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vSphere Client does not open on any Windows operating systems with the error: parsing the server “” “clients.xml” file

Roman — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:01:24 +0000

Symptoms

When trying to launch the vSphere Client you receive errors similar to:
Error parsing the server “” “clients.xml” file.
The type initializer for VirtualInfrastructure.Utils.HttpWebRequestProxy’ threw an exception.

Resolution

You cannot use vSphere Clients prior to the Update 1 release, to access the vCenter Server or ESX hosts because of a Microsoft update that targets the .NET Framework (980773), released on June 9th 2010.
Perform one of these two options to correct the issue:

Download and install vSphere Client 4.0 Update 1 (build 208111) or Update 2 (build 258672) using method a or b below, depending on your environment.

To download and install the vSphere Client for ESX, ESXi (paid version), and vCenter Server:
Go the downloads site.

Note: The vSphere Client .exe is part of the ESX, ESXi, or vCenter Server download binaries.

Click Download next to your ESX, ESXi, or vCenter Server edition.
Log in with your VMware Account credentials.
Click the .exe link next to vSphere Client and Host Update Utility

Note: You do not need to download the entire vSphere suite, only the vSphere Client.

Follow the on-screen instructions to install the updated vSphere Client.

Read full article here >> http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1022611

Via http://kb.vmware.com

VMware KB Blog – Top 20 articles for November 2009

Roman — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:50:45 +0000

Via VMware KB Blog >> VMware KB Blog

Here is our monthly update of the Top 20 KB articles for the month of November, based on use by customers.

Upgrading to ESX 4.0 and vCenter 4.0 best practices (1009039)

Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support (1003212)

Upgrading a VMware Fusion virtual machine from Windows XP to Windows 7 (1015396)

Restarting the Management agents on an ESX or ESXi Server (1003490)

Uninstalling, reinstalling, and upgrading VMware Fusion (1014529)

Downloading and Installing VMware Fusion (1005466)

Troubleshooting VMware High Availability (HA) (1001596)

Best practices for using and troubleshooting VMware Converter (1004588)

Recreating a missing virtual disk (VMDK) header/descriptor file (1002511)

A CPU of the host is incompatible error appears and VMotion stops working after upgrading to vSphere 4.0 (1011294)

FAQ: Supported/Unsupported Devices and Configurations (1184)

Upgrading an ESX 3.x virtual machine to ESX 4.0 (1010675)

Powering off an unresponsive virtual machine on an ESX host (1004340)

FAQ: VMware Product Features and Functionality (1168)

Installing ESX 4.0 and vCenter 4.0 best practices (1009080)

Virtual machine does not power on because of missing or locked files (10051)

Collecting diagnostic information for VMware Fusion (1003894)

Analyzing SCSI Reservation conflicts on VMware Infrastructure 3.x and vSphere 4.x (1005009)

Pegasus (cimserver) memory leaks reported in ESX 3.5 Update 2 and later (1009607)

Configuring networking from the ESX service console command line (1000258)

Run Snow Leopard on Windows with VMware (lifehacker.com)
Four Simple Ways to Run Windows 7 on Your Mac (mac.appstorm.net)
VMware ships Fusion 3.0 (tuaw.com)
How to run Windows 7 under Mac OS X 10.6 for free (dashes.com)
How to Create a Virtual Machine of Your Existing Windows Operating System (maketecheasier.com)
Google Chrome OS available as free VMWare download (engadget.com)
How-to: run Chrome OS as a virtual machine (engadget.com)

Enabling the VMware vCenter Update Manager plugin in 4.x generates an error

Roman — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:05:02 +0000

Source: http://kb.vmware.com/

Symptoms

You may experience these symptoms:
Attempting to enable the VMware vCenter Update Manager plugin fails
You receive the following error:

There was an error connecting to vmware vcenter update manager – IPADDRESSOFVC:8084
Vmacore::Exception: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.

The request failed because of a connection failure.

Resolution

Enabling the VMware vCenter can fail if you are using a remote SQL database with Windows authentication and the Update Manager service is set to log on as the local system account.
Change the service to login as the same Windows NT account that has been given dbo permissions to the SQL database.

Make sure the vci-integrity.xml file, located at C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager, has the correct vCenter IP address. If the IP address is incorrect, update it and restart the Update Manager service.

VMware vCenter Lab Manager Video Tutorials

Roman — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:11:42 +0000

Take a look @ these videos about vCenter Lab Manager

http://www.vmware.com/products/labmanager/tutorials.html

VCP vSphere 4 Practice Exam

Roman — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:09:40 +0000

Simon Long offers a vSphere 4 Practice Exam on his page.

Start exam here:

http://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/2009/06/15/vcp-vsphere-4-practice-exam/

Thanks Simon

Memory usage in vCenter Server 4.0 by Eric Siebert

Roman — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:03:31 +0000

Eric Siebert published an very nice article about Memory usage in vCenter Server 4.0:

If you are using vCenter Server and plan on upgrading to vSphere you should be aware that vCenter Server 4.0 uses much more memory than vCenter Server 2.5 does. According to the official documentation for both 2.5 and 4.0, the system requirements are very similar:

2.0 GHz or faster Intel or AMD x86 processor. Processor requirements can be more if your database runs on the same hardware.
2 GB RAM. You might need more RAM if your database runs on the same hardware.

But VMware has a note in the vSphere documentation that states:

vCenter Server includes a service called VMware vCenter Management Webservices. This service requires128MB to 1.5GB of additional memory. The vCenter Management Webservices process allocates the required memory at startup.

This Webservices component is a Windows service called VMware VirtualCenter Management Webservices. It’s a Tomcat Java application server that is a component of the vCenter Server. You will see this service listed in Task Manager as tomcat6.exe as vCenter Server 4.0 uses the newer Tomcat 6 version. In vCenter Server 2.5, this service was listed as tomcat5.exe, vCenter Server 2.5 uses the older Tomcat 5.5 version. The Webservices component is not used just for Web browsers to access the vCenter Server, many other services rely on this component. If you stop this service component, vCenter Server will still work but anything that relies on Webservices will no longer work (i.e. plug-ins, Converter).

Read complete article on http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/

Dell and VMware: A match made in heaven (flickerdown.com)
vSphere Design/Upgrade Considerations Redux (virtualtacit.com)
Improve Storage Efficiency and Management with VMware vSphere 4 Redux (virtualtacit.com)
Vmware vSphere (ESX 4) Virtual Motherboard (invurted.com)
VMware vSphere 4 Licensing For Virtual Infrastructure 3 Customers (Rus) (slideshare.net)