VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager 1.1.1 Release Notes

These release notes cover the following topics:

• What's New
• Internationalization Support
• Required vCenter Privileges
• Prior Releases of Lifecycle Manager
• Known Issues
• Issues Resolved in LCM 1.1
• Issues Resolved in LCM 1.1.1

What's New

VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager (LCM) 1.1.1 release enhances the performance, robustness, and scalability of LCM and resolves a number of known issues.

The LCM 1.1.1 release runs on VMware vCenter Orchestrator 4.0.1. To run LCM 1.1.1, you must install the version of Orchestrator (4.0.1 Build 4502) that accompanies the LCM 1.1.1 download. See the vCenter Lifecycle Manager 1.1 Installation and Configuration Guide for installation instructions.

NOTE: The LCM 1.1.1 release does not officially support VMware vCenter Orchestrator 4.0.2. If you have an LCM 1.1.1 installation running on Orchestrator 4.0.1 and you want to install Orchestrator 4.0.2, you must install Orchestrator 4.0.2 on a separate machine and use separate databases for the two Orchestrator installations. If you have an Orchestrator 4.0.2 installation and you want to install LCM 1.1.1, you must install Orchestrator 4.0.1 and LCM 1.1.1 on a separate machine and use separate databases for the two Orchestrator installations.

NOTE: All Lifecycle Manager 1.1 documentation also applies to the 1.1.1 release.

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Internationalization (I18N) Support

LCM 1.1.1 complies with I18N Level 1. Although LCM is not localized, it can run on non-English operating systems and handle non-English text.

I18N Known Issues

• LCM 1.1.1 does not support local currency and local date format.
• Because prior versions of LCM do not have I18N Level 1 support, you cannot upgrade an earlier version of LCM on a non-English operating system to LCM 1.1.1. You must perform a new installation of LCM 1.1.1 to have I18N support on a non-English operating system.

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Required vCenter Privileges

To manage virtual machines, the LCM user must have a minimum set of privileges in vCenter Server 4 or VirtualCenter 2.5.

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Prior Releases of Lifecycle Manager

See the Lifecycle Manager 1.0.2 Release Notes.

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Known Issues

The following issues are known to occur in LCM 1.1.1:

• Migrating from early LCM 1.1 releases is not supported
  

  You cannot migrate configuration and settings from LCM 1.1 Early Access and LCM 1.1 Beta to LCM 1.1.

• Modifying disk shares of a powered on virtual machine causes an error
  

  If you submit a request to change the disk shares of a powered on virtual machine and the request is approved, an Error occurred. Shaping changes message appears and the request remains in an Apply changes state.

  Note: This error is known to occur only with VirtualCenter 2.5.

• Problematic change of authorization groups
  

  If you try to run the Edit Authorization Groups workflow with a user who is not a member of the vCO Admin group, specified in the Orchestrator configuration interface, the workflow fails.

  Workaround: Log in to the Orchestrator client as a user who is a member of the vCO Admin group and run the Edit Authorization Groups workflow.

• Incorrect virtual machine placement with a dvPortGroup network
  

  If you try to place a virtual machine in a dvPortGroup network on an LCM instance that uses vCenter with a dvSwitch configuration, the virtual machine is placed incorrectly. The virtual machine is not placed in the dvPortGroup under dvSwitch, but is instead placed in a network named dvPortGroup. Also, the network label of the virtual machine is incorrect.

  Workaround: Use a vSphere Client to manually resolve the issues.

• Missing netmask option
  

  When you try to create a subnet when editing an existing network, the netmask field is missing.

  Workaround: Delete the subnet and create it again with the proper netmask.

• Powering on a virtual machine after creation requires VMware Tools
  

  If you submit a virtual machine request with the option to start the virtual machine as soon as it is provisioned, the state of the request is changed to Error Creating if VMware Tools is not started.

  Workaround: Log in as an LCM Administrator, access the request from the Catalog view, and use the Change State button to change the virtual machine state to Operate • Available.

• Possible increase in server response time
  

  After heavy continuous usage, for example, after adding a large number of virtual machines or if many users are continuously using the product at the same time, the server response time might increase.

  Workaround: Restart the Orchestrator server.

• Importing a large number of virtual machines might take a considerable amount of time
  

  If you try to import a very large number of virtual machines (for example, one or two thousand) from a virtual machine folder, the request might take a few hours to complete.

• Error message displayed when trying to run a restricted workflow
  

  When you click a custom button that links to a workflow, if you do not have sufficient permissions to run that workflow, you receive the following error message: Error while downloading.

  Workaround: Place custom workflows in a category that all users can access. For information about adding custom categories, see the vCenter Lifecycle Manager 1.1 Administration Guide.

• Cluster placement requires VMware DRS
  

  If you want to place a virtual machine in a resource pool from a cluster, you must have VMware DRS enabled for the cluster. If VMware DRS is disabled, you receive the following error message: Error creating.

