VMware Cloud Community
CWedge
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

VC2.5u3 Is OUT, Feedback thread?

Just called Support trying to troubleshoot the garbage VC2.5u2 install process and they tell us u3 is out!

Who wants to be the guinea pig?

Let us know

On a side note, VMware should be ashamed that we have to speak of thier updates like this. This is just unacceptable for an "Enterprise Application"

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BUGCHK
Commander
Commander

I've made a new installation and wanted to do some iSCSI throughput tests with the iSCSI SW initiator. When I look at the kbytes throughput of the vmnic I see sometimes see this pattern instead of a nice horizontal 100MegaBytes/sec line :

/\/\/\/ and the VI client shows N/A for the value between \ and /.

Can't compare this with another installation, but it does not look right.

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azn2kew
Champion
Champion

Its common sense to ugprade to new patches and updates to see how things work but first, you should implement new patches and upgrades in a test environment and if things went smooth then plan to migrate via production environment. There is no excuses for failures and bugs to production because if it failed you know it's not ready for general use that's why test environment is the key.

If you don't have the budget for full blown test environment, use something like Workstation 6.5 with Openfiler to do the basic features and test it. Otherwise, for large enterprise dev, test, stage and productions are the 4 stages for all critical applications and people have different environment and expectations.

RParker, really you're very excited about new patches and releases but suggest you have tested before doing live in production? If that doesn't applies to you god bless to your great working environment and I appreciate for let us know how your upgrade goes and seems like it works well for you.

Again, people should reply with their success and failures so we know the ratio here and how critical is it to upgrade in production. Cheers!

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!! Regards, Stefan Nguyen VMware vExpert 2009 iGeek Systems Inc. VMware vExpert, VCP 3 & 4, VSP, VTSP, CCA, CCEA, CCNA, MCSA, EMCSE, EMCISA
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jasonboche
Immortal
Immortal

Looks like there's at least one new known bug in VC2.5u3 and it's discovered during the upgrade process:

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2008/10/09/virtualcenter-25-update-3-may-fail-to-start-after-upgrade/

Quote:

>Issue: After attempting to upgrade to VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 3 using the VirtualCenter Update Wizard, and not the VMware Unified Installer, the VirtualCenter service may fail to start. The issue is caused by an incomplete update of the database information for VirtualCenter resulting in incorrect database versioning, which is verified, and required to be correct, by the VirtualCenter service upon startup.

Resolution here:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100719...

Thanks Duncan Epping over at Yellow Bricks (and VMware employee) for posting this rather than letting us bleeding edge fools wallow in the muck until this information is well known in the main stream.

Jas






[i]Jason Boche[/i]

[VMware Communities User Moderator|http://www.vmware.com/communities/content/community_terms/][/i]

[Minneapolis Area VMware User Group Leader|http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/us-central/minneapolis][/i]

VCDX3 #34, VCDX4, VCDX5, VCAP4-DCA #14, VCAP4-DCD #35, VCAP5-DCD, VCPx4, vEXPERTx4, MCSEx3, MCSAx2, MCP, CCAx2, A+
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khughes
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

I just upgraded our systems from 2.0.2 to 2.5u3 and no issues upgrading databases or the VC itself. First step is complete for moving from 3.0.2 to 3.5

  • Kyle

-- Kyle "RParker wrote: I guess I was wrong, everything CAN be virtualized "
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Patrick_Miller
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Agree...this version is very snappy.

We did have a problem with HA, but reconfiguring each host for HA corrected the issue. Everything I've tested so far seems to work without a hitch.

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mcwill
Expert
Expert

Upgrade from U2 to U3 ran without error.

Only issue we are seeing is Upgrade Manager is failing to scan 2 out of our 3 hosts. It runs though the scan and then reports "VMware Update Manager had a failure", but no indication of what that failure may be.

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khughes
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

I got that as well, but haven't seen any issues pop up because of it.

  • Kyle

-- Kyle "RParker wrote: I guess I was wrong, everything CAN be virtualized "
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jrglines
Contributor
Contributor

Same issue. HA returns error: "Could not reach isolation address"

No issue before upgrade. DNS checked and re-checked

Gateway is pingable

Have tried the corrected advanced config from YellowBricks

das.bypassNetCompatCheck

Will post fix if found.

Thanks

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jasonboche
Immortal
Immortal

I went through the upgrade process last night. No issues during upgrade (remember to follow the database upgrade procedures as per usual - for SQL environments, the database user needs DBO on MSDB during the upgrade.).

Haven't seen any HA agent issues squaking on the hosts yet. I'm going to beat on it a little more to be sure.

The launching of the VIC does seem a bit faster, but I wouldn't say it's twice as fast yet. I'll get a better feel for the speed as I navigate the screens.

I did briefly check the performance tab on one of my hosts before I went to bed and noticed the daily performance stats were hanging and not coming up sigh Will have to tinker more with perf stats to understand if and how bad stats are mucked up. I believe my VC database is about 12GB in size but I've been running it in full recovery mode for quite a long time. Might be time to change that.

When are we going to see SVmotion in VirtualCenter? Get it done already VMware... (in the mean time, the GUI plugin from Andrew Kutz works wonderfully).

Kinda bummed that VC is DVD sized now. No longer fits on a CD. Oh well, there are worse things in this world.

Jas






[i]Jason Boche[/i]

[VMware Communities User Moderator|http://www.vmware.com/communities/content/community_terms/][/i]

[Minneapolis Area VMware User Group Leader|http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/us-central/minneapolis][/i]

VCDX3 #34, VCDX4, VCDX5, VCAP4-DCA #14, VCAP4-DCD #35, VCAP5-DCD, VCPx4, vEXPERTx4, MCSEx3, MCSAx2, MCP, CCAx2, A+
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RickCX4
Contributor
Contributor

Same here HA broke.

