Release: vSphere 4.1 Update 1

Like many others already mentioned today: vSphere 4.1 Update 1 has been RELEASED!

I selected a couple of fixes from the release notes that made our life as a vSphere admin a lot better :

• vCenter Storage Monitoring plug-in might not get enabled if vSphere Client 4.1 is connected to vCenter Server 4.0
  If you use vSphere Client 4.1 to connect to vCenter Server 4.0, and you then enable the vCenter Storage Monitoring plug-in, the Plug-in Manager Window might display an error similar to the following:
  The plug-in failed to load on server(s) vmvc38 due to the following error:
  Could not load file or assembly 'VpxClientCommon, Version=4.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7c8-0a434483c7c50' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

  This issue is resolved in this release.




• Performance Overview data might not display after upgrading to vCenter Server 4.1
  Performance Overview data for the past day, week, and month might not be displayed after upgrading to vCenter Server 4.1.

  This issue is resolved in this release.

• Performance data might be missing for certain intervals after upgrading to vCenter Server 4.1
  After upgrading to vCenter Server 4.1 or every time that vCenter Server restarts, multiple threads might invoke the same stored procedure to process statistics in temporary tables (VPX_TEMPTABLE[1,2,3]) at the same time causing certain operations to not complete. This might lead to failure in collection of statistics. The performance data in the performance overview charts might be missing for certain intervals.

  This issue is resolved in this release.

• Replacing SSL certificates in vCenter Server with custom certificates generated using OpenSSL 1.0.0 or later causes Storage Monitoring Service to fail
  For this issue, the following error is recorded in the sms.log files:
  Error constructing private key
  
  This issue is resolved in this release.
• Search functionality might not display results if you use vSphere Client 4.1 to access vCenter Server 4.0
  If you use vSphere Client 4.1 to connect to a vCenter Server 4.0 system that is using vCenter Linked Mode, and you then perform a search function, the search results might not appear and might seem that the search function does not complete.

  This issue is resolved in this release.

• vCenter Server alarm actions are triggered repeatedly even after the state of the alarm reverts to normal †
  Some vCenter Server event and state-based alarm actions are triggered repeatedly even after the alert status reverts to green (normal).

  This issue is resolved in this release.

Grab your copy of vCenter Server 4.1 Update 1 here: VMware

I made also a short list of fixes in ESX:

• Some virtual machines stop responding during storage rescan operation when any LUN on the host is in an all-paths-down (APD) state
  During storage rescan operation, some virtual machines stop responding when any LUN on the host is in an all-paths-down (APD) state. For more information, see KB 1016626 at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1016626. To work around the problem in the KB, manually set the advanced configuration option /VMFS3/FailVolumeOpenIfAPD to 1 before issuing the rescan and then reset it to 0 after the completion of the rescan operation. The issue is resolved in this release. You need not apply the workaround of setting and not setting the advanced configuration option while starting the rescan operation. Virtual machines on non-APD volumes will no longer fail during a rescan operation, even if some LUNs are in an all-paths-down state.
• Creation of large .vmdk files on NFS might fail
  When you create a virtual disk (.vmdk file) with a large size, for example, more than 1TB, on NFS storage, the creation process might fail with an error: A general system error occurred: Failed to create disk: Error creating disk. This issue occurs when the NFS client does not wait for sufficient time for the NFS storage array to initialize the virtual disk after the RPC parameter of the NFS client times out. By default the timeout value is 10 seconds. This fix provides the configuration option to tune the RPC timeout parameter using the esxcfg-advcfg -s <Timeout> /NFS/SetAttrRPCTimeout command.
• Updates for the WDDM driver
  In this release, the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver is updated to fix some infrequent issues where a Windows virtual machine fails and displays a blue screen.
• Cannot take quiesced snapshots of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machine running vCenter Server 4.1
  When creating a snapshot of a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machine that has vCenter Server 4.1 installed, the snapshot operation might fail to complete. This issue occurs on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machines when the ADAM database is installed.

  The issue is resolved in this release.

Grab your copy of ESX(i) 4.1 Update 1 here: VMware