There is a interessting point in the Workstation 6.5 Beta 1 feature list.

New virtual hardware version — This new hardware version lets you use the following new features if the guest operating system supports them: Add or remove some virtual devices while the virtual machine is powered on ("hot-plug"). Use LSI Logic SAS (serial attached SCSI) adapters in the virtual machine. 3-D graphics capabilities are enabled by default. Hot-add virtual CPUs and memory to a Windows Server 2008 guest.

This sounds great! After Microsoft drop of this feature of Hyper-V (postponed to an unannounced date ) VMware will be the first with this feature.
But this will not work in all VM´s. This depends on the Dynamic Hardware Partitioning (DHP) technology that Microsoft started to implement in Windows Server 2003 SP1 and which is fully enabled in Windows Server 2008.

Source

There is a great news from VMware.
VMware changed the license model which allows you now to use a single socket cpu server. You can now buy a License with 2 sockets and split them into two single socket servers.
The smb market is waiting for this a long time.

Great. Source
 

There is a very interessting post at the site www.vmug.com.
Ernst, a user of this site posted a script to load balance paths to an active/active SAN.
It alwas select the next path to a LUN.
I found this news at www.yellow-bricks.com

Script:

for PATHS in 2 4 6 8
do
STPATHS=${PATHS}
COUNTER=”1″
for LUN in $(esxcfg-mpath -l | grep “has ${STPATHS} paths” | awk ‘{print $2}’)
do
esxcfg-mpath –lun=${LUN} –path=$(esxcfg-mpath -q –lun=${LUN} | grep FC | awk ‘{print $4}’ | awk ‘{print NR “S\t ” $0}’ | grep ${COUNTER}S | awk ‘{print $2}’) –preferred
COUNT=`expr ${COUNTER} + 1`
COUNTER=${COUNT}
if [[ ${COUNTER} -gt ${STPATHS} ]]
then
COUNTER=”1″
fi
done
done


This will result in the following outcome with “esxcfg-mpath -l”:

Disk vmhba2:1:4 /dev/sdh (512000MB) has 4 paths and policy of Fixed
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e812 vmhba2:1:4 On active preferred
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e873 vmhba2:2:4 On
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e802 vmhba4:1:4 On
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e863 vmhba4:2:4 On
Disk vmhba2:1:5 /dev/sdi (512000MB) has 4 paths and policy of Fixed
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e812 vmhba2:1:5 On
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e873 vmhba2:2:5 On active preferred
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e802 vmhba4:1:5 On
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e863 vmhba4:2:5 On
Disk vmhba2:1:6 /dev/sdj (307200MB) has 4 paths and policy of Fixed
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e812 vmhba2:1:6 On
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e873 vmhba2:2:6 On
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e802 vmhba4:1:6 On active preferred
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e863 vmhba4:2:6 On
Disk vmhba2:1:7 /dev/sdk (307200MB) has 4 paths and policy of Fixed
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e812 vmhba2:1:7 On
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e873 vmhba2:2:7 On
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e802 vmhba4:1:7 On
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e863 vmhba4:2:7 On active preferred
Disk vmhba2:1:8 /dev/sdl (512000MB) has 4 paths and policy of Fixed
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e812 vmhba2:1:8 On active preferred
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e873 vmhba2:2:8 On
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e802 vmhba4:1:8 On
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e863 vmhba4:2:8 On
Disk vmhba2:1:9 /dev/sdm (512000MB) has 4 paths and policy of Fixed
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e812 vmhba2:1:9 On
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000646c8a<->50060e8004f2e873 vmhba2:2:9 On active preferred
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e802 vmhba4:1:9 On
FC 19:0.1 50060b0000646062<->50060e8004f2e863 vmhba4:2:9 On
In other words, when you run this script each LUN will be addressed via a specific path and all HBA’s and SAN Disk Controllers will be used instead of the default first path / first controller policy. This will result in a better performance and distribution of load on the SAN Disk Controllers.

• Both 64 bit and 32 bit Windows 2003 guests are supported with MSCS.
• Boot from SAN for VMs using MSCS is now supported.
• Majority Node Set clusters with application-level replication (for example, Microsoft Exchange 2007 Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR)) is now supported.

For details regarding MSCS support, including a number of important restrictions, please see the document “Setup for Microsoft Cluster Service.” For information concerning supported storage arrays, refer to the Storage/SAN Compatibility Guide for ESX Server 3.5 and ESX Server 3i.

Source 

There are some new information about the new VMware Certified Design Engineer certification:

The VMware Certified Design Engineer certification will be available later this year. The certification involved taking several courses and exams, including:

Courses

• Install and Configure
• DSA
• Design course (currently under development)

Exam

• VCP on VI3
• Enterprise Exam (currently in private beta)
• Design Exam (currently under development)

Once all of this has been completed the candidate must present a defensible design to a panel of VMware Solution Architects for consideration. As you may guess, this is a certification specifically targeted for VMware partners that will be assisting VMware in design and deployment and is only intended for a relatively small audience. That being said, the Enterprise Exam, which has a number of live lab style questions, should be available to the public in the next few months and may become part of a mid-line certification between VCP on VI3 and VCDX. That is also under consideration.

Jon C. Hall Technical Certification Developer VMware, Inc.

I work at the moment a lot with the VI Tool Kit and had a look to the Database which is used by the VC.
Asking my fried google I found a entry on the blog of my friend Jens Wagener who posted a link to the complete MSSQL Schema.
Very cool.

Download

On the website of Duncan Epping I read a news about a new tool from Rob de Veij. He created a tool which easily upgrade the VMware Tools in your Vm´s.

