That's Why They Call It the Bleeding Edge...

As almost anyone running VMware must already know - VMware had a major bug in ESX 3.5 Update 2. http://kb2.vmware.com/kb/1006716.html I find it surprising that anyone is already running this update in production, as it was just released on 7/25.

My company was not affected, because we have a "forum vetting" policy for all new non security related updates. It's an unwritten rule that we always wait at least a month before progressing any major update, and we thoroughly check the company forums and non company sources for experiences that might be similar to what we will experience. This policy has paid dividends on the rare occasion when a major release has suffered issues. Using this method, we were able to avoid major issues with Windows 2003 SP1 and the some of the HP service packs and firmware in the past. By no means am I advocating using the internet as the sole source for testing, but it certainly is valuable as an additional check.

I have to give credit to VMware despite the circumstances today, as they are on top of making people aware of the issue. We received a call from our assigned SE this morning alerting us to the issue. Some issues are unavoidable, I'm just glad VMware handles them in the correct way.