Posted by Brian on Aug 11, 2010 in VMware, vCenter Server, vSphere | View Comments
The top notch team that runs the VMware VROOM blog recently announced the release of a new sizing tool. The tool will help you estimate the size of your VUM database, patch store and temporary disk space. It will also give you recommendations on where to place your VUM database and if you should install VMware Update Manager on your vCenter server. The tool is a Excel document and that requires you to answer about 20 questions and then displays 5 recommendations based upon your details.
The following input parameters are used to estimate how much disk space VUM will need:
- Feasibility for virtual machine remediation
- Number of ESX and ESXi flavors in the deployment
- Number of hosts, virtual machines, Windows distributions, average number of locales for Windows distribution, average number of different Service Pack levels for Windows distribution
- Patch scan frequency for virtual machines
- VMware Tools upgrade scan frequency for virtual machines
- Virtual machine hardware upgrade scan frequency
- Patch scan frequency for hosts
- Upgrade scan frequency for hosts
- Whether VUM 4.1 is upgraded from 4.0 and old ESXi upgrade bundles are still used
The following are the outputs from the tool:
- VMware vCenter Update Manager 4.1 database deployment model recommendations
- VMware vCenter Update Manager 4.1 server deployment model recommendations
- Initial disk space utilization in MB for database, patch store, and temporary space
- Monthly disk space utilization growth in MB for database and patch store
- The upper and lower bounds on the estimation, assuming a 20% variance
You can see from the screen shot I took below from the document that it’s a very simple tool to use. Most are yes/no questions and others are just inputting a number count for the question.
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Posted by Brian on May 28, 2010 in VMware, vSphere | View Comments
In the early morning hours a pack of emails arrived to notify me of the latest round of patches for vSphere and related products. Most of the patches are related to the Service Console for ESX. A couple of the issues are shared in ESXi and are fixed with the patches.
ESX 4.0 Patches
VMSA-2010-0009 – ESX400-201005401-SG
Updates apps, cim, exsupdate, scripts, tools, vmkernel64, uwlibs, kernel, and openssl
VMSA-2010-0004.1 – ESX400-201002001
ESX Service Console updates for newt, nfs-utils, and glib2 packages.
ESXi 4.0 Patches
VMSA-2010-0009 – ESXi400-201005401-SG
The updated NTP daemon fixes a flaw in the way it handled certain malformed NTP packets.
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Posted by Brian on Mar 27, 2010 in VMware, vSphere | View Comments
Sorry for the crazy post title but I could not resist being a big fan of Zombie movies. Now on to the meat of the subject. The vSphere Host Update utility that comes as an option with the vSphere Client can be a very helpful tool. You can use it for host version upgrades for both ESX and ESXi. It is also a very simple patching tool for ESXi. You have use Host update utility to apply any ESXi security or update patches to your hosts.
So if you a small shot or not a scripting genius this little gem will provide a solid way to keep your hosts up on all the latest patches. The only draw back is that you cannot use it to patch ESX hosts. I will run through how to use this utility so that you can hit the ground running.
Upon opening the utility it should add in your host if you have an open connection to it with the vSphere client. If not just add it in manually via the add option form the top menu. Once added you will need to Download patches from VMware, this is really just downloading a patching list that applies to your host not pulling down the packages.
Once the patch list has been downloaded you will see a display like the one below. It will show your hosts and list how many patches are detected and the status of your host. You will now need to make sure your host that is being patched is in maintenance mode.
Next you will want to click the Patch Host button and you will be presented with the following options. You will now see all of the patches available for your host and be able to select which ones you will download and apply. By clicking on the different patches you will get a short description of what the patch is and what it fixes or updates. Now you can select which patch you want to apply, I will be applying the Update 1 patch and then come back and re-scan and apply anything that is left over. I figured this would be the smartest way and potentially not apply patches that might be in Update 1 already. I did it that way since I am not sure the level of intelligence that is built into the patching selection of this utility. After your selections are made proceed with the install.
Next the vSphere Host update utility begins to download all selected patches and will then apply them. You will see a progress window like below that will show you how things are moving along.
Once your patches have been downloaded and applied the tool will show you a confirmation like the image below. Then the ESXi host will be rebooted.
Once your host has been rebooted you can now re-scan the host to see if there are any more patches for your host.
After applying Update 1 to my test ESXi host I re-scanned and there was only 4 patches left to apply. This is much less than the 13 listed from the original scan. So by applying the latest update I was able to save time and reboots. Now depending on what reason your are patching for this approach may not be the best for your environment. Always research each patch being applied for what it fixes and any potential side affects it might have on your environment.
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