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How to download vSphere software with VMware Software Manager

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The VMware Software Manager is a very helpful tool if you want to download your VMware vSphere, vCloud or vRealize software packages. It is also very helpful to keep your VMware software repository up to date. All you need is your VMware login and the installer package. Let me introduce this software to you.

Download

Visit this website to download the VMware Software Manager (login / registration required). It’s an 18 megabyte MSI package. So big deal.

You have to accept the End User License Agreement to download the software:

Installation

  1. Double click the MSI package to start the setup process.

    Click Next.

    Software Manager

  2. Accept the EULA and click Next.

    EULA

  3. Choose the installation folder (just let the standard is also fine).

    Choose the depot location; either a local drive, an external disk or even a UNC path is possible.

    Click Next to continue.

    Basic Settings

  4. When all things are set, click Install to continue.

    Ready

  5. You can check the box to open Download Service web application.

    Click Finish to close the setup assistant.

    Completed

Now after installation we can move on with the further configuration. When you checked the box to open the web application, then you’re ready. Otherwise look on your desktop for the icon to start the web application manually.

Accessing VMware Software Manager

  1. When you start the web application you’ll see the login screen.

    Use your My VMware login (or one of the other two possibilities) to login.

    Click Connect to login.

    Login

  2. Now Software Manager reads the VMware software depot for the first time. This can take some time…

    Reading VMware depot

  3. After reading the VMware software Depot you’ll see the main software dashboard.

    When you click the arrow (>) on the right side of a product you can see more details.

    This is also the way how to find the download button.

    Dashobard

Conclusion

As mentioned above the VMWare Software Manager is a great tool to download various VMware software all around data center virtualization and automation. If you have a VMware software repository in your company it’s also a good way to keep that repository up to date. The software itself does not run as a service, you have to start it manually.

Veeam – Changes in the update policy (updates now integrated)

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update

When you are an active Veeam forums user then you will probably also receive the weekly mail on Sunday evening from Anton Gostev. The famous “Word from Gostev”. In the most recent mail from Gostev, the one from last Sunday (19th of February 2017) Gostev announced that update 1 for Veeam Backup & Replication now is integrated in the ISO file for download.

Well, that’s great news! Until this date you had to download the ISO file and the update separately, and install both separately too. Now you don’t have to do that anymore. If you’re planning to install a fresh Veeam backup server, or if you just want to update your software library with the latest versions, then you can now grab the updated ISO file which includes update 1.

It’s possible that i only dreamt of it, but i’m pretty sure that i read it somewhere, either in a mail, on the forums or the Veeam website. As far as i’m not wrong, the usual way of releasing a patch was like this:

Stage 1: If you had a technical issue which should be resolved with the patch (so an issue which is on the changelog alter on) then you received the patch in advance from Veeam technical support.

Stage 2: Beta tester. You can download the patch from a non public link and install it in your environment. I think that was also via Support, or probably via forum announcement (don’t blame me for not knowing that, i don’t install betas because i don’t have labs in production…).

Stage 3: Public download. When the patch was announced, then a few days later you could have download the update from the regular update download website.

NEW Stage 4: the updates are now integrated in the latest ISO files for the full product download.

I’m pretty sure that the stages above will still be valid. If there is an issue for which you created a support case with Veeam technical support, and if this issue can be resolved with the latest (pre-release) update, then you will get the patch earlier. And i think also that there will be another announcement for the next update (if there is an update) and

And did i mention that this not only is for Veeam Backup & Replication but also for Veeam Availability Suite? Check the new ISO file here. Update 1 for Veeam ONE is also integrated.

Just a last thing. If you’re not sure which version you’ve installed at the moment, and which version is the latest, check this link to the Veeam forum. The first sticky post is from Gostev with all details about the latest version (including update release history).