[Release] vCenter Server 5.1 Update 1a

Not long after VMware has published vSphere 5.1 Update 1 there is now Update 1a available, and all customers planning to move to vSphere 5.1 should grab and use this latest release:

• vCenter Server 5.1 Update 1a: Download, Release Notes

What's new:

The SBHVL project - Part 4: Spanning a private network over multiple hosts

It's SBHVL time again! This acronym stands for "Small Budget Hosted Virtual Lab" and for a series of posts that I wrote about my vSphere lab that runs on a dedicated physical box at a hosting provider. Until now I covered the basic setup and networking, backup / DR and management / remote access.

How to install HP Offline bundles on non-HP hardware

HP offers customized installation ISOs for ESXi 5.x that include drivers for HP specific hardware, their Offline Bundles for hardware monitoring and useful tools like hpacucli for managing SmartArray adapters. However, you can only install HP branded ProLiant servers with these ISOs. If you try to install a non-HP/whitebox hardware with an HP Customized ISO you will run into this error:

Quickest way to update your standalone host to ESXi 5.1 U1

This is a sequel to my popular posts about How to update your (free / whitebox) ESXi server to ESXi 5.1 and the FAQ Are ESXi 5.x patches cumulative?. Since Update 1 was released I got several e-mails asking how to apply it and also saw this question raised in forums again. The process is the same as going from ESXi 5.0 to 5.1 GA, and it also applies to any other ESXi 5.x patch:

vCenter SSO update/installation oddities and hints

I have just updated my lab with the recently released vSphere 5.1 Update 1 and want to share some oddities I encountered with the Single Sign On (SSO) component.

[Release] VMware Converter 5.1, finally with GPT support!

After a long public beta test VMware has released an important update to its free Converter product: version 5.1.

• Download
• Release Notes

What's new

[Release] vSphere 5.1 Update 1

VMware has released Update 1 for vCenter Server 5.1 and ESXi 5.1:

• vCenter Server 5.1 Update 1: Download, Release Notes
• ESXi 5.1 Update 1: Download, Release Notes

Both updates include tons of bug fixes. Here are some highlights of what issues were fixed (read the release notes for a full list):

HP Offline Bundles April 2013 Updates

HP has recently released updated Offline Bundles that are available in the directory http://vibsdepot.hp.com/hpq/apr2013/. Unlike the other release directories (feb2013 was the latest up to now) it is not (yet) properly set up as an Online Depot, so you can not add it as a download source to Update Manager.