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Posts Tagged ‘esx’

What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: vCenter Server SSO

August 26th, 2013 No comments

VMware has announced its latest update to version 5.5 of its global virtualisation powerhouse, vCloud Suite.

To read the updates for all the suite components, see my post: What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: Introduction

key vCenter SSO gets one of the major updates. This is welcome news to anyone who installed SSO in vSphere 5.1 which was plagued with an overly complex and restrictive design. SSO in 5.1 was apparently an OEM component which VMware customised. SSO in 5.5 has been completely rewritten from the ground up internally.

Evolving vCenter is a major undertaking as it was originally built as a monolithic platform with everything included in one place. VMware’s strategy is to pull out all the core central services from vCenter and have them run stand-alone.

In the future, vCenter may not in fact be the only management option. I can think of other future management options such as OpenStack or even Microsoft System Center or some other partner management ecosystem, all obviously at cloud scale. Today SSO has been re-built to scale serving vCloud Director, vCenter Orchestrator and Horizon View.

What’s New:
The whole architecture has been redesigned with a multi-master model with built-in replication both between and within sites. There are no longer primary and secondary SSO servers. Site awareness is part of the design, you can add new sites and SSO can be aware of the original site.

Read more…

What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: Introduction

August 26th, 2013 1 comment

vmw_logo_1CloudComputing_2 VMware has announced its latest update to version 5.5 of its global virtualisation powerhouse, vCloud Suite.

I would say that this is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary update being the third major release in the vSphere 5 family (5.0,5.1,5.5).

There are however some significant storage additions such as Virtual SAN (VSAN) and VMware Virtual Flash (vFlash) as well as a new vSphere App HA to provide application software high availability which is in addition to vSphere HA.

VMware has also responded to the customer frustration over Single-Sign on (SSO) which is an authentication proxy for vCenter and made some changes to SSO to hopefully make it easier to deploy. Every component of the suite has been updated in some way which is an impressive undertaking to get everything in sync.

Here are all the details:

  1. What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: Introduction
  2. What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: vCenter Server and ESXi
  3. What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: vCenter Server SSO fixes
  4. What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: Virtual SAN (VSAN)
  5. What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: VMware Virtual Flash (vFlash)
  6. What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: vCloud Director
  7. What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: vCenter Orchestrator
  8. What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: vCloud Networking & Security
  9. What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: vSphere App HA
  10. What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: vSphere Replication and vCenter Site Recovery Manager
    VMware is certainly evolving their strategy of the software defined data center, this release puts software defined storage (SDS) on the map at least from a VMware perspective, a multi-year project. VMware vVolumes hasn’t made it into this release which shows what a major undertaking it is, we will have to wait for vSphere 6!
    SDS is going to have a huge push this year from VMware and of course all the other storage vendors, expect some exciting innovation.
    Software defined networking is the next traditional IT infrastructure piece to “Defy convention” and is arguably by far the hardest one to change. Another multi-year project is just beginning.

HP updates its customised images for VMware ESXi 5.1 and 5.0 Update 2 for Feb 2013

March 7th, 2013 5 comments

HP has updated its ESXi 5.x customised images as part of its Service Pack for Proliant (SPP) Feb 2013 update.

HP’s customised images are fully integrated sets of specific drivers and software that are tested to work together. You can see the list of Driver Versions in HP supplied VMware ESX/ESXi images.

I have done an extensive update of my HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 & VMware ESX(i) pre-requisites post which includes these new customised images.

HP Custom Image for VMware ESXi 5.1 February 2013: VMware-ESXi-5.1.0-799733-HP-5.34.23.iso

The new and updated features for the HP vSphere 5.1 Customized Image for February 2013 include:

  • Provider Features:
    • Report installed licenses for HP Dynamic Smart Array Controller.
    • Report New memory properties.
    • Support for IP Address encoding in SNMP traps.
    • Support SMX MemoryModuleOnBoard association.
    • HP Dynamic Smart Array Controller split cache support.
    • Report New RAID levels for storage volume fault tolerance.
    • HP Smart Cache support.
    • Update reporting of Smart Array Cache Status to align with firmware and iLO.
  • AMS features:
    • Report running SW processes to HP Insight Remote Support.
    • Report vSphere 5.1 SNMP agent management IP and enable VMware vSphere 5.1 SNMP agent to report iLO4 management IP.
    • IML logging for NIC, and SAS traps.
    • Limit AMS log file size and support log redirection as defined by the ESXi host parameter: ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation
  • SR-IOV Support:
    • Updated Intel 10Gb network driver to enable SR-IOV for the HP 560FLB, 560M, 560SFP+, and 560FLR-SFP+.

