VMware vCloud ® Suite Upgrade Promotion

VMware vCloud Suite simplifies IT operations while delivering the best SLAs for all applications. This integrated product offering includes all the components you need to build a complete, IaaS cloud. VMware vSphere Enterprise and Enterprise Plus customers can now upgrade to the new VMware vCloud Suite at discount prices.

• Upgrade from vSphere Enterprise Plus to the most agile and secure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform, vCloud Suite Standard for free.
• Or get everything you need for a mature IaaS cloud with vCloud Suite Enterprise for 35% off.

Promotion Rules:

This promotion is valid from September 10, 2012 until December 15, 2012 at 11:59pm Pacific Time (PT). Purchases may be made through a VMware authorized reselling partner, via the VMware website or directly with VMware. OEM partners and VMware and service providers are also eligible. This promotion cannot be combined with any other promotions or discounts for the same product.

Eligibility

To be eligible for this promotion, customers must have purchased vSphere Enterprise or vSphere Enterprise Plus as of August 27th, 2012 and have an active Support and Subscription agreement. New purchases of vSphere Enterprise or vSphere Enterprise Plus on or after August 27, 2012 are not eligible for this promotion

http://www.vmware.com/promotions/2012-vCloud-Suite-promotion.html

Much awaited patch for vSphere 5.1 has been released.

The patch addresses the issues of VMware View and PowerPath issues with this new update that has been released by VMware.

vSphere 5.1 is now compatible with VMware View 5.1.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2035268

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2034796

Cisco comes up with a Nexus 1000V Free Edition

Cisco Nexus 1000V Essential and Advanced Edition

VERSION 3  

Created on: Oct 3, 2012 3:33 PM by ekeener - Last Modified:  Oct 3, 2012 4:31 PM by ekeener

Announcement Overview

Cisco is announcing a new go-to-market (GTM) model for the Cisco Nexus 1000V Series virtual switch for Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Release 2.1 - 4.2(1)SV2(1.1). The Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Release 2.1 software is being offered in two editions: Essential (free1) and Advanced (paid).

• Cisco Nexus 1000V Essential Edition: Available at no cost1, the Cisco Nexus 1000V Essential Edition provides most of the comprehensive Layer 2 networking features of the Cisco Nexus 1000V Series, including VXLAN, Cisco vPath for service insertion and chaining, and VMware vCloud Director integration, as well as the operation simplification enhancements of Release 2.1 (such as the VMware vCenter plug-in, vTracker, and enhanced upgrade). This free version will enable rapid, risk-free adoption of Cisco’s virtual network technology in a single- or multiple-hypervisor environment.
• Cisco Nexus 1000V Advanced Edition: This version offers value-added security features such as Domain Host Control Protocol (DHCP) snooping, IP source guard, Dynamic Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Inspection, and Cisco TrustSec® Secure Group Access (SGA) support (a new feature in Release 2.1). The Cisco VSG zone-based virtual firewall is also included in the Advanced Edition.

Extracted from: https://communities.cisco.com/docs/DOC-31313

More ideas coming into reality in VMware

OVM 3.0 to vSphere 5 migration

I just came back from a successful migration of Windows guests to vSphere 5.

Windows migration was a no brainer to migrate. Following were the steps followed.

• Perform a Windows Server backup with the system state.
• Created a virtual machine with more disk space than configured.
• Created an additional hard disk to store the backup taken.
• And did a system restore with the backup.
• Voila! the machine is created. Only the IP settings was not propogated.

There were some linux guests running on the OVM platform that has to be migrated. There are some concerns on relying on the converter to do this migration.

• When converting a Linux operating system, vCenter Converter does not maintain Logical Volumes (LVMs) on the resulting virtual machine.

• When using vCenter Converter Standalone 4.x to convert a supported Linux guest operating system that has LVMs, the resulting virtual machine does not contain the LVM setup.

• During conversion of powered-on Linux machines, Converter Standalone does not recognize Linux source volumes if they are mapped directly on a hard disk 
• Workaround: Linux source volumes that are not managed by LVM must be located in a partition so that Converter Standalone can recognize them during cloning of powered-on Linux sources.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1019398

https://www.vmware.com/support/converter/doc/conv_sa_50_rel_notes.html#resolvedissues

ALERT: vCenter Server Services hang on startup after upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1

VMware has become aware of an issue where:

After upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1, the VMware VirtualCenter Server service fails to start

The VMware VirtualCenter Server service will not successfully stop or start.

The final log in the vpxd.log file shows:

CoreDump: Writing minidump

You see a backtrace near the very bottom of the vpxd.log file which begins with the following:

2012-09-13T11:53:46.802+02:00 [04468 info 'vmmoVm' opID=SWI-c5103928] [VmMo::SetComputeCompatibilityDirty] vm vm-5345 is marked dirty

2012-09-13T11:53:46.786+02:00 [05112 warning 'win32vpxdOsLayer_win32' opID=SWI-56f04b9c] [VpxUnhandledException] Backtrace

For further information, updates, and resolution to this issue, refer to KB article: vCenter Server Services hang on startup after upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1 (2035623).

Courtesy of: http://blogs.vmware.com