Category Archives: vSphere

Fully Featured vSphere Client in vSphere 6.7…

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Fully Featured vSphere Client in vSphere 6.7…

We’re pleased to announce that the vSphere Client is now ‘Fully Featured’ in vSphere 6.7 Update 1. This means that you can manage all aspects of your vSphere environment using the HTML5-based vSphere Client, no need to switch back and forth between the vSphere Client and the vSphere Web Client. We’ve ported all remaining features

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Upgrading to vSphere 6.5

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As I visit a number of my customers, i get a lot of questions about upgrading to vSphere 6.5 and where to start.  I was doing some research and I came across some really helpful info on planning your vSphere 6.5 upgrade.

The fist step of any upgrade is making sure to do your homework and check for any relevant documents such as release notes for each product, vSphere documentation, and the compatibility guide.  These provide important information such as what’s new, known issues and upgrade notes. The VMware Compatibility guide is key.  Don’t assume that something supported in vSphere 5.5 will be supported in 6.5.  You have to double check.  I cant stress enough, you have to check hardware compatibility and make sure its supported prior to the upgrade.  Also check out VMware KB articles, they can be a great source to assist on upgrades. Ill provide links below.

Other planning considerations:

  • Know if your vCenter Topology is supported for 6.5
  • Check to make sure 3rd party solutions are compatible
  • How about an environment health check prior to the upgrade?
  • Windows vCenter should be migrated to VCSA
  • Map out your upgrade, if its a large environment complete it in phases
  • Got Training? Use VMware HOL to get familiar with all the new features and management interfaces. A lot has changed. There is a new vSphere appliance interface, HTML5 vSphere client, PSC management interface, vSphere web and host client. Do you know what client is used for what? You need to know! 🙂

Its really important to take your time planning.  Make realistic goals and time for completions. Work with your extended team, like storage and network and the automation team.  They will most likely have tasks to complete or items to review prior to an upgrade.  No one wants a call at 2am for an emergency because you failed to include your storage team in the upgrade planning. TEST, TEST and TEST AGAIN!  Try and account for all scenarios and any complications that could happen and what to do if you need to back out of the upgrade. What’s the point of no return.  Open an SR with VMware prior to the upgrade to have them aware of when its happening.  Support can make all the difference sometimes.  Do you need backups? Yes, no, maybe.  You need to know.  These are just some of the questions and answers you need, Im betting you will come up with a lot more.  There is a ton of information to process, it can seem overwhelming; however, if you do your research and take your time and put in a good plan, I’m sure your upgrade will be successful

Helpful links:
VMware Interoperability Guide: http://www.vmware.com/go/interop
VMware Compatibility Guide: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php
VMware Docs: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/index.html 
Guest OS Installation Guide: partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/home.html

Helpful Knowledge Base Articles: ( https://kb.vmware.com/s/ )
Information before upgrading to vSphere 6.5 (2147548)
VMware vSphere Upgrade Policies (2149713)
Update Sequence for vSphere 6.5 and its compatible VMware products (2147289)
Best Practices for upgrading to vCenter Server 6.5 (2147686)
Supported and Deprecated Topologies for VMware vSphere 6.5 (2147672)
vCenter Single Sign-on and PSC High Availability Compatibility Matrix (2112736)

 

VMworld 2017 Must See Sessions

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Hey Everyone!  Wow I cant believe we are already looking forward to VMworld 2017.  Its back again this year in Las Vegas and if you have never attended or haven’t registered yet, you definitely should!  Its a great opportunity to learn about emerging virtualization technology and meet and socialize with your peers. Its really a great time.  You can check out a recap of my VMworld 2016 right here.

Every year VMworld releases a few weeks prior to the schedule builder going live the content catalog.  Its always fun to search through all the great sessions and start to ear mark the ones I want to attend.  Often by the time the schedule builder goes live if you don’t choose your sessions a head of time many sessions will fill up quickly and you will be left out in the cold! (well its hot in Vegas, but you know what I mean). With that said, below is the list of some of the session that I feel are going to be awesome and I’m going to register for.  Here is the link for the VMware US Content Catalog – https://my.vmworld.com/scripts/catalog/uscatalog.jsp

vRealize Operations Capacity Explained (MGT1599BU)
This is an absolute must see!  At VMworld 2016, I was fortunate enough to be involved in co-presenting this session and I would highly recommend it.  Hicham Mourad is an expert on capacity management and he always delivers a fast paced and interactive presentation.  Last year this session was a top 10 session for attendance and rating.  Hicham will take you through a deep understanding of the different capacity and efficiency badges and how they are calculated, and he will explain in depth the different capacity models.  Expect to see a demo also. As long as Hicham is doing this session, I will be in attendance.  Here is a pic of Hicham and I presenting!

vSphere APIs with Alan Renouf and Kyle Ruddy (SER3036GU)
Just look at the title – Alen Renouf and Kyle Ruddy  – are you kidding me!  Two giants in the field of APIs.  This is one I will register for.  I am looking forward to learn about vSphere APIs and how to use them.  This session will deliver some really great content.

