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HP has updated its ESXi 5.0 image to include ESXi 5.0 Update 1.

The HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi 5.0 includes the latest HP Common Information Model (CIM) Providers, HP Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) driver, HP Compaq ROM Utility (CRU) driver, and the new HP Agentless Management Service (AMS).

https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HPVM09

Direct Download:
http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdDetails/?sp4ts.oid=4194638&spf_p.tpst=psiSwdMain&spf_p.prp_psiSwdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3Dlang%253Den%257Ccc%253DUS%257CprodSeriesId%253D4194735%257CprodNameId%253D4194638%257CswEnvOID%253D4115%257CswLang%253D8%257CswItem%253DMTX-c14ba20dc6274cc38e3203c3cb%257Caction%253DdriverDocument&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

The latest versions are:

• hp-smx-provider 500.02.10.61.43-434156
• char-hpilo 500.9.0.0.9-1OEM.500.0.0.434156
• char-hpcru 5.0.0.8-1OEM.500.0.0.434156
• hp-ams-esx-500.9.0.0-55.434156

Enhancements:

• Added support for:
  • HP ProLiant  BL460c Gen8 server
  • HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 server
  • HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server
  • HP ProLiant ML350p Gen8 server
  • HP ProLiant DL160 Gen8 server
• Added the new HP Agentless Management Service
• Added the following support to the HP CIM Providers:
  • HP iLO4 (Integrated Lights-Out)
  • HP SmartSSD Wear Gauge
  • HP SmartDrive
  • Support for additional Power Supply

Expert virtualisation opinionator extroadinaire, Mike Laverick, very kindly invited me to have a chinwag this week. I’ve known Mike for a few years through the VMware community and we’ve chatted at length often so was great to be able to do it again as a chinwag.

We had a great chat talking about certificates, VDI strategy, private cloud CraaP! & SRM with PowerCLI.

You can see/hear/subscribe to/download the chinwag from here:
http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/2012/03/23/chinwag-with-julian-wood-episode-71/

Thanks Mike!

NetApp has released the latest version of its vCenter plug-in which ties together VM and storage management all within the vSphere Client. The update includes far more capability for Cluster Mode and interestingly online alignment of VMs.

So, What’s New?

The Monitoring and Host Configuration capability adds support for the following:

• Data ONTAP® for Cluster-Mode
• Management of consolidated storage controller credentials. These credentials apply to the Monitoring and Host Configuration capability, the Provisioning and Cloning capability, and the Optimization and Migration capability.
• Scanning for and flagging indirect paths used to access data for Cluser-Mode based NFS exports, and providing a list of potential direct data paths
• The NFS VAAI Plugin. This is a software library that integrates with Virtual Disk Libraries and allows VMware software to execute certain primitives on NetApp storage controllers.

The Provisioning and Cloning capability enables you to perform the following tasks:

• Provision and manage NFS and VMFS datastores on storage systems running Data ONTAP for Cluster-Mode
• Use the Monitoring and Host Configuration capability to add and remove storage systems

A new capability, Optimization and Migration, enables you to perform the following tasks:

• Review the alignment status of virtual machines
• Perform online alignment of virtual machines by migrating them into optimized VMFS datastores
• Migrate a group of virtual machines into new or existing datastores

The Backup and Recovery capability enables you to perform the following task:

• Back up and restore a virtual machine even if a VMware consistency snapshot fail

The Virtual Storage Console 4.0 can be downloaded from here (NOW login required)