Oh, I hate upgrades...
Hopefully if plans go well I will be doing a bunch of upgrades this weekend.
Firstly I will be doing the EqualLogic firmware, which, due to some rather buttock clenching moments, I have got different versions on a couple of our systems so I need to get them all in line. I will probably go for 5.0.5 rather than the latest 5.0.7 as it has been out for a while and seems to be relatively safe and as I get older safest seems more bearable than latest.
This also means I need to get all the iSCSI connected servers on to the latest version of the HIT kit which is always a worry as most of these are physical servers so you can't just snapshot and then roll back if there is a problem, I will probably pull one of the mirrored system drives before updating to give a quick recovery if it all goes horribly wrong.
The other is an update to do is VMware up to 4.1, this is a straight forward thing for the most part, however it is made more problematic by the need to update the VMware tools on all the servers, whilst it is not critical it would be nice to do it at the same time, though this could be left for another weekend if we run out of time, unfortunately this is a reboot of all our servers.
The update of the Host servers should be very simple, alas due to misunderstanding MS licenses we can't legally vMotion our SQL servers, these are all on standard server licences, you can only vMotion SQL if you are using per processor Enterprise or Datacenter licenses, you can then license each host for up to 4 SQL instances, I think, but I could be wrong as this is MS licences so I could have read the wrong license release or not the most up to date one...... Anyways, this means the servers will need to be shutdown rather tha moved when the hosts are updated, we could just move tham and hope Microsoft don't turn up and do an audit like everyone else but we are on a hit list at the moment so we have a higher chance than most of being audited.
Whilst on the subject of VMware updates, trying to locate the minor version updates on the VMware website is the most ridiculously difficult thing you can do. You would have thought you go to downloads and and find the 4.0 to 4.1 update, but know, I can't remember where I found it before and I can't find it now, it doesn't seem to exist, talk about making life difficult, VMware really need to sort out it's website it getting more like Symantec every day, so busy trying to sell stuff that it forgets it needs to support its existing users in simple and sensible way. You can log in to the website but that in itself is a trauma you don't need as you have to select where you want to go after you have logged in but none of the options are what you want, there are no download options for a start.
Why am I even looking for a download anyway? The update manager built in to the Virtual Centre software can patch the hosts and it will download the updates and apply them but if you want to update a version you have to manually download the patch, upload to the VC create a baseline and baseline group then apply it. Why?
VMware have moved from making my life simpler to making it more difficult than it needs to be.
They need to sort the support side of the website so it focused on the needs of existing users and doesn't have the needless rubbish and sort out the upgrade manager so that it can do version upgrades without all that pfaffing around. Then I just need to sort out MS licensing......
Firstly I will be doing the EqualLogic firmware, which, due to some rather buttock clenching moments, I have got different versions on a couple of our systems so I need to get them all in line. I will probably go for 5.0.5 rather than the latest 5.0.7 as it has been out for a while and seems to be relatively safe and as I get older safest seems more bearable than latest.
This also means I need to get all the iSCSI connected servers on to the latest version of the HIT kit which is always a worry as most of these are physical servers so you can't just snapshot and then roll back if there is a problem, I will probably pull one of the mirrored system drives before updating to give a quick recovery if it all goes horribly wrong.
The other is an update to do is VMware up to 4.1, this is a straight forward thing for the most part, however it is made more problematic by the need to update the VMware tools on all the servers, whilst it is not critical it would be nice to do it at the same time, though this could be left for another weekend if we run out of time, unfortunately this is a reboot of all our servers.
The update of the Host servers should be very simple, alas due to misunderstanding MS licenses we can't legally vMotion our SQL servers, these are all on standard server licences, you can only vMotion SQL if you are using per processor Enterprise or Datacenter licenses, you can then license each host for up to 4 SQL instances, I think, but I could be wrong as this is MS licences so I could have read the wrong license release or not the most up to date one...... Anyways, this means the servers will need to be shutdown rather tha moved when the hosts are updated, we could just move tham and hope Microsoft don't turn up and do an audit like everyone else but we are on a hit list at the moment so we have a higher chance than most of being audited.
Whilst on the subject of VMware updates, trying to locate the minor version updates on the VMware website is the most ridiculously difficult thing you can do. You would have thought you go to downloads and and find the 4.0 to 4.1 update, but know, I can't remember where I found it before and I can't find it now, it doesn't seem to exist, talk about making life difficult, VMware really need to sort out it's website it getting more like Symantec every day, so busy trying to sell stuff that it forgets it needs to support its existing users in simple and sensible way. You can log in to the website but that in itself is a trauma you don't need as you have to select where you want to go after you have logged in but none of the options are what you want, there are no download options for a start.
Why am I even looking for a download anyway? The update manager built in to the Virtual Centre software can patch the hosts and it will download the updates and apply them but if you want to update a version you have to manually download the patch, upload to the VC create a baseline and baseline group then apply it. Why?
VMware have moved from making my life simpler to making it more difficult than it needs to be.
They need to sort the support side of the website so it focused on the needs of existing users and doesn't have the needless rubbish and sort out the upgrade manager so that it can do version upgrades without all that pfaffing around. Then I just need to sort out MS licensing......
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