VMware blames stray code for ‘time bomb’ hiccup

VMware blames stray code for ‘time bomb’ hiccupVMware boss Paul Maritz is blaming “a piece of code” mistakenly left in the final release of ESX for the time-bomb hiccup that crippled virtual machines around the world.

In a message posted online, Maritz said the glitch caused a license expiration hiccup that caused virtual machines to be powered off, suspended fail or disrupted migration.

[ SEE: VMware bug causes worldwide disruption ]

“The issue was caused by a piece of code that was mistakenly left enabled for the final release of Update 2. This piece of code was left over from the pre-release versions of Update 2 and was designed to ensure that customers are running on the supported generally available version of [ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5] Update 2,” Maritz said.

  • In remedying the situation, we’ve already released an express patch for those customers that have installed/upgraded to ESX or ESXi 3.5 Update 2. Within the next 24 hours, we also expect to issue a full replacement for Update 2, which should be used by customers who want to perform fresh installs of ESX or ESXi.

[ SEE: Techmeme discussion ]

Maritz said VMware failed in two areas:

  • Not disabling the code in the final release of Update 2; and
  • Not catching it in our quality assurance process.

“We are doing everything in our power to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said.

* Image source: cote’s Flickr photostream (Creative Commons 2.0)

[Source: zdnet]

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