the foundation for the growing virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) market. An increasing number of customers are standardizing on VMware vSphere as their strategic IT platform.

VMware vSphere 5 will support virtual machines (VMs) that are up to four times more powerful than previous versions with up to 1 terabyte of memory and 32 virtual CPUs. These VMs will be able to process in excess of 1 million I/O operations per second, which will far surpass the requirements of even the most resource-intensive applications. When combined with VMware vSphere 5’s enhanced, simplified High Availability, these VM scalability and performance gains will allow customers to run their most business-critical applications with confidence in their performance and availability.

VMware vSphere 5 will also introduce three new flagship features that extend the platform’s unique datacenter resource management capabilities, delivering intelligent policy management to support an automated “set it and forget it” approach to managing datacenter resources, including server deployment and storage management. Customers define policies and establish the operating parameters, and VMware vSphere 5 does the rest. VMware vSphere 5’s new Auto-Deploy, Profile-Driven Storage and Storage DRS features can save a customer with a 1,000-VM environment up to a full year of administrator time.

“With VMware vSphere® 5 and the cloud infrastructure suite, the task of virtualizing our business-critical applications will be greatly simplified,” said YP Chien, information intelligence manager, Kingston Technology. “This will help accelerate Kingston Technology’s journey into cloud computing to achieve ultimate operational performance and business agility.”

Learn more about what’s new in VMware vSphere 5

The Comprehensive Cloud Infrastructure Suite

All built upon the foundation of VMware vSphere 5, VMware is bringing to market a comprehensive suite of technologies that will deliver the automation, self-service and security capabilities customers need:

VMware vShield 5 – Addressing the top enterprise concerns about cloud computing – security, control and compliance – the vShield product family overcomes the limits of traditional security solutions by delivering an adaptive, software-based security model designed for virtual and cloud environments. vShield 5 will include new Data Security capabilities that will enable IT to quickly identify risk exposures resulting from unprotected sensitive data, isolate applications with different levels of trust and migrate security policies as data and applications move between different virtual systems and apply the same policies in public clouds.

Learn more about what’s new in VMware vShield 5

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5 – Extending this proven disaster recovery solution, vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5 will introduce built-in VMware vSphere replication capabilities that will allow customers to double the number of protected applications for the same cost while supporting heterogeneous storage configurations in the primary and backup sites. New automated failback and planned migration capabilities will allow customers to orchestrate migrations for disaster avoidance and to support planned maintenance activities and datacenter consolidations.

Learn more about what’s new in VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5

VMware vCloud Director 1.5 – Enabling a self-service model for provisioning infrastructure services across internal and external sources, VMware vCloud Director 1.5 will enable IT to dramatically reduce the time required to provision new servers. New Linked Clone capabilities will reduce provisioning time to as few as 5 seconds, while also reducing storage costs by as much as 60 percent, all while managing resources from a single pane of glass.

Learn more about what’s new in VMware vCloud Director 1.5

In a separate announcement VMware today introduced the VMware vSphere Storage Appliance™, a new software product that will bring the rich business continuity and automated resource management capabilities of VMware vSphere to SMBs without the cost and complexity of shared storage. The new VMware vSphere Storage Appliance will transform server internal storage into shared pools of storage enabling SMB customers to take full advantage of the unique business continuity and automation capabilities of VMware vSphere, including High Availability, vMotion®, and Distributed Resource Scheduler™.

VMware’s cloud infrastructure suite is supported by more than 25,000 partners, including technology partners and independent software vendors (ISVs), solution providers, service providers, and systems integrators, as well as every major global hardware manufacturer. VMware’s partner community continues to mature as the company consistently sets the bar for innovation in virtualization and cloud technologies. Learn more about this robust community of support for VMware’s cloud infrastructure suite.

New Licensing Model Extends Benefits of Pooling Beyond Technology

With the introduction of VMware vSphere 5, VMware is evolving the product’s licensing to lay the foundation for customers to adopt a more “cloud-like” IT cost model based on consumption and value rather than physical components and capacity. VMware vSphere 5 will continue to be licensed per processor (CPU), however, VMware is eliminating the current, restrictive physical entitlements of CPU cores and physical RAM per server and replacing them with a single, virtualization-based entitlement of pooled virtual memory, or vRAM.

Pooled vRAM is the total amount of memory configured to all VMs in a customer’s environment. Each VMware vSphere 5 CPU license will entitle the purchaser to a specific amount of vRAM, which can be pooled across the entire vSphere environment to enable a true cloud or utility based IT consumption model. There are no restrictions on how vRAM capacity can be distributed among VMs: a customer can configure many small VMs or one large VM. VMware vSphere has made it possible for customers to maximize hardware utilization and efficiency by pooling CPU, memory, storage and networking. With these licensing changes, VMware is extending the concept of pooling – one of the foundational elements of cloud computing – beyond technology to the business, allowing the pooling of licenses for maximum utilization and value.