"insufficient resources to satisfy HA failover level on cluster" and "unable to contact a primary HA agent in cluster"

A lot of searching discovered that the memory reservation of some VM's was set?!

I set the reservation to 0 and everything worked fine.

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jayolsen
Expert
Expert

Upgraded this morning. I have 4 HA clusters and before I started I disabled HA on them. After the installation I reneabled and everything went fine.

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Dean_Holland
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

In our environment the upgrade to U3 went flawlessly. Converter, UM, HA all working as expected.

However one problem is our hosts randomly get marked as "Not responding" and then 30 seconds later come back without any intervention. We haven't changed anything else (network/firewall), at the moment all we can narrow it down to is the upgrade to U3. Has anyone else seen this issue?

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jrr001
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Anyone noticed the build number in the VC client says 119598.. but on the download page is says the build number is 119825?

My upgrade went fine...but of course I tested in my LAB first.

Also, I run the installs manually and never rely on the autorun stuff.

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jasonboche
Immortal
Immortal

The published version number is the version number for the installer which differs from the build number of the final product once installed. I know, confusing isn't it? VMware has acknowledged the differences in build numbers and had a blurb about it on their website somewhere but I can't find it at the moment. I thought it was on their download page but I'm not seeing it there.

Jas






[i]Jason Boche[/i]

[VMware Communities User Moderator|http://www.vmware.com/communities/content/community_terms/][/i]

[Minneapolis Area VMware User Group Leader|http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/us-central/minneapolis][/i]

VCDX3 #34, VCDX4, VCDX5, VCAP4-DCA #14, VCAP4-DCD #35, VCAP5-DCD, VCPx4, vEXPERTx4, MCSEx3, MCSAx2, MCP, CCAx2, A+
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doubleH
Expert
Expert

Upgraded this past weekend and all went well with no issues. Remember to manually run the license server installation so that it is upgraded as well.

If you found this or any other post helpful please consider the use of the Helpfull/Correct buttons to award points

If you found this or any other post helpful please consider the use of the Helpfull/Correct buttons to award points
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jrr001
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Administrator client upgrades Failed:

I have an XP SP2 and Vista SP1 machine I use for administration. Both of the run current virtual center and get the prompt to "download the client update" below to upgrade failed, saying I needed to uninstall my VC client manually and install the new version. Anyone else have this problem?

Also interested in knowing..if you have the Powershell VI toolkit installed..can it mess with the upgrade process? I uninstalled it all just to make sure but it would be good to know official stance on this.

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khughes
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

I haven't found that it made you uninstall the 2.0 client first, on my Vista box it just installed a new client onto it, so I ended up with a 2.0 client and a 2.5 client. I just uninstalled the 2.0 one since I had no further use for it. I ran into some trouble moving some machines around once I upgraded one host to 3.5U2. I guess if you have vMotion on the same vswitch as your SC, you need to add in another line to your HA permissions? Something like das.allowVmotionNetworks 1

Regardless I personally think the VIC is slower launching than the 2.0 one. I find I'm having to wait longer for everything to connect then show up on my screen, at least compared to 2.0.2

  • Kyle

-- Kyle "RParker wrote: I guess I was wrong, everything CAN be virtualized "
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jasonboche
Immortal
Immortal

This may not be relevant for anyone's environment but I thought I'd throw this out there anyway because it's on topic.

I happened to be reviewing the Virtual Infrastructure (VC, VIC, VMUM) compatibility guides and noticed a few things that I don't remember seeing before.

1) Windows XP is supported as a platform.

2) Windows Server 2003 (without service packs) is not supported as a platform.

3) Not all database platforms are compatible with both VirtualCenter and VMware Update Manager alike.

Reference:

ESX Server, VirtualCenter, and Virtual Infrastructure Client Compatibility Matrixes

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_compat_matrix.pdf






[i]Jason Boche[/i]

[VMware Communities User Moderator|http://www.vmware.com/communities/content/community_terms/][/i]

[Minneapolis Area VMware User Group Leader|http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/us-central/minneapolis][/i]

VCDX3 #34, VCDX4, VCDX5, VCAP4-DCA #14, VCAP4-DCD #35, VCAP5-DCD, VCPx4, vEXPERTx4, MCSEx3, MCSAx2, MCP, CCAx2, A+
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jftwp
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

On Sunday 10/19 I upgraded from 2.0.2 to 2.5u3 and only issue I had was some hosts (perhaps 4 out of 14 total, 4 clusters managed) were disconnected. I found others had that issue as well, and the resolution was to stop/restart the VC agent service on the affected hosts via "service mgmt-vmware restart". Otherwise, only 'issue' is the known issue of the HA networking check intro'd with 2.5 update 3 which, depending on your configuration, has different approaches for mitigating. I applied that which was applicable to us (2 of 4 hosts's in our dev cluster have SC's on different vlans), and now all is well. Waiting for another week or so before upgrading our ESX 3.0.2 systems to 3.5 U2.

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williambishop
Expert
Expert

We ran a test today(p2v'd our 4 way server to a blade) and it went fine. We're still deciding whether or not to keep the performance and events from the last couple of years...Probably we will not keep it, as I it makes the update quite a bit quicker(as evidenced by the fact that it took us about 1/50th of the time it took our nearest regional competitor to do their ugprade).

We might do one more test before doing the production server, but we're tentatively slated for the next down (nov 9). Definately we will be disabling HA and DRS prior to upgrade as that has been commented on several times here and in other places.

--"Non Temetis Messor."
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