ESX 4.1 and VC 4.1 has been Released

dasaint

[H]ard|Gawd
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Just a heads up to all of you 4.1 has been released to the public.
 
http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/vsp_41_new_feat.html

Only thing that really peaked my interest personally are:

vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) Enhancements. VADP now offers VSS quiescing support for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 servers. This enables application-consistent backup and restore operations for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 applications.

vCenter Converter Hyper-V Import. vCenter Converter allows users to point to a Hyper-V machine. Converter displays the virtual machines running on the Hyper-V system, and users can select a powered-off virtual machine to import to a VMware destination. See the vCenter Converter Installation and Administration Guide.
 
The thing that caught me was that 4.1 vCenter requires 64bit. That throws a whole new kink in my VI3 to vSphere upgrade.
 
Anything new and cool to check out?

No more ESX after this release -- only ESXi.

Storage IO QoS.

NFS improvements.

FT improvements and compatibility with HA and DRS.

AD integration.

DRS host affinity.

VMotion performance enhancements.

Improved VM memory savings.

Lots of goodies.
 
Yeah the no more ESX was kind of interesting. Guess I will do the migration now to ESXi
 
Yeah the no more ESX was kind of interesting. Guess I will do the migration now to ESXi

No surprise. VMware has been saying this for a while. The holdup for many people was boot from SAN..that is now supported in ESXi 4.1.
 
no upgrade path to x64 bit vCenter server :(

oh well, mine are starting to show their age anyways.
 
Is there no update for the from ESXi U2 to 4.1.

The update utility is telling me both of my servers are up to date.

I'm running the free version if it makes a difference
 
You need to attach an upgrade baseline to your cluster or hosts if you're trying to update with UM.

Make sure you update vCenter and UM to 4.1 before you start updating your hosts.
 
updated my '4.0.0 update 1' farm today to 4.1, no issues.
everything went smoothly.
 
Could someone explain this transition from ESX to ESXi. I thought ESXi was Vmware's free version on ESX? I am confused. :confused:
 
running two 4.1 servers in the lab now.. still waiting before updating production. the general consensus in #vmware is just say no to 4.1, mostly hp/driver/tools issues.

i havent seen any issues in the lab on our dell hardware yet so probably rolling it out in august.
 
Could someone explain this transition from ESX to ESXi. I thought ESXi was Vmware's free version on ESX? I am confused. :confused:

In addition to what CoW already said it's also true that ESXi is free but can also be licensed to have the same functionality as ESX minus the service console.
 
running two 4.1 servers in the lab now.. still waiting before updating production. the general consensus in #vmware is just say no to 4.1, mostly hp/driver/tools issues.

i havent seen any issues in the lab on our dell hardware yet so probably rolling it out in august.

I've had some trouble with VMware Tools with my whiteboxes at home. Nothing too hard to rectify (sometimes requiring installing twice) but I wouldn't want to mess with it in production.
 
Anyone experiencing severe mouse lag in ESXi 4.1 even after installing vmware tools in the guest? I could not stand it and reverted back to ESXi 4.0 Update 1 and have no issues.
 
Anyone experiencing severe mouse lag in ESXi 4.1 even after installing vmware tools in the guest? I could not stand it and reverted back to ESXi 4.0 Update 1 and have no issues.

You probably need to reinstall the W2K8 WDDM display adapter driver.

Go into Device Manager, update drivers on your Display adapter. Should be listed as a default SVGA. Tell it to look for the driver in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers\wddm_video.
 
Thanks for the reply child of wonder. I reinstalled 4.1 this after noon and tried your recommendation but I am still having the same issue. I noticed that this occurs in both my Windows 7 and Windows XP hosts. Before I install VMware tools it is choppy as anything (basically unworkable) but after I install them the mouse is smoothed out. I noticed that when I drag windows that they are still choppy. They do not drag smoothly like they did in esxi 4.0. I tried to reinstall the display drivers in my guests and have tried reinstalling vmware tools a few times without any resolution. I am going to try and work on the issue a bit further since I am convinced that I am missing a setting. Anyone with a resolution to this feel free to chime in!
 
You will also need to enable hardware acceleration. The VMWare tools install doesn't tell you to do it in 2K8.
 
That was one of the items that I checked. Interestingly enough this issue is not just limited to 2008. It also affects Windows XP, 2000, Ubuntu 10 & 9, Backtrack and Linux Mint. Not sure what they changed in 4.1 but it sure did cause a whole handful of issues for me!
 
Took the dive last night on my production boxes (Dell Poweredge 2950s) Expect for a jerky mouse in Server 2008 R2 everything seems to be fine
 
Took the dive last night on my production boxes (Dell Poweredge 2950s) Expect for a jerky mouse in Server 2008 R2 everything seems to be fine

Good to hear. My dev environment is 1950s, and those will be upgraded first. It's the R610s in prod that I'm worried about.
 
Took the dive last night on my production boxes (Dell Poweredge 2950s) Expect for a jerky mouse in Server 2008 R2 everything seems to be fine

I'll qualify that a little. There is bad mouse acceleration in the VMware console in Server 2008 R2 but Remote Desktop is fine. Its not a deal breaker for me at least.
 
A google brought me here and I can confirm that the 2008 R2 systems on VMware ESXi 4.1 had noticeable mouse lag, even with VMware tools installed, until I updated the display adapter driver.
 
Is there no update for the from ESXi U2 to 4.1.

The update utility is telling me both of my servers are up to date.

I'm running the free version if it makes a difference

Yeah.. the host update utility apparently isn't being developed anymore. In order to update an esxi host without using VUM, use vihostupdate. Strange, I guess they're trying to make it more difficult to update "free" esxi hosts, but at the same time, there are people who actually license stadalone servers and this impacts them.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1016209

If you use google-fu there is quite a bit of help on downloading the compressed update, exctracting it, and applying the update with the vCLI.
 
Yeah.. the host update utility apparently isn't being developed anymore. In order to update an esxi host without using VUM, use vihostupdate. Strange, I guess they're trying to make it more difficult to update "free" esxi hosts, but at the same time, there are people who actually license stadalone servers and this impacts them.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1016209

If you use google-fu there is quite a bit of help on downloading the compressed update, exctracting it, and applying the update with the vCLI.

Thanks

Found that article shortly after my post been running happily on 4.1 since shortly after release.
 
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