HP Custom Image for VMware ESXi 5.0.0 Update 2 February 2013: VMware-ESXi-5.0.0-Update2-914586-HP-5.27.20.iso

    The new and updated features for the HP vSphere 5.0 U2 Customized Image for February 2013 include:

    • Provider Features:
      • Report installed licenses for HP Dynamic Smart Array Controller.
      • Report New memory properties.
      • Support for IP Address encoding in SNMP traps.
      • Support SMX MemoryModuleOnBoard association.
      • HP Dynamic Smart Array Controller split cache support.
      • Report New RAID levels for storage volume fault tolerance.
      • HP Smart Cache support.
      • Update reporting of Smart Array Cache Status to align with firmware and iLO.
    • AMS features:
      • Report running SW processes to HP Insight Remote Support.
      • IML logging for NIC, and SAS traps.
      • Limit AMS log file size and support log redirection as defined by the ESXi host parameter: ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation
    Categories: ESX, Flex-10, HP, VMware Tags: , , ,

    New HP Emulex drivers and firmware released for VMware ESXi 5.x

    March 7th, 2013 No comments

    Emulex has released a new set of drivers and firmware for use on Gen8 and G7 HP Servers including blades with both VMware ESXi 5.0 and 5.1.

    Driver:
    Emulex be2net nic driver version 4.2.327.0 which is included in the HP Custom Image for VMware ESXi 5.1 February 2013: VMware-ESXi-5.1.0-799733-HP-5.34.23.iso and HP Custom Image for VMware ESXi 5.0.0 Update 2 February 2013VMware-ESXi-5.0.0-Update2-914586-HP-5.27.20.iso or can be downloaded separately from VMware.

    Emulex has also released a newer driver version 4.4.231.0 which is available from VMware but this isn’t supported as yet by HP.

    Firmware:
    Emulex firmware version 4.2.401.605 which can be updated using the Emulex OneConnect-Flash .ISO.

    There was a 4.2.401.6 released but this has been superseded by 4.2.401.605 which fixes a number of issues.

    I have done an extensive update of my HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 & VMware ESX(i) pre-requisites post which includes these new Emulex drivers and firmware.

    Categories: ESX, Flex-10, HP, VMware Tags: , , , , ,

    VMware vVolumes: the game changing future for storage is demoed

    October 29th, 2012 No comments

    At VMworld 2011. VMware Virtual Volumes, vVolumes or vVols for short was previewed which I reviewed in my post at the time. You can now see the original presentation:

    VMworld 2011: VSP3205 – VMware vStorage APIs for VM and Application Granular Data Management

    Well, another year and another VMworld has passed and it seems the storage game changer is getting closer to seeing the light of day if the recent spate of tech preview demos are anything to go by.

    First of all, a recap on what are vVols.

    vVols are a completely new storage architecture designed to be the next generation of storage with a few key features:

    1. Allow management of VM storage to be at the VM level, no longer at the LUN / volume level
    2. All the storage heavy lifting in terms of moving data, snapshots, replication, deduplication etc. is done at the storage array
    3. No disruption to existing VM creation workflows
    4. Massive scale of number of VMs per storage system

    Read more…

    Categories: ESX, HP, NetApp, vCenter, VMware Tags: , , , , , ,

    Get the fantastic VMware reference posters

    September 17th, 2012 3 comments

    Unless you are a photographic memory super VCDX you probably don’t have every single ESXi command line, PowerCLI Cmdlet or vCloud Networking construct available in memory.

    Luckily for the rest of us normal people, VMware has released some fantastic posters detailing these topics in an easy to grab format which you can download for your pleasure.

    They are large format .PDF posters so you can print them out and either impress your friends with your techy wall art or have them handy on your smart phone just when you need to troubleshoot a problem.

    Don’t forget you can also get the amazing vReference cards made by Forbes Guthrie.

    VMware ESXi 5.1 Reference

    esxi51-poster

    VMware Management with PowerCLI 5.1

    powercli51-poster

    VMware vCloud Networking

    vCDNetworking-Poster

    Categories: ESX, PowerCLI, VMware Tags: , , ,

    HP ESXi customised images now available on vmware.com

    August 7th, 2012 No comments

    HP has been creating its own customised ESXi images for while now which contain all the HP specific drivers and software which could be downloaded from somewhere on HPs website (unfortunately finding things on HP.com isn’t the easiest thing to do).
    http://www.wooditwork.com/2012/03/28/hp-esxi-5-0-update-1-customised-image-available-for-download/

    These images are now available to download directly from VMware’s site alongside images from NEC, Hitachi and Cisco.
    https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/5_0#drivers_tools

    Click on OEM Customized Installer CDs.

    Direct Link: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=HP-ESXI-5.0.0-U1-15MAR2012&productId=229

    There are also direct links to HP specific documentation.

    This should make finding the images just that little bit easier.

