The VMguy

The first update of ESX 4.0 has been released and can be downloaded here.  Here’s the What’s new section from the release notes:
VMware View 4.0 support – This release adds support for VMware View 4.0, a solution built specifically for delivering desktops as a managed service from the protocol to the platform.

Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 support –This release adds support for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 as well as 64-bit Windows 2008 R2 as guest OS platforms. In addition, the vSphere Client is now supported and can be installed on a Windows 7 platform. For a complete list of supported guest operating systems with this release, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

Enhanced Clustering Support for Microsoft Windows – Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) for Windows 2000 and 2003 and Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering is now supported on an VMware High Availability (HA) and Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) cluster in a limited configuration. HA and DRS functionality can be effectively disabled for individual MSCS virtual machines as opposed to disabling HA and DRS on the entire ESX/ESXi host. Refer to the Setup for Failover Clustering and Microsoft Cluster Service guide for additional configuration guidelines.

Enhanced VMware Paravirtualized SCSI Support – Support for boot disk devices attached to a Paravirtualized SCSI ( PVSCSI) adapter has been added for Windows 2003 and 2008 guest operating systems. Floppy disk images are also available containing the driver for use during the Windows installation by selecting F6 to install additional drivers during setup. Floppy images can be found in the /vmimages/floppies/ folder.

Improved vNetwork Distributed Switch Performance – Several performance and usability issues have been resolved resulting in the following:

Improved performance when making configuration changes to a vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) instance when the ESX/ESXi host is under a heavy load
Improved performance when adding or removing an ESX/ESXi host to or from a vDS instance
Increase in vCPU per Core Limit – The limit on vCPUs per core has been increased from 20 to 25. This change raises the supported limit only. It does not include any additional performance optimizations. Raising the limit allows users more flexibility to configure systems based on specific workloads and to get the most advantage from increasingly faster processors. The achievable number of vCPUs per core depends on the workload and specifics of the hardware. For more information see the Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0 guide.

Enablement of Intel Xeon Processor 3400 Series – Support for the Xeon processor 3400 series has been added. For a complete list of supported third party hardware and devices, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

Resolved Issues – In addition, this release delivers a number of bug fixes that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

Don’t you hate how you feel when you forget someone’s birthday?  It’s really depressing when you forget your own website’s birthday.  My first article was published November 9th, 2008, one year ago yesterday.  I knew it was right around now but finally remembered to check tonight.  I want to give a special thanks to all my readers and I promise to continue writing as much as I can.  There’s a lot going on right now which I’ll report on in the coming weeks.

For those thinking of starting a blog, here’s what vmguy.com has grown to in one year’s time:

6,500 unique visitors per month

250,000 hits per month

1,152 newsfeed subscribers

153 posts

179 comments

That’s only a post every other day, I’ll need to work on that.

Thanks again for all your support,

-Dave “the vmguy” Lawrence

Today I ran into this issue with a customer and wanted to write on it so it does not happen to everyone.  Fault Tolerance on vSphere is an awesome solution to maximize uptime.  There is a CPU scenario that may be a challenge however:

This KB article (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008027) reads:

For VMware FT to be supported, the servers that host the virtual machines must each use a supported processor from the same category as documented below:

Intel Xeon based on 45nm Core 2 Microarchitecture Category:
3100 Series
3300 Series
5200 Series (DP)
5400 Series
7400 Series

Intel Xeon based on Core i7 Microarchitecture Category:
3500 Series
5500 Series

AMD 3rd Generation Opteron Category:
1300 and 1400 Series
2300 and 2400 Series (DP)
8300 and 8400 Series (MP)

Please note the requirement “same category.”  As an example, if you have a server with a 54xx series Intel Processor and a Intel 55xx series processor (both have the technology for FT), you can vMotion and DRS between them (via EVC) but you cannot run a Fault Tolerant pair across them.  The Lockstep technology from Intel changed in the 35xx and 55xx CPUs and is not compatible with the previous generations of lockstep.

ThinApp 4.0.4, a maintenance update was released today.  You can find the new version on the download site here.  Here’s the What’s new section from the release notes:

The 4.0.4 release is a maintenance bug fix release. See Resolved Issues.

This release adds the following enhancements:

• Journaling support for the virtual registry.This support prevents data corruption when an application fails during a write operation, a power failure, or an incomplete disk flush on a removable disk.
• German and Japanese versions of the ThinApp User’s Guide.

This release does not support the Windows 7 operating system. If you try ThinApp with Windows 7, VMware invites you to share your feedback in the community forum.