VMware Releases vCenter 5.5a

Following last year’s pattern of ‘lettered’ vCenter updates, VMware has released vCenter 5.5a. (Note the ‘a’.) This addresses a number of issues, mostly with the SSO service. If you are using vCenter on Windows Server 2012, you will no longer have to download a patched DLL. You can find the full set of release notes here. Given these fixes, I would urge everyone to use the 5.5a media and get rid of your 5.5 GA media. I appreciate VMware releasing fixes, but it’s starting to bring back memories of 5.1 where there were ‘a’ and ‘b’ bug fix releases.

If you want the web’s most comprehensive vSphere 5.5 installation guide, check out my 16+ part install and upgrade series here.

Bug fixes in vCenter 5.5a:

Attempts to upgrade vCenter Single Sign-On (SSO) 5.1 Update 1 to version 5.5 might fail with error code 1603
Attempts to log in to the vCenter Server might be unsuccessful after you upgrade from vCenter Server 5.1 to 5.5
Unable to change the vCenter SSO administrator password on Windows in the vSphere Web Client after you upgrade to vCenter Server 5.5 or VCSA 5.5
VPXD service might fail due to MS SQL database deadlock for the issues with VPXD queries that run on VPX_EVENT and VPX_EVENT_ARG tables
Attempts to search the inventory in vCenter Server using vSphere Web Client with proper permissions might fail to return any results
vCenter Server 5.5 might fail to start after a vCenter Single Sign-On Server reboot
Unable to log in to vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 using domain credentials in vSphere Web Client with proper permission when the authenticated user is associated with a group name containing parentheses
Active Directory group users unable to log in to the vCenter Inventory Service 5.5 with vCenter Single Sign-On
Attempts to log in to vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter Server might fail when there are multiple users with the same common name in the OpenLDAP directory service
Attempts to log in to vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter Server might fail for OpenLDAP 2.4 directory service users who have attributes with multiple values attached to their account
Attempts to Log in to vCenter Server might fail for an OpenLDAP user whose account is not configured with a universally unique identifier (UUID)
Unable to add an Open LDAP provider as an identity source if the Base DN does not contain an “dc=” attribute
Active Directory authentication fails when vCenter Single Sign-On 5.5 runs on Windows Server 2012 and the AD Domain Controller is also on Windows Server 2012