VMware Update 2 Released for ESX 4.0 and vCenter Server 4.0

Vmware has released update 2 for its virtualization software ESX 4.0 and vCenter Server 4.0. Below are some of the key enhancements for each product. Be sure to check the Vmware compatibility guide for supported hardware.

VMware ESX 4.0 Update 2 Release Notes

The following information provides highlights of some of the enhancements available in this release of VMware ESX 4.0:

  • Enablement of Fault Tolerance Functionality for Intel Xeon 56xx Series processors— vSphere 4.0 Update 1 supports the Intel Xeon 56xx Series processors without Fault Tolerance. vSphere 4.0 Update 2 enables Fault Tolerance functionality for the Intel Xeon 56xx Series processors.
  • Enablement of Fault Tolerance Functionality for Intel i3/i5 Clarkdale Series and Intel Xeon 34xx Clarkdale Series processors— vSphere 4.0 Update 1 supports the Intel i3/i5 Clarkdale Series and Intel Xeon 34xx Clarkdale Series processors without Fault Tolerance. vSphere 4.0 Update 2 enables Fault Tolerance functionality for the Intel i3/i5 Clarkdale Series and Intel Xeon 34xx Clarkdale Series processors.
  • Enablement of IOMMU Functionality for AMD Opteron 61xx and 41xx Series processors— vSphere 4.0 Update 1 supports the AMD Opteron 61xx and 41xx Series processors without input/output memory management unit (IOMMU). vSphere 4.0 Update 2 enables IOMMU functionality for the AMD Opteron 61xx and 41xx Series processors.
  • Enhancement of the esxtop/resxtop utility vSphere 4.0 Update 2 includes an enhancement of the performance monitoring utilities, esxtop and resxtop. The esxtop/resxtop utilities now provide visibility into the performance of NFS datastores in that they display the following statistics for NFS datastores: Reads/s, writes/s, MBreads/s, MBwrtn/s, cmds/s, GAVG/s(guest latency).
  • Additional Guest Operating System Support— ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 2 adds support for Ubuntu 10.04. For a complete list of supported guest operating systems with this release, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

Resolved Issues In addition, this release delivers a number of bug fixes that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

VMware vCenter Server 4.0 Update 2 Release Notes

This release of VMware vCenter Server 4.0 Update 2 offers the following improvements:

  • Guest Operating System Customization Improvements: vCenter Server now supports customization of the following guest operating systems:
    • Windows XP Professional SP2 (x64) serviced by Windows Server 2003 SP2
    • SLES 11 (x32 and x64)
    • SLES 10 SP3 (x32 and x64)
    • RHEL 5.5 Server Platform (x32 and x64)
    • RHEL 5.4 Server Platform (x32 and x64)
    • RHEL 4.8 Server Platform (x32 and 64)
    • Debian 5.0 (x32 and x64)
    • Debian 5.0 R1 (x32 and x64)
    • Debian 5.0 R2 (x32 and x64)
  • Resolved Issues:In addition, this release delivers a number of bug fixes that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

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