Zerto Upgrade Recommendation – IO Errors

Zerto Upgrade Recommendation – IO Errors

Today, Zerto released an Upgrade Bulletin regarding an issue with possible data corruption when Zerto incurs IO errors. The IO errors in question are received when a customer’s storage array controller becomes unresponsive or fails. This typically would occur during an upgrade in an environment that leverages high availability on their storage controllers. When the controller fails and the transfer between controllers occur, there is a brief period where Zerto incurs said IO errors. These errors appear to be different…

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VMware Tools and Windows RSS Issues

VMware Tools and Windows RSS Issues

Last Thursday, VMware distributed a rush post regarding an issue with Windows Server and VMware Tools. The issue pertains to packets being dropped on virtual machines running Windows as the guest OS and VMware Tools versions 9.10.0 through 10.1.5. For reference, 9.10.0 through 10.1.5 were packaged with ESXi 6.0 and 6.5, respectively. The increased rate of dropped packets stems from a malfunction in Windows Receive Side Scaling (RSS) on Windows 2012 and later guests. RSS normally works to distribute network processing…

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Upgrade ESXi to 6.5 using VMware Update Manager

Upgrade ESXi to 6.5 using VMware Update Manager

One of my favorite features in vCenter 6.5 is the built-in Update Manager. VMware Update Manager (VUM) 6.5 is used to patch and upgrade vSphere ESXi hosts, virtual appliances, VMware Tools, and virtual hardware. Previous versions of the vCenter Server Appliance required a separate Windows machine to run Update Manager. For many admins, this was a deterrent in deploying VUM. Now that the embedded Update Manager leverages the vCenter Server Appliance Postgres database, there is no additional vms to install…

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Update vCenter Server Appliance 6.5

Update vCenter Server Appliance 6.5

As versions of vCenter Server 6.5 are released, admins may be looking to update their environments to leverage the latest functionality and fixes. If you are at that point with your vCenter Server Appliance, don’t sweat the patch process. This update is easily performed using the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) and URL patching. If you are unfamiliar with the VAMI, it is the administrative interface that allows management and monitoring of the vCenter Appliance. If you are all too familiar with…

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VMware Patch Release for ESXi and vCenter 6.5

VMware Patch Release for ESXi and vCenter 6.5

Quick update: VMware released patches for both ESXi and vCenter 6.5 today. There are quite a few fixes we could discuss, but I will concentrate on the highlights and provide a few helpful links. VMware ESXi 6.5, Patch ESXi-6.5.0-20170304001-standard Fixes UNMAP – Automated UNMAP was introduced in 6.5, but has experienced some issues relating to requests not being passed to the storage array; thus, no space reclamation. Cormac Hogan has an in-depth article on this. ESXi SNMP Crash – The ESXi…

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