The 9.0 release is a comprehensive release that includes enhancements in the following areas:

• New global configurations — Email, SNMP, DNS, remote syslog, and upgrades are done at the management group
• Automated online upgrade management — Identifies, downloads, and applies updates more easily
• Alarms and Events enhancements — Reduced quantity, configured globally, new severity levels
• Storage system alarms
• Network RAID 5 and 6 enhancements — No longer require snapshots, Network RAID 5 on clusters of three or more, Network RAID 6 on clusters of five or more
• VMware VAAI vStorage offloads — Full copy, Block Zeroing, and Hardware Assisted Locking for faster VM deployment and less load on ESX servers
• New Best Practice Analyzer rules — Checks for consistent RAID and network settings
• P4000 Centralized Management Console enhancements — More map views, new volume icons that represent status and RAID, reduced numbers of pop ups, user ability to change CMC font sizes and default names
• Host server cluster management — Automated assignment of volumes to many servers that make up an application cluster
• Server aware sites — Servers and server clusters can be assigned to sites to improve load balancing
• HP Insight Remote Support replaces LeftHand Service Console
• HP SIM monitoring support (6.2)Localization for Japan, China, and Korea
• MPIO improvements — Host network load balancing in DSM for MPIO and native windows MPIO support
• iSCSI session management improvements — Sessions are automatically rebalanced after systems come back online and when systems are added. Sessions are automatically disconnected when volumes are unassigned from servers
• Improved PGR / Microsoft Failover Cluster scalability — Up to 256 iSCSI sessions per volume with Microsoft Failover Clusters utilizing PGR
• Cross-Version Remote Copy — Release 9.0 SAN/iQ software can remote copy to and from version 8.5, 8.1, and 8.0 management groups
• Remote Copy bandwidth — Now managed independently of management group bandwidth
• CLI improvements — New commands to manage schedules, SNMP, and servers
• Application-Managed Snapshots support Microsoft Windows CSV

Microsoft fully allows this cause each Microsoft license included a reimage right provided that the same version is used. So for example OEM professional -> VLK professional.

You need at least to have one VLK license of the product to obtain install media and a VLK license key.

A VLK has a limited number of activations. When this number is reached or too low you can contact Microsoft Activation Center or send an email to makadd@microsoft.com and include your agreement information, customer name and contact information, business justification for the additional activations requested (i.e.: re-imaging), the product key and the amount of additional activations you would like to have added to the key

For more offical information see:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/7/7/17745e4a-5d31-4de4-a416-07c646336d94/reimaging.doc

http://techworld.nl/de-sysadmin/27481/sysadmin-van-het-jaar-dit-zijn-de-10-finalisten.html#source=newslist

After some googling i found out that i was not the only one with this problem. It seems to be a bug in vCenter. You can work around this problem by connecting to the ESX server directly with the viclient. Adding the VMFS works perfect this way.

also see:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1015986

God Mode is a simple folder that brings all aspects of Windows 7 control in a single place. It collects all of the Control Panel functions, interface customization, accessibility options, just about every aspect of controlling Windows 7 into a single place.

God Mode is easy to set up too, just do this:

• Create a new folder anywhere.
• Rename the folder by pasting this name exactly as it appears (copy it first):
• GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Source: http://jkontherun.com/2010/01/03/how-to-enable-windows-7-secret-god-mode/

Some of the changes are:

• GUI File Level Restore (FLR) client for Windows virtual machines.
• Integrity Check Stability and Performance Improved
• Integrity Checks Provides Improved Progress Information
• Enhanced CIFS Shares Support
• Support for backing up Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 virtual machines (requires upgrading to vSphere 4.0 Update 1)
• Datarecovery.ini – this file allows customization of the VDR parameters such as how frequent integrity check and reclaim operations run, maximum concurrent backups allowed and disabling any file level restore operations.
• Ability to add network shares using fully qualified domain name or IP address.

The updated version can be downloaded here
Documentation can be found here

I hope this release fixes all my integrity check errors which made VDR unasable so far. I’m going to try in right away and let you know!

23-11 Update: Tried i for a few days now. All went ok but now i have one backup job stuck at 99% for two days.

12-12 Update2: Backups are running ok. Only one W2K VM backup keeps getting stuck at 99%

There isn’t an easy way of doing that right now. Given that a number of people have asked for it we’re looking at adding it in future versions.
If you want to do this now, the only way to do it is by mucking around with the installer internals (and knowing how to use vi). It’s not that difficult if you’re familiar with using a command line. Try these steps for changing it with a graphical installation:

1. boot the ESX installation DVD
2. switch to the shell (Ctrl-Alt-F2)
3. ps | grep Xorg
4. kill the PID which comes up with something like “Xorg -br -logfile …”. On my system this comes up as PID 590, so “kill 590″
5. cd /usr/lib/vmware/weasel
6. vi fsset.py
7. scroll down to the part which says “class vmfs3FileSystem(FileSystemType):”
8. edit the “blockSizeMB” parameter to the block size that you want. it will currently be set to ’1′. the only values that will probably work are 1, 2, 4, and 8.
9. save and exit the file
10. cd /
11. /bin/weasel

After that, run through the installer as you normally would. To check that it worked, after the installer has completed you can go back to a different terminal (try Ctl-Alt-F3 since weasel is now running on tty2) and look through /var/log/weasel.log for the vmfstools creation command.

Hope that helps.
–Patrick.

This is how it’s done:

1. Copy the contents of the ISO or DVD to a separate storage location (such as a bootable USB storage device, a separate partition or whatever)
2. Open the file \sources\cversion.ini in a text editor and modify the MinClient number to a number lower than the version Windows 7 that you want to upgrade from – so for the beta you would set this to something like 6900.
3. Save the file and then run the install routine from the location with the modified file

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/04/07/delivering-a-quality-upgrade-experience.aspx

Check http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/505363-0-0-0-121.html