Because VMware vSphere 5 is still licensed on a per-CPU basis, customers can continue leveraging established purchasing, deployment and license-management processes. For more information on VMware vSphere 5 licensing, visit: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_pricing.pdf

Availability

VMware vSphere 5 together with the updated cloud infrastructure suite is expected to be available in Q3 2011.

Additional Resources

Read industry comments on the launch of VMware vSphere 5 and the VMware cloud infrastructure suite
Learn more about the VMware cloud infrastructure suite launch
Watch a video of VMware CEO Paul Maritz and VMware CTO Steve Herrod unveiling the VMware cloud infrastructure suite
Visit the VMware cloud infrastructure launch online press kit for graphics and videos
Read “VMware Unveils VMware vSphere 5 and Cloud Infrastructure Suite” blog post by VMware CTO, Steve Herrod
Read “VMware Building the Foundation for the Cloud Era” blog post by VMware vice president of product marketing, Bogomil Balkansky
Twitter: @VMwareEvents (hashtag #vmwarecloud)

About VMware

VMware (NYSE: VMW) delivers virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable IT organizations to energize businesses of all sizes. With the industry leading virtualization platform – VMware vSphere® – customers rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, improve agility, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2010 revenues of $2.9 billion, more than 250,000 customers and 25,000 partners, VMware is the leader in virtualization which consistently ranks as a top priority among CIOs. VMware is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

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VMware Cloud Infrastructure Launch Today

Question: What DB permissions are required after the install of vCenter 4.1?

VMwarewolf — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:30:31 +0000

Currently KB 1022104 states the following:

1. Make sure your database requirements and patch levels are compliant:

Note: For more information, see vSphere Compatibility Matrix and vCenter Server Database Patch and Configuration Requirements. To use an existing database, you will need to provide a 64 bit system DSN which points to the vCenter Server database. Also, ensure that you have created a full backup of your database before proceeding. If you are using Oracle see Upgrading to vCenter Server 4.1 fails with the error: Trigger, procedure or function created with PL/SQL compilation error (1026331).

o Microsoft SQL server Database Support:

§ Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express

Note: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express is intended to be used for small deployments of up to 5 hosts and/or 50 virtual machines.

§ Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard edition (SP1, SP2, SP3)

§ Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard edition (SP2, SP3) 64 bit

§ Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise edition (SP1, SP2, SP3)

§ Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise edition (SP2, SP3) 64 bit

§ Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition

§ Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition 64-bit

§ Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition

§ Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition 64-bit

o Oracle Database Support:

§ Oracle 10g Standard edition (Release 2 [10.2.0.4])

§ Oracle 10g Enterprise edition (Release 2 [10.2.0.4])

§ Oracle 10g Enterprise edition (Release 2 [10.2.0.4]) 64-bit

§ Oracle 11g Standard edition

§ Oracle 11g Enterprise edition

o IBM DB2 9 Support

§ IBM DB2 Express C

§ IBM DB2 Express Edition 9

§ IBM DB2 Workgroup Server Edition 9

§ IBM DB2 Enterprise Server Edition 9

Note: IBM DB2 database is only supported for vCenter. There is no support for Update Manager or any plug-in that requires a database.

2. Make a full backup of the vCenter database.

3. Make sure that you have these permissions:

o Microsoft SQL:

§ Grant the System DSN user of the vCenter Database db_owner privileges on the vCenter database.

§ Grant the System DSN user of the vCenter Database db_owner privileges on the MSDB database.

Note: The db_owner privileges on the MSDB database are required for installation and upgrade only.

o Oracle:

§ Grant dba permissions to the vCenter Server user.

4. Ensure that your ODBC System DSN is using the proper driver and that it is a 64-bit DSN.

Microsoft SQL must use the SQL Native Client driver.

a. Stop the VirtualCenter Server service. This step is recommended, especially if the vCenter Server database is on a remote system.

b. Click Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services > VMware VirtualCenter Server.

c. Log in to your vCenter Server with a Local Administrator account on your Windows system to run the upgrade.

d. Ensure no processes are running that conflict with the ports that vCenter Server uses.

e. Configure any new vSphere 4.1 licences.

Page 69 of the vSphere 4.1 Install guide at https://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_esxi_i_vc_setup_guide.pdf also provides information concerning the database permissions.

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Question: What DB permissions are required after the install of vCenter 4.1?