In addition, there are several minor bug fixes which were fixed which impacted tool functionality.

For further details and to download the latest version of the SSL tool see: Deploying and Using the SSL Certificate Automation Tool (2041600)

We hope these additions provide useful for everyone!

We have a new video today which is brief and straight to the point. This video is specifically geared towards first-time users of our VMware Fusion product.

This video discusses and demonstrates how you can license VMware Fusion.

In this brief video tutorial you will learn how quick and easy it is to license your VMware Fusion product installation on your Mac operating system.

For more information, see VMware Knowledge Base article Licensing VMware Fusion (2014287).

Note: For best viewing experience, ensure the 720p quality setting is selected and view using full screen mode.

In order to obtain some real world perspective, we met up with some of our Technical Support Engineers at our support center in Cork, Ireland and mainly asked them two questions:

1. What are the most common issues they deal with concerning vSphere Databases?
2. What advice do they have for ensuring that a vSphere Database is maintained?

Here is what they had to say….

Common Issues

The two most common issues that come into our Technical Support teams are:

1. Database Corruption
2. Database Performance

These are really the two biggest issues that customers encounter with their SQL databases in their vSphere environments.

Many a database administrator has nightmares about database corruption and when an incident comes along quite often many hours are spent by the DBA trying to rescue the situation. Sadly, database corruption is something that just happens; nobody plans to have it.

If you are or were a system administrator or a database administrator at some point during your career, chances are that there was probably a time when you learned the hard way about not having a recent database backup.

However it is not all doom and gloom when it comes to database corruption incidents. The impact and headaches of such a corruption incident can be minimized and reduced by simply applying and enforcing a policy of regular database backups. Taking regular database backups will not fix the corrupted database but at least your road to recovery will be a much better and less painful one.

Along with database corruption the other big generator for support requests is that of database performance. A database is like the heart of the environment and just like a heart, if it is in a bad or a poorly maintained condition then it is going to experience performance issues.

The vSphere database is what manages and runs the jobs and processes that take place within the environment in any given moment. The speed at which the vSphere environment can run effectively and efficiently is quite often determined by the health of the database. If your database is unhealthy, then chances are you will notice performance impacts within your environment.

What symptoms should I look out for?

Symptoms of database corruption would include the vCenter Server failing to start or crashing on particular tasks.

Symptoms for database performance related issues can be more varied, however some common ones include:

• The vCenter Server taking a long time to start up
• Tasks taking a long time to complete or are timing out

Some Helpful Database Maintenance Tips

When it comes to database corruption scenarios the best thing that you really can have is a recent backup. This will save a lot of time and heartache when it comes to restoring your environment and the more recent the backup the better as it will minimize the loss of data.

In regards to database performance issues, prevention really is the best cure and so here are some steps and measures which will help to reduce or prevent your environment from encountering poor database performance:

1. Monitor scheduled database jobs to ensure they are running correctly – For more information, refer to KB article: Checking the status of vCenter Server performance rollup jobs (2012226)
2. Collect Stats
3. Rebuild Indexes – For more information, refer to KB article: Rebuilding indexes to improve the performance of SQL Server and Oracle vCenter Server databases (2009918)
4. Delete old data – For more information, refer to KB article: Reducing the size of the vCenter Server database when the rollup scripts take a long time to run (1007453)
5. Monitor Database Growth – For more information, refer to KB article:
   Determining where growth is occurring in the vCenter Server database (1028356)

A pdf document on vCenter Server Database Best Practices is available: VMware vCenter Server 5.1 Database Performance Improvements and Best Practices for Large-Scale Environments

unknown user or bad password

or:

The authentication server returned an unexpected error: ns0:RequestFailed: 
Internal Error while creating SAML 2.0 Token. 
The error may be caused by a malfunctioning identity source.

This is caused by a configuration issue related to the groups on the local Operating System having Active Directory users in them.  There is an easy fix to the issue, removing the localOS identity source from vCenter Server Single-Sign-On(SSO). All of the steps are detailed in KB article: Logging in to the vSphere Web Client fails with the error: ns0:RequestFailed: Internal Error while creating SAML 2.0 Token (2043070) but you can think of this as an addendum.

Before you go ahead and remove the local identity source, one should be aware that any local users will no longer have login access once the local identity source is removed.  Also, a domain account should be configured with SSO administrative privileges before removing the identity source.

To remove the identity source, log in to the Web Client using the SSO administrator,(admin@system-domain, go to Administration, then Configuration under Sign-On and Discovery and then remove the Local Identity Source (local machine name) as shown.

A couple of common questions:

Q – What if I can’t log in with SSO Administrator credentials?
A – See Unlocking and resetting the vCenter Single Sign On (SSO) administrator password (2034608)

Q – How do I add an SSO administrator?
A – Log in to the vSphere Web Client as an SSO administrator. By default, this user is admin@system-domain.

In the home page, click Administration > Access > SSO Users and Groups.

Click on the plus sign and add account from identity source.

• Viewing Subscription Services in My VMware (2045030)
• Viewing Subscription Service details in My VMware (2045031)
• Requesting Subscription Service Add-ons in My VMware (2045033)
• Viewing Subscription Services billing statements in My VMware (2045036)
• Viewing Add-on Requests and Add-on request details in My VMware (2045041)
• Viewing available Add-ons for a Subscription Service in My VMware (2051356)

There is news on this alert. Oracle has since resolved the issue in the Windows Oracle Client 11.2.0.3 p16656151 (Patch 19) 64-bit, which can be downloaded today.

