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frizzo23
Contributor
Contributor

ESX patch testing

Hi there

Just wondering what the rest of you do to test ESX patches? I've had a look around on the net but can't seem to find much advice on best practices for testing ESX patches. I'm running ESX 3.5 currently.

Secondly I'm also putting together a weekly/monthly maintenance task list for my VMWare environment, can anyone point me towards some useful info on how to review host & virtual center logs? The admin guide details a lot of logs but not what they're for and what to look out for in the logs. I'm thinking preventative maintenance rather than reactive.

Cheers

Frank

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smudger
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

With regards to best practise for patching this really depends on your type of platform and the services/applications it is running. As an example we use the following for our Ops team:

-Patch our engineering test lab

-Patch Development clusters

-Patch Production clusters - Server & VDI

The timeframe between patching the Engineering environment and Production is typically 4 - 6 week to shake out any issues with new updates and patches.

You may find more detail over at the VIOPS forum, there is some great material there:

Regards,

Neil

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JohnGibson
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

I tend to be a bit more agressive in patching, bit I do the same.

Test in Test Lab

Development then contingency clusters

Production Clusters

Blades with local storage...

Possibly 3 weeks post release the production clusters will be patched.

Patches over the years have proven to be stable (with one slight exception late last year).

John

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frizzo23
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the replies, but I was hoping to get an idea on what tests to carry out. e.g.VMotion some VMs to and from the patched ESX server, shutdown and power on some VMs etc.

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thehyperadvisor
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hopefully as much as possible but it will depend on your environment. I try to test new vm guest creation, vm guest power on, off, vmotion, DRS, HA, adding datastores, etc. I don't think that you can get everything or find every bug but whatever you use and need functionally should be tested after patching with a burn in period as well.

VCP3,4,5, VCAP4-DCA, vExpert hope this helps - http://www.thehyperadvisor.com If you found this or other information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful".
smudger
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Agreed you want to perform as much functional testing as possible. Use any lab or test equipment you may have (these normally shake out the any big issues) but there is nothing like a Production environment to highligth any problems. Oh, and of course keep an eye on these forums!