There has been talks in VMware Communities and in some blog comments that vCenter Update Manager 4.1 has dropped support for SQL Server 2008 Standard so you would need SQL Server Enterprise edition instead. If you take a look at VMware vCenter Update Manager page on vSphere Compatibility Matrix released on 13th of July, SQL Server 2008 Standard is indeed marked as not compatible, but 2005 SP2 still is.
I firmly believe that this is error in documentation, so SQL Server 2008 Standard support is not actually dropped on VUM 4.1, it just makes no sense at all to me that SQL Server Express 2005 is marked as supported but Standard is not, Express is so much more limited in its capabilities than Standard. Also SQL Server 2008 Standard is supported with previous releases so it has already been certified, why remove support now?
I am still waiting confirmation from VMware on this, but until there is public clarification on this issue check your upgrade plans with VMware support to be sure!
Update: I received an answer from VMware today, this is indeed an error in Compatibility Matrix, SQL Server 2008 Standard IS supported with Update Manager 4.1 and error in Compatibility Matrix will be corrected.
One important thing you should note is that as vCenter Server 4.1 is now full-fledged 64-bit application it requires 64-bit DSN, but Update Manager 4.1 is still 32-bit application so it requires 32-bit DSN! See discussion of this at Yellow Bricks
So vSphere 4.1 is out, here is a quick example how to upgrade ESX 4.0 host to 4.1 using esxupdate on ESX Service Console.
Download pre-upgrade-from-ESX4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip and upgrade-from-ESX4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip files from vmware.com, you need active support subscription for that.
Copy both files ESX host Service Console
Put host in maintenance mode
Run esxupdate with “update –bundle=/path/to/pre-upgrade-zip-file”
Run esxupdate with “update –bundle=/path/to/upgrade-zip-file”
# esxupdate update --bundle=upgrade-from-ESX4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip
Host was not updated, no changes required.
Skipping bulletin ESX410-GA-esxupdate; it is installed or obsoleted.
Unpacking rpm_vmware-esx-likewise-ad.. ########################################## [100%]
... lots of updated RPM packages ...
Cleaning up nss_ldap ########################################## [100%]
Running [/usr/sbin/cim-install.sh]...
ok.
Running [/usr/sbin/vmkmod-install.sh]...
ok.
Running [esxcfg-boot -b]...
ok.
The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the
changes to be effective.
Those EMC customers who missed most EMC World 2010 announcements, like me, will find included video very exciting, it shows new storage efficiency features, and new middle range storage management GUI, coming to CLARiiON CX4 in FLARE 30. New FLARE will be released some time during this summer.
Features shown in video are
New CLARiiON and Celerra management GUI called Unisphere, based on Adobe Flex technology
Sub-LUN tiering – “VMware DRS” equivalency for storage medium, will migrate data based on usage between Flash, FC and SATA
Flash cache – AKA FAST cache, up to 2 terabytes(!) of 2nd level read/write cache
Block level compression – told to save 30% to 50% on average on your storage consumption
It is not told directly in this video but it looks like thin pools will become an standard feature on CX4, at the moment is is sold as an add-on option.
These and new vStorage API integration features make me feel that this is a good time to be EMC customer.
