News

Critical Flaw in vSphere Replication 5.5 Fixed

Those with vSphere 5.1 and running vSphere Replication might have been prompted to update to VR 5.5 -- with potentially disastrous results.

• By Michael Domingo
• 09/25/2013

VMware earlier this week posted a knowledge base article on its site that concerns a critical issue for customers who may have been prompted to update their systems with newer versions of software components. In particular, those who have Automatic Check and Install Updates enabled will inadvertently update to vSphere Replication 5.5. That's because that version was published to the VMware Appliance Management Infrastructure within the vSphere Replication appliances and VMware Update Manager catalog.

The warning blared from the title of Ken Werneburg's blog post of Sept. 20: "Do *NOT* Install vSphere Replication 5.5 onto your 5.1 environment yet!" There, Werneburg, who's senior technical marketing architect for VMware's DR group, warned users of vSphere 5.1 to not download vSphere Replication 5.5.

As he explained in the post, customers running vSphere 5.1 and running VR will automatically be updated to VR 5.5. That version requires vCenter Server 5.5, which wasn't available as of Sept. 23.

For those who updated to VR 5.5, the result would be broken replication services and the only recourse is to re-install vSphere 5.1 and reconfigure and rerun VR 5.1 -- and make sure that auto-updates are turned off so that the update doesn't run again. It's a big enough problem that Werneburg's post asks those who updated and are having problems should contact VMware Global Support Services.

Werneburg posted a blog update Tuesday stating that now that vCenter Server 5.5 has been released, everything should work as originally intended as long as users also install vCenter Server 5.5.