The issue is not a VMware bug, it’s an Registry location problem, but customers might still reach for the phone to call us first. We thought we’d try and get the word out today to try and save you some steps (and time).

The problem manifests itself when you attempt to Sysprep a Virtual Machine that has IE10 on it.  In the Sysprep setupact.log log file (located at C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\Panther), you see:

Error[0x0f0085]SYSPRP LaunchDll:Could not load DLL C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iesysprep.dll[gle=0x000000c1]

The registry entry for the location of certain files is incorrect. For further details and resolution, we refer you to KB article: Sysprep fails on Virtual Machine installed with IE10 (2051620).

My VMware, the web site that provides our customers and partners with simplified management of product licenses and support, is celebrating an anniversary – the site was launched one year ago. My VMware has had more than 33 million visits, and we are continuing to see an increase in usage over time. Other milestones include 3.8 million downloads, 188 million page views, and a recent new release loaded with new features and functionality.

Since its initial launch, we continue to actively solicit feedback from users, who have provided us with a tremendous amount of helpful input that we have used to improve the site. We’ve implemented numerous enhancements that have evolved My VMware from offering basic functionality to providing additional features that boost user productivity and efficiency.

You asked, and we listened:  here are a few of the most recent feature/functionality enhancements we implemented:

Improved Data Accessibility:  Now you can export to CSV, run reports across all accounts, and filter on and expose License Key notes to view information more easily

Increased Productivity:  Move License Keys in bulk, right-click on folders to view actions, and create custom License Key labels to organize and manage your License Keys the way you want

Enhanced User Experience:  Liquid layout and resizable panes and columns give you flexibility to focus on the data that’s most important to you

Streamlined Users & Permissions:  You can set permissions during the invite/add user flow, remove yourself from an Account, and request permissions for specific tasks, making it easier to manage users and permissions

We have received positive response to the enhanced site – our customers and partners are excited to see My VMware functionality expanding. Here are just a few of the comments we’ve received from My VMware users:

In the past 10 years while I have been working with VMware as a customer, partner and distributor, the immense growth in both products and licenses to manage and handle was beginning to pose a real challenge. With My VMware, this issue is solved in a simple and intuitive way that is helping us to manage our NFR, commercial and trial licenses centrally, effectively and smoothly.
– Thomas Hagedorn, Solution Specialist, Arrow ECS Denmark

I was amazed how easy it was to divide a license. When we ordered the license we got 1X4cpu license but wanted 4x1cpu license. it took me 3 minutes to log on to myvmware and find out how to divide license. Very, very good
I love the My VMware site. Licensing info is so easy to see.
Great steps in improving the customer portal.
Very nice site – clean, quick and stylish.
This is a huge improvement over the old license management tool. Good job listening to your customers.
Once again an easy interface with your firm to upgrade my Fusion S/W. Thanks!
The my.vmware web site is a significant improvement over the old web site.
Great online experience.
The MyVMware portal is much, much easier to use now. Thank you @VMware [via Twitter]

We’re excited to see My VMware growing up, as well. But we’re not finished improving and expanding the site – we have many more enhancements planned! Highlights include a mobile My VMware app and improvements to the download process and license management. Keep the feedback coming – with your help, we’ll continue to improve My VMware, and in the process, hopefully make your job easier.

Voting for VMworld 2013 Sessions is now open to all. Do you believe it’s that time of year already?

There are tons of sessions to choose from, and it’s all up to you to decide on what will make it. You will be required to log in to your vmworld.com account to vote. If you do not have a vmworld.com account, you can set one up for free at http://www.vmworld.com Once you have registered your account, just follow this link: http://www.vmworld.com/cfp.jspa

You will get a list of all of the session proposals, all with a small icon of a white thumb in front of the sessions. You can vote on as many sessions as you’d like. To vote, just click on the thumb. You’ll receive a confirmation window that you voted, and the thumb will turn green. Voting is open April 23 – May 6 until 5:00pm PDT.

Questions? Email: VMworld2013SpeakerSupport@vmware-events.com

A plug for VMware Global Services

The following are sessions submitted for voting by our very own Global Services employees from our offices around the globe. If you see something of interest to you here, be sure to give them your vote!

1. Downloading and installing VMware Fusion (2014097)
2. Uploading diagnostic information to VMware (1008525)
3. Installing Windows in a virtual machine using VMware Fusion Easy Install (1011677)
4. Installing async drivers on ESXi 5.x (2005205)
5. Installing or upgrading to ESXi 5.1 best practices (2032756)
6. Repointing and reregistering VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x and components (2033620)
7. Unmounting a LUN or Detaching a Datastore/Storage Device from multiple ESXi 5.x hosts (2004605)
8. Troubleshooting Fusion virtual machine performance issues (1015676)
9. Accessing VMware downloads (2006993)
10. Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Partner Activation Code (PAC) portal (2011587)
11. Broadcom 5719/5720 NICs using tg3 driver become unresponsive and stop traffic in vSphere (2035701)
12. Purging old data from the database used by vCenter Server (1025914)
13. Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1 best practices (2021193)
14. Creating a persistent scratch location for ESXi 4.x and 5.x (1033696)
15. Investigating virtual machine file locks on ESXi/ESX (10051)
16. Collecting diagnostic information for VMware ESX/ESXi using the vSphere Client (653)
17. VMware store purchasing and order details (2006980)
18. VMware View Best Practices (1020305)
19. After making a change or restarting Single Sign On server system, vCenter Server 5.1.x fails to start (2036170)
20. ESXi/ESX hosts in APD may appear Not Responding in vCenter Server (1030980)