How to upgrade the vMA 5

Last week vSphere 5 Update 1 was released by VMware, along with the main products some of the SDKs and automation tools were also updated, including the vMA.

As you should remember from my first post about vMA 5 the classic vma-update utility is no longer available. So to be able to update our vMA to the new version we have to use the Web UI. Following is the procedure to perform the upgrade.

First access the web interface using the vi-admin user as always.

From the main screen go to the Update tab. In the Status screen click on Check Updates.

After a few seconds a message will appear showing the new update available.

Click on Install Updates and after asking for confirmation the update process will start.

Once the update process is complete the appliance will ask for a system reboot.

Go to the System tab and perform the reboot. After the reboot is done you can check the new version in the appliance console,

And in the vma-release file, located at /etc.

vi-admin@vma:~> cat /etc/vma-release
vMA 5.0.0 BUILD-643553

Copyright (C) 1998-2011 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.
This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and
intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more U.S.
Patent Numbers D617,808, D617,809, D617,810, D617,811, 6,075,938,
6,397,242, 6,496,847, 6,704,925, 6,711,672, 6,725,289, 6,735,601,
6,785,886, 6,789,156, 6,795,966, 6,880,022, 6,883,095, 6,940,980,
6,944,699, 6,961,806, 6,961,941, 6,970,562, 7,017,041, 7,055,032,
7,065,642, 7,069,413, 7,069,435, 7,082,598, 7,089,377, 7,111,086,
7,111,145, 7,117,481, 7,149,310, 7,149,843, 7,155,558, 7,222,221,
7,260,815, 7,260,820, 7,269,683, 7,275,136, 7,277,998, 7,277,999,
7,278,030, 7,281,102, 7,290,253, 7,343,599, 7,356,679, 7,386,720,
7,409,487, 7,412,492, 7,412,702, 7,424,710, 7,428,636, 7,433,951,
7,434,002, 7,447,854, 7,447,903, 7,467,067, 7,475,002, 7,478,173,
7,478,180, 7,478,218, 7,478,388, 7,484,208, 7,487,313, 7,487,314,
7,490,216, 7,500,048, 7,506,122, 7,516,453, 7,529,897, 7,543,301,
7,555,747, 7,565,527, 7,571,471, 7,577,722, 7,581,064, 7,590,715,
7,590,982, 7,594,111, 7,596,594, 7,596,697, 7,599,493, 7,603,704,
7,606,868, 7,620,523, 7,620,766, 7,620,955, 7,624,240, 7,630,493,
7,636,831, 7,657,659, 7,657,937, 7,665,088, 7,672,814, 7,680,919,
7,689,986, 7,693,996, 7,694,101, 7,702,843, 7,707,185, 7,707,285,
7,707,578, 7,716,446, 7,734,045, 7,734,911, 7,734,912, 7,735,136,
7,743,389, 7,761,917, 7,765,543, 7,774,391, 7,779,091, 7,783,779,
7,783,838, 7,793,279, 7,797,748, 7,801,703, 7,802,000, 7,802,248,
7,805,676, 7,814,495, 7,823,145, 7,831,661, 7,831,739, 7,831,761,
7,831,773, 7,840,790, 7,840,839, 7,840,993, 7,844,954, 7,849,098,
7,853,744, 7,853,960, 7,856,419, 7,856,531, 7,856,637, 7,865,663,
7,869,967, 7,886,127, 7,886,148, 7,886,346, 7,890,754, 7,895,437,
7,908,646, 7,912,951, 7,921,197, 7,925,850; patents pending.
VMware, the VMware "boxes" logo and design, Virtual SMP and VMotion are
registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States
and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may
be trademarks of their respective companies.
vi-admin@vma:~>

The above procedure use the default VMware repository and your appliance must be able to resolve public DNS addresses and access the internet in order to download de upgrade bits.

Juanma.

Win a free pass for VMworld 2012 or Microsoft TechEd 2012 thanks to Veeam

Yes, you have heard correctly. The people from Veeam are willing to kindly give a free full pass to VMworld or TechEd 2012, you choose the conference and they provide the pass.

The promotion is called Virtualization Lovers and you only have to register at their website:

• Spanish site here.
• English site here.

You have until March 26, 2012.

Good luck!

Juanma.

My first sponsor

I am very happy to announce that today I get the first sponsor for this blog. The people at Veeam Software has been kind enough to take my blog into consideration and for that I’m truly grateful.

Veeam doesn’t need an introduction, they produce a fantastic suite for backup & replication in virtual environments, Hyper-V and vSphere, considered by many the best in the market. They also have Veeam ONE, which includes Veeam Monitor, Reporter and Business View, for virtualization environment management and monitoring.

Veeam and HP have also a joint solution for backup in VMware environments that combines Veeam Backup & Replication award winning software and HP StorOnce D2D technology, here it is the link to the white paper describing the solution.

Again thanks to Veeam, I hope to get my hands on the HP & Veeam solution in the future and write about it.

Juanma.