VMware vCenter 2.5 Update 4 Released.

February 24th, 2009

Kiwi Si

VMware have released update 4 for their vCenter (aka VMware Virtual Center) 2.5 product. The ‘Performance Overview Charts’ are well worth a look – this is just a taster of the new improved views of VM metrics that we’ll see in the next generation of vCenter when it is released later this year.

VMware vCenter 2.5 Update 4 can be downloaded from here.

Here’s an overview of the new features and bug fixes included in this release (this is a direct copy from the VMware release blurb):

WHAT’S NEW
Guest Operating System Customization Improvements – vCenter now supports customization of Windows Server 2008 guest operating systems.

Performance Overview Charts – vCenter 2.5 Update 4 introduces the Performance Overview plug-in, which provides a single view of key performance metrics for CPU, memory, disk, and network without having to navigate through multiple charts. The aggregated charts show high-level summaries of resource distribution.

RESOLVED ISSUES
Specifically, here are some excerpts from the Release Notes "Resolved issues" section:

Storage Information Displayed for ESX Server that Access Shared LUNs Is Now Accurate
When two or more ESX Server hosts access shared LUNs by using different device path numbers for host bus adapters (HBA), the Storage pane in the Configuration tab of vCenter Server displays accurate properties of the LUNs used by an ESX Server host.

In Addition to Virtual Machine Heartbeats the Virtual Machine Monitoring Service Monitors a Virtual Machine’s Disk and Network Activity
In previous releases of vCenter, in an HA-enabled cluster that has the virtual machine monitoring feature enabled with high monitoring sensitivity, the virtual machine monitoring service monitors only the heartbeats of virtual machine. When VMware tools is being upgraded on a virtual machine, although the virtual machine is still functioning properly, it stops sending heartbeats causing the virtual machine monitoring service to restart the virtual machine unnecessarily. The vmware.log file displays the following message: TOOLS INSTALL cancelling tools installation
Starting with this release, to avoid unnecessary restart of virtual machines, the virtual machine monitoring service also monitors a virtual machine’s disk and network activity. If no heartbeats are received within the failure interval, the virtual machine is not restarted unless there was also no disk or network activity for a predetermined I/O stats interval.

ESXi Server Installations Run Out of Inodes and Stop Responding to the vCenter Server
In previous releases, when an ESXi Server host in an HA-enabled cluster is isolated from the vCenter network and reconnected back to the vCenter network, after a while no free inodes might be available for the ESXi Server and the ESXi Server host might stop responding to the vCenter Server and the VI Client. This issue is resolved.

Useful Link:

VMware Infrastructure Compatibility Matrix