RVTools is a small .NET 2.0 application which uses the VI SDK to display the version of the installed VMware tools.It also shows if the tools are upgradeable. The button “Upgrade VMware Tools” starts an UpgradeTools_Task for every selected VM.

Download here 

VMware changed the name of VMware ESX 3i to VMware ESXi.

I think this is great.
 

Sun launched Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Software 2.0, an end-to-end solution that helps organizations to easily and efficiently establish and manage virtual desktop sessions on any operating system including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows Mobile.

Read more here

www.virtualization.info wirte a nice article about the new features for the Workstation 6.5

You find the article and the feature list here. 

It takes a lot of  time but now the sessions from the Vmworld Europe 2008 are online! You can download the files here.

Have fun. 

Today, we had the problem that we have a VC which can´t connect to the internet. So we need a other server which download the Updates that we can import them into the VC.

Here is a small how to...

Install Update Manager Download Service

This machine must have Internet access.
This system will require another database beyond what the Update Manager in Virtual Center uses, so you may not want to install it there.
Also, you will need to burn CDs/DVDs or transfer files to a device
This all being said, a workstation is a good candidate system

Install the Update Manager Download Service on the above machine. Take note of the installation folder and the folder where the downloads will be stored. You dont need to install the Update Manager from the Virtual Center.
Files are located in "umds" folder of the Virtual Center installation CD image
Open the VMware-UMDS.exe file to install
Select to use the local SQL 2005 Express database server
Download Current Updates
The best thing to do is setup a Windows Scheduled Task that downloads the updates automatically. The first step is to create a script to accomplish this manually then you can make it a scheduled task.

To get current downloads:

• Change to the "C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager" directory
• Run the program: vmware-udms --download (or "vmware-umds -D")
• Get coffee! Really, the first run takes a loonngg time.

NOTE: It is possible to configure the download to only retrieve ESX host updates, Windows VM updates and/or Linux VM updates. To change which updates are downloaded use the following syntax:

vmware-udms -S -h true | false
vmware-udms -S -w true | false
vmware-udms -S -l true | false

For example: vmware-umds -S -h true will d/l ESX host patches, vmware-umds -S -w false will NOT d/l Windows VM patches, etc. This can be useful if you want to verify the process but not spend time waiting for the Windows patches to download. Before running "vmware-umds -D", disable Windows and Linux and verify that the ESX patches are downloaded successfully

Once downloads are done you need to export to a local file repository:

• Change to the "C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager" directory
• Run the program: vmware-umds -E --dest <FULL PATH TO YOUR REPOSITORY> -s 2007-01-01T00:00:00 -t 2007-12-31T23:59:59 

Once exported you need to export your repository to some sort of portable media, say a DVD.

Import Updates to Virtual Center on Isolated Network

Now that your Internet connect machine has done all the dirty work, you need to get the updates into Virtual Center's Update Database:

• Get you update media connected to Virtual Center so it can access the files
• Change to the "C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager" directory on Virtual Center
• Run the program: vmware-updateDownloadCli.exe --update-path <PATH TO FILES FROM THE EXPORT> --config-import windows esx --vc-user <YOUR VC USER>

My friend Markus send me a very interesting link!
On this blog is a article about the VMware VI Toolkit Beta version and thtat it is right now available.
He write that he found the download on the site where we can download the Lab-Manual. Very cool!

Because it is a German blog so I give you the link directrly to the download.

Have fun.

Blog

Article

Download VI Toolkit VMware Beta

Lab-Manual 

VMware released today a lot of patches for ESX 3.5

ESX350-200802301-BG : Update to the bnx2 Driver
ESX350-200802303-SG : Security Update to the util-linux Package
ESX350-200802304-SG : Security Update to the Perl Package
ESX350-200802305-SG : Security Update to the openssl Package
ESX350-200802306-BG : VMware ESX Server 3.5, Patch ESX350-200802306-BG: Daylight Saving Time Update
ESX350-200802401-BG : Updates to vmware-hostd
ESX350-200802403-BG : Improved Statistics Collection for Support Scripts, Fix for Patch Issue Seen After Upgrading from ESX Server 2.5.x to 3.5.0
ESX350-200802404-BG : Resolves DMA Issues on LSI 1078 and 106XE HBAs
ESX350-200802405-BG : Update to MegaRAID SCSI Driver to Fix Dell PowerEdge 6650 Boot Issue
ESX350-200802406-SG : Updated aacraid Driver
ESX350-200802408-SG : Security Updates to the Python Package
ESX350-200802409-BG : Fix for Reset Issue with CD-ROM Controller
ESX350-200802410-BG : Unexpected Reboot of Virtual Machines Configured to Automatically Start or Stop
ESX350-200802411-BG : Enhanced Validation Checks, and Fixes for Storage VMotion and Lab Manager
ESX350-200802412-BG : Updates to the VMkernel to Fix Networking and Hardware Issues
ESX350-200802413-BG : Sunfire X4200 Host Hangs Because of HBA Timeouts Due to DMA Problems
ESX350-200802414-BG : Discrete Sensors Report Wrong Information to Monitors
ESX350-200802415-SG : Security Update to Samba Packages

There is also a new patch for 3i available.

ESXe350-200802401-I-BG : Update to the bnx2 Driver

I have next week a big test with our hardware and a lot of other products. I will test the patches in our solution center. 

At the VI PowerShell Blog on vmware.com there is a nice information about the Beta Version of the VI Toolkit.
I played with this great tool in a lab at VMworld in Cannes. It´s not so easy but a very mighty tool.

The Blog entry advertise that the Beta start this month and give us the facility to download the lab manual. Great!

Blog

Lab Manual