Punching Clouds

OK Folks, here it is… the vSphere Platform 4.1 upgrade has been released. The upgrade contains new features as well as improvements in scalability. Here is a list of a few things to be noted:

• Memory Compression
• DRS Host Affinity
• Storage I/O Control
• Network I/O Control
• Performance Reporting
• Cloud Scale
• ESXi Active Directory Integration
• Expanded HCL

For more details and definitions on the new improvements please got the VMware site and check out the what’s new documentation.  Enjoy!

For those of you that have been wondering about the capabilities of the vCenter Orchestrator (vCO), that one component that gets installed under the hood with vCenter Server 4.o. Well now you don’t have to wonder about it anymore really…the vCenter Orchestrator Team is now sharing their knowledge, skills, and resources on the web. I was fortunate enough to collaborate with Burke Azbill on an engagement for vCenter Orchestrator, and VMware Lifecycle Manager recently, when he told me about the site. just to give you everyone a bit of info o the person I’m referring to here, Burke Azbill is a VMware Senior Consultant, and one of the experts of vCenter Orchestrator, and VMware Lifecycle Manager, and also the master mind behind the vCO Team Site. Some of the ways on which VMware is going to be using the vCenter Orchestrator, I can’t really talk about yet, but vCO it’s definitely going to be another one of really awesome plugable applications that will integrate deeply into the rest of the vSphere, and future platforms. I’ll say this… the vCenter Orchestrator is not just limited to the virtual infrastructure, or just VMware related products. There are just so many things that this application can be used for, and it’s pretty cool. Check out the site and contribute if you can, ask questions, make request. I know there are a lot of people out there wondering how to configure that service they see in Windows Services after the vCenter server is installed. You can watch videos of configuration, and installations and much more there. Everyone will be amazed by what this product will bring to the internal and external cloud in the very near future. vCenter Orchestrator is one of my favorite products so check it!

Alright Folks, here is the official update on the previously reported issue with the NetApp SRA 1.4.3 and VMware SRM post. Here are actual facts as of why VMware took down the SRA bits down from their download site. Again thanks to LarryT from NetApp for replaying to the original post from last week, and shedding some light on the situation, and also thanks to Michael White from VMware for the update.
The NetApp SRM SRA 1.4.3 is now available again. It turns out VMware pulled the SRA bits from the download site due to an install / configuration issue, and NOT an operational one.  The NetApp SRM SRA 1.4.3 back and it is available for download.  It is a small issue for NFS users.  If you are a NetApp partner, and need more info, you should be able to search the knowledgebase for KB article KB58002.  You’ll need your NetApp partner login to gain access to the information provided on listed link. There will be an update in the near future to avoid the issue completely, but the KB article has an easy workaround.

Error: Network device needed by recovered virtual machine could not be found at recovery or test time

This issue is also impacts IBM N Series SRA. The error listed above is what you will experience if you protect virtual machines that are using distributed virtual switches and try to recovery them.  This issue will be fixed in the next patch, and the next release of SRM. You can talk to VMware GSS for a patch if you need one.  It will only be provided by request, and is available now.  I should mention that there is a small  cosmetic issue connected with this problem that is in vCenter Server, and it will only be fixed in Update 2 of vCenter Server, but will not stop a successful failover.

Head’s up Folks, here is a bit of useful information for all VMware SRM, and NetApp customers. I’ve been informed about a very serious issue that was detected with the NetApp SRA 1.4.3. As a result of this issue VMware has pulled that version of the SRA from their download site so that customers are not able to download that version of the NetApp SRA in order to protect them from possible failures with BC/DR scenarios. At the current time it’s recommended not to use that version of the NetApp SRA until the issue is corrected, and given a green light for usage by VMware, and NetApp.  At the current I don’t have any details on what the actual issues is, so if any you guys know of anything please post some feed back.

In the mean time it is recommended to use the previous version of the SAN or NFS SRA. I will post updates when things change. Thanks to Michael White from VMware for the heads up on this issue.

Today VMware released the new version of their application virtualization platform. The new version ThinApp 4.5  is said to speed up the migration process to Windows 7  as much as 40 % for customers who are planning upgrading to Microsoft latest desktop operating system.

The new version of ThinApp includes new technologies and features such as:

• Support for new operating systems: Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2
• New Relink utility for upgrading applications without the need to repackage or rebuilding them
• Improve support for MSI packages larger than 2 GB
• I/O performance improvement for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
• Memory  sharing improvements for suites of applications and Terminal Server
• Startup time improvements
• Bandwidth consumption improvements
• New packages.ini parameter: OptimizedFor
• Support for capturing on partially non-clean PC
• Quality Reporting 1.0
• Journaling of Virtual file system meta data and virtual registry
• Improved support for application white listing (AppLocker for Windows 7)
• User interface improvements
• Quality improvements & Wine test
• ThinApp Community Portal for Applications

There is a great deal of information in regards to the features and improvements on the VMware ThinApp blog site so you should head there and get more details about them.