Virtual Center Server corrupted after 2.5 U3 upgrade
Posted by craig 
- on October 24th, 2008 in Virtualization | 8 Comments »
Many of you may trying to upgrade the Virtual Center Server 2.5 U3 which recently release from VMware. As usual, I always like to be the earlier bird to test out everything and be excited to implement to my environment. Here is what I discover during the after the upgrade.
During the upgrade, there is the SQL script at the backend which trying to upgrade your DB table for your virtual center database and update manager. It does show some error during the upgrade and the screen will dissapear. Once it complete, you will find that your virtual center are still functioning as usual. 2 days later, you will start realize the Virtual center services is not able to be started anymore. Now is the big problem come. If you have backup your DB before the upgrade, you should be good. Or else, you will lose whatever data previously you have. Always backup the DB before any upgrade. A good example, missing template posted by superman previously.
From this issue, I spent a full day to investigate 1 by 1 to troubleshoot and find out the root cause. I had even removed the entire VC and reinstall the previous version, unfortunately, problem is not as easy as I had thought. This doesn’t solve my problem. The last move, I reinitiate the DB for both virtual center and update manager both during the fresh installation, now the environment is back to normal.
I had conclusion the root casue is absolutely cause by the failure upgrade on the SQL during the upgrade installation. I am not very confident to the VMware QA team regarding their upgrade release. They should had tested this all upgrade properly before it release for the public. It could be very risky to the users always.
Some additional tips before you reinstall, you should browse to the folder location which previously store all the patches you had download for your update manager, in case you do not required to re-download again once you reinstall. The patches could be easily more than 4GB, which will take a long time for you to download from the internet again.
Today, I found some solution from VMware sites.
This had clearly explained the bugs they have for this upgrade. But again, is too late for my case which is already screw up my virtual center. Earlier bird is always risky and excited but again, VMware need to improve their QA and QC for the product release.
Tags: Database, DB, ESX, SQL, VC, virtual center, VMware
8 Responses
Do you happen to be running SQL 2005 as the backend? We were having issue with our 2.5u2 environment and stumbled across this article:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003391
I went through the link you stated, it seems to be the DSN connection happen to you. My experience is I reconfigure the Native client connection in the ODBC again and select the specify DB name it point to the virtual center and update manager both. Yes, I am running on SQL 2005 sp2.
Got a long time had not seen you comment on our blog, you are busy with some big VMware project recently?
Oh yes, I have been really busy lately, but I’ll be catching up and leaving comments again, as I don’t want to miss any of the articles you post. I have even pointed some of my counterparts in Malaysia to your user group. keep up the good work!
I think the Native drivers helped (but not stopped) the problem we were having with the vum plugin frequently unloading from virtual center as well. since switching the DSN over to native I have only experienced one drop.
That seems to be the well known bugs for the update manager plugin unload. But the funny thing is, I install on the vitual center server with the client and plugin, I had not experienced the plugin unload, but my team who try to log in remotely and utilize that, they had experience unloading the plugin most of the time.
Hi
I have done 4 upgardes for various customers so far, and none of them have failed or had the VC service stop working. On all of the updates I started from the autorun.exe file. From reading the kb articles etc if you do not use the autorun.exe file then not everything is updated.
However the UM plugin unloading still happens on atleast two customers and it is so damn annoying!!!!!!
Keep up the articles
Cheers
David
Just to share with you David, when I 1st did the upgrade with the autorun.exe, I still have my Virtual center work exactly as usual. It start showing the corrupt after a few days which it stop functioning on the update manager and follow by the virtual center. Hopefully it does not happen to your case but VMware had issue this solution as is not only myself facing this issues.
Did you hear about VMware FT? I just read a bit about it on http://www.virtualizationteam.com/virtualization-vmware/vmware-esx-40-ft-fault-tolerant-sneak-peek.html Would u think that would replace VMware HA? I had seen a video even of FT on that link. Is it available yet?
This features will only release in the next major version upgrade. It will not replace HA as it is a different concept of HA. Current HA is to prevent Host failure but moving forward, the FT will also provide the additional coverage on VM level to prevent data lost during the VM failure. We will post more when the next version of ESX is official release.