VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘esxi’

I’ve already mentioned the new ESX 3.5 Update 3 release in my post about the VMDK Recovery Tool, but here’s a copy of the official email announcement I received from VMware tonight.

VMware ESX/ESXi Update 3 is Available for Download Release Date: November 6, 2008 VMWare is pleased to announce the general availability (GA) of VMware ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 3. This new release of ESX/ESXi 3.5 comes with the following enhancements: Increase number of vCPUs per Core Limit (from 8 to 20) New supported servers, NICs and storage IO controllers New supported Guest Operating Systems … and many more improvements and bug fixes. Please refer to the product release notes for the details on improvements and bug fixes. These can be found at: ESX Server 3.5 Update 3 Release Notes ESXi Server 3.5 Update 3 Embedded Release Notes ESXi Server 3.5 Update 3 Installable Release Notes VMware ESX 3.5 Update 3 is available for download at: http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/. Thank you, VMware Infrastucture 3 Product Team

Jeez, I was just getting used to Update 2!

This post is a summary of notes from the 1:30 pm VMworld 2008 session titled Managing ESX in a COS-less World. The discussion was about various options for managing ESXi without the Service Console OS (COS). The session was hosted by members of the ESXi team and contained forward looking statements about possible future directions. As always, the disclaimer was discussed with the audience before the presentation began. (Do I need to keep explaining this? Probably the safe thing to do.)

Scott Lowe apparently was in the same session so check his
TA2659: Managing ESX in a COS-less World post for a lot of additional information besides what I have recorded here.  Scott, my 3 finger “peck typing” doesn’t compare to your keyboard skills!

One of the first things mentioned was that the next major release of ESX/ESXi would be the last release of the two products together. I guess this means that ESXi kernel development will be independent of the ESX versions that provide the VDC-OS. We were told ESXi will continue without the COS and that ESX would include a stripped down COS.

There are several reasons VMware needed to remove the COS from ESX. Read the rest of this entry »

Some VM /ETC readers may remember a weekly series of posts I was doing earlier this year – “things that make you go hmmm“. Well, the August 12 ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 BUG definitely deserves a resurrection of that series and a post all to itself. Although this topic is still a little too sensitive to be humorous today, I’ve included a mix of comic and serious links. Hopefully we can all look back and at least chuckle about these events sometime in the future. So, here is a sampling of of the various reactions and opinions on the VMware time bomb bug from around the internet. Laugh if you can. After all, it’s Friday … Read the rest of this entry »

Being that it is the end of the week and I have fallen a day or so behind in keeping up with the VMware updates for the August 12 time bomb bug, I decided that I would post the remaining emails I received from VMware. I’m also including an update from John Troyer from the VMTN Blog providing some clarity on version number information differences between the install media and the express patched ESX/ESXi 3.5 versions. Read the rest of this entry »

I just received the third VMware email customer update about the August 12 time bomb bug. Unfortunately, this email informs customers that the effort to find a resolution where VM reboots could be avoided has not produced a reliable process. The email does indicate that the express patches are working properly and are compatible with VMware Update Manager. Also, The previously set deadline of 6 PM PST today (AUG 13) for the download availability of the corrected ESX/ESXi update 2 install media is still on schedule.

Here’s the body of the entire email as I received it: Read the rest of this entry »

As I mentioned in my post My thoughts on the reactions to the ESX 3.5 Update 2 BUG VMware has been straightforward and honest about their responsibility for the time bomb mistakenly left in their code. VMware’s new CEO, Paul Maritz, has provided another example of this with his blog post VMware: The Console: Letter from VMware CEO Paul Maritz. Read the whole post, but here’s some of the letter I find informative and worth repeating:

“The issue was caused by a piece of code that was mistakenly left enabled for the final release of Update 2. This piece of code was left over from the pre-release versions of Update 2 and was designed to ensure that customers are running on the supported generally available version of Update 2.

In remedying the situation, we’ve already released an express patch for those customers that have installed/upgraded to ESX or ESXi 3.5 Update 2. Within the next 24 hours, we also expect to issue a full replacement for Update 2, which should be used by customers who want to perform fresh installs of ESX or ESXi.

I am sure you’re wondering how this could happen. We failed in two areas: Read the rest of this entry »

The product expiration time bomb that was mistakenly left in the first versions of the ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 Update 2 download media is no doubt an embarrassing and horrible mistake by VMware. The timing of this disaster couldn’t be worse with Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, and others starting to be considered as an alternative virtual infrastructure platform for companies just beginning to explore the benefits of virtualization. How could this have happened and what are some lessons to be learned, not just for VMware, but for VI administrators around the world? Read the rest of this entry »