• Changes in LDAP directory settings cause past requests to become unavailable
  

  If you change the common name of a user in the LDAP directory, the user is unable to access past requests.

  Workaround: Log in as an LCM Administrator, access the unavailable requests from the Catalog view, click Change Rights, and reassign each request to the appropriate user.

• Infrastructure and Configuration tabs sometimes do not reload correctly
  

  If you switch from the Infrastructure or Configuration tabs to a different tab, for example, Requests or Reports, and then switch back again, the Infrastructure or Configuration tabs might not reload properly. If you log in as an LCM Administrator, the Infrastructure tab that LCM redirects you to might not load properly. This issue affects both Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers.

  Workaround: Reload the page in your browser until it displays correct information.

• Problematic resizing of panes under Firefox
  

  If you use Firefox 3.0.8 or later, you can resize the panes by using the vertical divider in the Infrastructure tab only once. If you try to resize the panes again and switch to another tab, the Infrastructure tab becomes unusable when you switch back to it.

  Workaround: Close your browser and open it again for the Infrastructure tab to become usable.

• Problematic sorting under Internet Explorer 6
  

  If you use Internet Explorer 6, you can only sort 9 or less elements by name under the Reports, Configuration, and Administration tabs. If you try to sort 10 or more elements by name, you receive the following error message: Object doesn't support this property or method.

• Misleading JavaScript error message under Internet Explorer 6
  

  If you use Internet Explorer 6 with script error notifications enabled, you receive an Operation aborted error message when you open the element selector by clicking a magnifying glass icon. However, you can use the element selector that opens.

  Workaround: Click OK to close the error message and continue your task.

• Unavailable type of report with Oracle Database
  

  If you are using an Oracle Database, you cannot generate a report for virtual machines that are set to be decommissioned.

• Incorrect state displayed for deleted virtual machines
  

  If you use vCenter Server to delete a virtual machine that is registered with LCM, its state in the Catalog view continues to show: Operate • Available. After the Lifecycle Scheduler policy runs, it changes the state of deleted virtual machines to: Need Replier • Missing Virtual Machine.

  Note: The Lifecycle Scheduler policy runs at midnight by default.

• Possible failure with a large number of concurrent users
  

  If 30 or more users log in concurrently to an LCM instance that uses a large LDAP with 500 000 or more users, an error might occur.

  Workaround: Follow the performance-tuning guidelines specific to the LDAP vendor.

• Session per user mode not supported
  

  You should not use the Session per user mode as the method to manage user access on the VMware Infrastructure or vCenter Server host. Using this mode might cause functional and performance problems.

  Workaround: Use the Share a unique session mode.

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Issues Resolved in LCM 1.1

LCM 1.1 includes all fixes from LCM 1.0.2 Patch 1 and LCM 1.0.2 Patch 2. For more information, see Lifecycle Manager 1.0.2 Important Patches.

The following issues have been resolved in LCM 1.1:

• End-user response times might increase as the number of virtual machine requests increases
  

  As the number of virtual machine requests made increases over time, you might notice a gradual increase in Lifecycle Manager response times. For example, response times that approximate 10 seconds when only a few virtual machine requests are made might increase to approximately a minute by the time several hundred requests are made.

• Missing parameter for custom elements
  

  When you add a custom button to the right pane in LCM, you might not be able to run the associated workflow for the object that you have selected in the left pane, because the object is not automatically passed as a parameter to the workflow.

• Problematic migration of Callback workflows
  

  When you export an LCM 1.0.1 workflow from the Callback category in the Orchestrator client and try to import it in LCM 1.0.2, you might receive an error that the version of the LCM 1.0.1 workflow is earlier than the version of the corresponding workflow in LCM 1.0.2 and the workflow has not been imported.

• Pages not completely loaded when using DNS name to access LCM
  

  If you access LCM by using the machine's DNS name instead of its IP address, some of the pages might fail to load properly. Refreshing a page that is not completely loaded might resolve the problem.

• Setting commissioning and decommissioning dates in the future causes a delay
  

  If you set a future date for provisioning or decommissioning a virtual machine when you submit a request, the event is delayed by one day. The virtual machine is provisioned or decommissioned at the end of the specified date, instead of the beginning of the date.

• LCM IT Staff users cannot modify customization attributes
  

  Users with the LCM IT Staff role do not have access to the Change Request button in the Catalog view. LCM IT Staff users are unable to change the customization template attributes for a virtual machine that has been placed.

Issues Resolved in LCM 1.1.1

The following issues have been resolved in LCM 1.1.1.

• Criteria mapping issues
  

  It is now possible to rename criteria elements after they are created, without causing issues in the criteria mapping. You cannot create duplicate criteria names.

• Email notification body field restored to 4000 characters
  

  The number of characters permitted in the email notification body field was reduced in certain circumstances when upgrading to LCM 1.1. This has been restored to 4000 characters in LCM 1.1.1.

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