VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘upgrade’

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 »

Yes, this post uses another movie reference.

In the film 28 Days Later the Rage virus infects the Island of Great Britain turning all but a few survivors into zombie-like monsters called “The Infected”. The virus was unleashed when animal activists released medical research chimpanzees which ended up attacking the activists and scientists. This post is about what could cause a similar rage 730 days after installing VirtualCenter, potentially causing VI administrators to become lifeless, rabid, and insane.

After installing VirtualCenter (VC), you should check the installed SSL certificate used by the VI Client because you will most likely need to manually replace it. After a fresh installation the default certifcate expires in 730 days (or 2 years). If the certificate expires you will be unable to log in to the VirtualCenter Management Server using either the VI Client or the web administration interface.

Unfortunately, it is unclear to me at this writing if upgrading the VC Server within the 730 day period updates the certificate store. Read the rest of this entry »

Upgrading to ESX3.5 and VirtualCeter 2.5 Best Practices is a VMware KB article that lists best practice recommendations when performing the VI upgrade. As explained in the article:

This document provides additional steps which may be useful when upgrading to ESX 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5. It is assumed at this point that you have also read the Upgrade Guide.

Although the article contains 11 items in the list, in my opinion the last few are common steps (place the cd in the cd-rom drive of the host etc.) and not really best practices.
Regardless, review the following before performing the upgrade and follow these recommendations to minimize trouble.
Read the rest of this entry »

The last steps of the VI3 upgrade process involve the virtual machines. Upgrading the VM hardware and the installed VM tools complete the virtual infrastructure migration, but can be a daunting task if you have numerous ESX hosts and guests. Fortunately, there are a couple of ways you can simultaneously update multiple VMs. One method uses the VI client and the other involves entering a console command on the VirtualCenter server. Read the rest of this entry »

I was directed to a VMware Knowledge Base article about a script for cleaning up the VC database while upgrading to VC2.5. The company had about 18 months worth of data in their VC SQL database and wanted to preserve some recent historical data, but didn’t need to keep all of it. Purging data helped free disk space and reduce the time the upgrade actually took to complete.

The VMware article links to scripts for both Read the rest of this entry »

Is it possible to upgrade to ESX 3.5 without leaving your desk? By downloading the headless upgrade package and using the esxupdate utility with an http depot, absolutely!

I’ve done a handful of upgrades at different companies over the last few weeks without even opening the data center door. One client still has another 15 ESX hosts they will be upgrading in the upcoming weeks that are each at different branch offices. That means that the data center door won’t even be in the same city! The client plans on using the same process for their remaining ESX hosts.

Can you do it too? Probably, but that’s for you to decide based on whether or not your VI3 infrastructure, your blood pressure, and your boss will allow you.

First things first. Get to know the VMware upgrade guide and carefully read the VI3.5 Release Notes. Better yet, ask your favorite VMware Partner to assist you with the planning and implementation, and leverage their training and VMware expertise. Using a Partner will definitely help with your blood pressure and your boss. Now let’s discuss the VI3 infrastructure and the upgrade process. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the cool things about this blog is I am communicating with and learning from virtualization professionals all over the world. Recently I received an email from a reader in the UK, Mohammad, who notified me of a couple ESX 3.5 upgrade issues he has experienced. One of his issues, and the topic of this post, is a painful example of the need to understand the compatibility matrixes published by VMware before upgrading to VI3.5.

From Mohammad’s email:

“.. I also found some quirks in ESX 3.5 with backward compatibility. I built some Blades BL460c/ESX 3.5 with eva 3000 SAN. Later I put ESX 302 Update1 Build on blades but left VMFS partition (ESX 3.5 Build) intact as it had some VMs on them. These VMs threw some terrible issues with networking in Windows 2003 environment (despite working ok with normal day to day networking ) and it wasn’t until few days after when I discovered that the VMware tools installed from ESX3.5 build were the culprit although no apparantly networking issues were there. Reverting back the Tools versions sorted the problem out.

Morale: ESX 3.5 VMware Tools are not backward compatible on VMs that may [have] to run on [the] ESX 302 platform.”