VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘svvp’

There has been an ongoing discussion this week about a possible limitation of VMware’s SVVP validation for Microsoft application support. I first heard about it from Scott Lowe’s post VMware ESX SVVP Apparently Limited. Scott wrote:

“According to this article, the validation is handled per CPU architecture, per memory configuration. So, apparently VMware ESX is validated on an AMD system with 4GB of RAM, but that’s about it.”

Scott asked his readers for additional information to back up the LeMagIT.fr article’s claim and if there was any knowledge of additional validation in the works by VMware. Apparently in response to the concerns of partners and customers, VMware sent an internal communication on this subject, and as of yesterday a couple of blogs have posted an explanation with details about the status of the SVVP validation. Chad Sakac, EMC (and VMware mothership) Senior Director, posted “SVVP – how does it work?” and Kenon Owens, VMware employee, posted “What’s the deal with SVVP“.

Bottom line is that VMware’s SVVP validation is solid and not a concern. Chad is so confident that he has made an open offer to any concerned VMware customers: Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote a post for the Virtualization Pro Blog titled VMware achieves Microsoft SVVP validation – New reason to upgrade to ESX 3.5 Update 2 that I wanted to expand on here on VM /ETC. Specifically, now that VMware has achieved the SVVP validation, I wanted to emphasize that the only version of ESX covered is the latest version, ESX 3.5 Update 2 (ESX 3.5 U2). Previous versions are not entitled to the extended, cooperative support from VMware and Microsoft. ESXi 3.5 is not explicitly mentioned in any of the reports I have read this week, but I assume ESXi 3.5 U2 is entitles you to the same SVVP privileges.

This is huge if you are a Microsoft shop, and, in case you have not noticed, most companies are. If you are running any of the Microsoft applications listed here in a VMware virtual machine (VM) you should be planning an upgrade to your ESX hosts. The new support benefits are worth the effort. Even if you are still skeptical because of recent events related to the U2 versions the SVVP validation should make you reconsider.

Read the whole post at the link above.

updated 09.05.08 – It’s important to know that the SVVP validation is achieved for the Microsoft applications running on Server 2008. However, the SVVP product catalog also states the following:

“Products that have passed the SVVP requirements for Windows Server 2008 are considered supported on Windows 2000 Server SP4 and Windows Server 2003 SP2 and later”

Credit to goes to Chris Wolf’s post VMware and Cisco Pass Microsoft Server Validation – Now Officially Supported for clarifying the coverage.

virtualization, vmware, microsoft