    Categories: ESX, HP, Update Manager, VMware Tags: , ,

    HP G7 Blades: New Emulex firmware 4.1.402.20 released

    July 2nd, 2012 20 comments

    HP has released a new firmware version 4.1.402.20 of its Emulex OneConnect 10Gb Ethernet Controller which is used in HP G7 Blades.

    The June HP Service Pack for ProLiant 2012.06.0(B) had a 4.1.402.8 firmware version so it looks like it only had a lifespan of a month and has now been superseded by 4.1.402.20.

    Unfortunately it doesn’t look like the HP VMware Recipe for June has been updated http://vibsdepot.hp.com/hpq/recipes/June2012VMwareRecipe1.0.pdf

    The installation is as before and requires you to boot off an .ISO and update manually. (I have a dream that one day…)

    Before June the firmware version recommended was 4.0.493. I can’t tell what the enhancements are between 4.1.402.8 and 4.1.402.20 as the release notes for 4.1.402.20 only list the resolved issues from 4.0.493.

    BladeEngine Firmware

    1. Increased RSS queues for Rhel drivers.
    2. Fixed W2K8 graceful shutdown on NC552 adapter.
    3. iSCSI not working when priority fields are used.
    4. 554FLR-SFP adapter, FCoE Path Multipath Recovery Failure, SLES11 SP1 x64
    5. FCoE port sometimes doesn’t login after VC module failover, w2k3
    6. Fix support for TEMP_DEAD and ALOM_FAN_ON_AUX on Gen 8 servers
    7. Correction to OCSD to prevent DMA conflicts with LPFC driver

    PXE BIOS

    1. NC553i adapter using wrong IP for gateway during Tftp
    2. BE2/BE3 based adapters, PXE Hang
    3. BL465cG7 PXE boot stops and is not coming up in RDP

    iSCSI BIOS

    1. SCSI SAN boot fails when DHCP Vendor Id is used for BL420cG8
    2. Smart Array shows EBDA Error when ELX iSCSI Boot LUN configured

    UEFI NIC

    1. Dynamic link update is not working with NIC UEFI driver

    Technical Tips

    1. When updating HP CN1000e and NC550SFP products, use either the OneConnect-flash.iso or the Elxflash Offline tools. Either method will update the ILO image for the Network Communications Services Interface (NCSI) side band support. This procedure requires a power cycle after flashing. This tip does not apply to network cards that are version 4.0.360.15 or later.
    2. Before you update your host drivers, update your firmware using the available online tools.

    I’ve updated my post: HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 & VMware ESX(i) pre-requisites

    Categories: ESX, Flex-10, HP, VMware Tags: , , , , ,

    HP releases Virtual Connect firmware 3.60

    June 6th, 2012 10 comments

    HP has released a new version of its Virtual Connect Firmware 3.60 which is used in HP c-Class Chassis with Flex-10, FlexFabric, VC Enet and FC Module interconnect modules.
    http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=3709945&prodSeriesId=3794423&prodNameId=3794431&swEnvOID=2079&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-f8ab0a5ea5c8462390b90a1986

    This release adds support for the following server models, HBAs and Adapters:

    • HP ProLiant BL420c Gen8 Server Series
    • HP ProLiant BL465c Gen8 Server Blade
    • HP LPe1205A 8Gb FC HBA for BladeSystem c-Class
    • HP Ethernet 1Gb 2-port 361FLB Adapter
    • HP Ethernet 1Gb 4-port 366M Adapter

    This update has fixed quite a number of bugs, 14 are listed in the release notes but there are 7 new issues reported so make sure you read the notes carefully.

    There are also quite a few general issues HP is tracking even with this new firmware, some of which have workarounds and others with promised fixes in future versions.

    Also make sure you check through the pre-requisites to ensure you follow some of the advisories or you may lose configuration data and ensure you use the Virtual Connect Support Utility 1.6.0

    Categories: ESX, Flex-10, HP, VMware Tags: , , , ,

    HP G7 Blade new Emulex be2net ESX(i) drivers 4.1.334.0 now supported

    June 6th, 2012 5 comments

    VMware recently released a new Emulex be2net driver version 4.1.334.0 for both ESX(i) 4.x and ESXi 5.x for the Emulex OneConnect 10Gb Ethernet Controller which is used in HP G7 Blades.

    These new drivers were not supported by HP when released but HP has now certified this driver and included it its new HP ESXi images.

    ESX(i) 4.x
    https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESX4041-EMULEX-be2net-413340&productId=230
    ESXi 5.x
    https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESX50-EMULEX-be2net-413340&productId=229

    I’ve updated my post: HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 & VMware ESX(i) pre-requisites

    Categories: ESX, Flex-10, HP, VMware Tags: , , , , ,