The Top 10 Things to Know About vSAN (STO1264BU)
Duncan Epping and Cormac Hogan – BOOOOM!   This is the mother load of vSAN presentations. I really don’t need to type anything else, but just in case you need more……. Cormac and Duncan will go over starting from the design phase and benchmarking to the operational aspect of vSAN.  I cant image a more informative session on vSAN.  Make sure you favorite this session, it will fill up right away!  Im bringing my autograph book!

VMware Cloud on AWS – Getting Started Workshop (ELW18801U)
What to get some hands on with VMware Cloud interface to perform basic tasks and manage your public cloud capacity!!??  Hell yeah!

VMware Cloud on AWS: A Technical Deep Dive (LHC2384BU)
Frank Denneman and Ray Budavari are two of the most technical speakers around.  This session will take a closer look at key features of VMware Cloud on AWS, such as elastic cluster and NSX networking functionality.  I clicked the star on this one… don’t miss it!

NSX and VMware Cloud on AWS: Deep Dive (LHC2103BU)
This is another Ray Budavari presentation.  He is like the Papa Smurf of NSX, a true NSX OG! This session will take you through the connectivity models for VMware Cloud on AWS and how NSX provides consistent networking on security between on premises deployments and public cloud…plus a whole lot more!

So there you are, just a few of the amazing sessions coming up at VMworld US 2017, that I will be attending.  There are so many more to choose from, all the content looks good.  I know my schedule will be filled to the brim!  Don’t forget to allow a little time to do some Hands On Labs and check out the Solutions Exchange and Hang Space.   Also make sure to stop by the VMUG booth and if you are not a member register and get involved in the community!

See ya in Vegas, Baby!
Dan

 

 

VMware Announces General Availability – vSphere 6.5

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Today VMware announced general availability for vSphere 6.5. Im really excited about this release, not only for vSphere 6.5, but I am also really looking forward to test out VSAN 6.5 and VROPs 6.4 along with Log Insight 4. All these products will go into my home lab first for me to play around with and try out new features, then Ill start to upgrade our Engineering Test lab at work, putting everthing through its paces, then onto test/dev/cert and into Prod.  I’m really interested in the new fully supported HTML-5 Web Client, and the predictive DRS features. I also want to check out the new appliance managemnt and update manager.

Happy testing! 🙂

Here is the link to the Official GA Announcement

Manually Increasing vSphere Web Client Heap Size

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The other day when I was building a vSphere 6.0 environment up in my lab for testing I ran into an issue where performance was extremely slow in the web client and I was continually receiving an error that the VMware-dataservice-sca and vsphere-client status would change from green to yellow.  When I deployed the VCSA/PSC appliance I choose “Tiny” as the size option.  Even though my implementation is going to be under the 10 hosts and 100 VMs, I think this build was just not enough, and performance in the web client was just really lacking.  Searching the VMware KB I came across 2144950.  I found out this is a known issue affecting vCenter Server 6.0.  Here are the steps that I used to work around the error and gain performance back in the web client.

First I added additional RAM to the appliance.  Pretty straight forward, no magic there.  Then I used SSH to connect to the appliance and ran the follow command:

cloudvm-ram-size -C XXX vsphere-client

Replace the XXX with the size in MB that you want to increase the heap size.

If you are running a Windows  vCenter Server, find C:\ProgramFiles\VMware\vCenter Server\visl-integration\usr\sbin\cloudvm-ram-size.bat and run this command:

cloudvm-ram-size.bat -C XXX vspherewebclientsvc

Again swap out the XXX with the size in MB that you want to increase the heap size. Don’t forget to restart the vSphere client service.

Removing a PSC or vCenter Server in vSphere 6.x

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The other day I’m bring up another vSphere 6.0 environment for our VDI team in our engineering test lab and for some reason im having all sorts of issues.  I’m installing a VCSA with embedded PSC and connecting it to and existing SSO domain.  I have no idea whats going on, its going horrible. One time the install will fail, then the next it will complete, but enhanced linked mode is just acting weird….Well unbeknownst to me the QIP team decided to cut over DNS to new appliances and that was reeking havoc across the environment.  So now that I’ve killed (I kid) the guy who was doing this I’m left with a mess to clean up.  Finally DNS is working properly so I’m going to re-deploy the PSC/VCSA again but before I do that, I have to clean up the one that I don’t want anymore. Lucky for us its a pretty easy job.

The first step I had to do was make sure that my appliance was powered down.  I knew that there was no other VCSA pointing to this PSC.  If you are unsure if any other vCenter is connected to the PSC you are removing, you can check by logging into the vSphere web client and go to the advanced vCenter server settings and look for a property called config.vpxd.sso.admin.url and the value of this setting is the PSC the vCenter server is using.  If you find any other vCenters VMware has KB 2113917 to help you re point your vCenter to a different PSC.

Once that is all sorted out, next we need to connect to another PSC is the same SSO domain via SSH and run the following command:

cmsso-util unregister --node-pnid Platform_Services_Controller_FQDN 
--username administrator@your_domain_name --passwd vCenter_Single_Sign_On_password

After that completes, delete the appliance from your inventory and check in Administration -> System Configration -> Nodes to make sure that its not listed there.

Removing a VCSA is just about the same as above just have to make one change in the command:

cmsso-util unregister --node-pnid vCenterServer_System_Name --username 
administrator@your_domain_name --passwd vCenter_Single_Sign_On_password

If you need some additional info on these steps, check out KB 2106736