davidstamen

Using Pure Storage FlashBlade as a Nutanix Point in Time Backup for Prism Central

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Nutanix Prism Central supports point-in-time backups to protect your Prism Environment. These backups capture the complete state of your environment at a specific moment, enabling rapid recovery from data loss or corruption. While Prism Central offers native backup capabilities, integrating an S3-compliant object store like Pure Storage FlashBlade provides a scalable, cost-effective alternative for long-term retention and disaster recovery. Let’s dive in and see how to configure this integration!

Collect Nutanix VM vDisk and Map to Pure Storage Volumes and Snapshots

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Nutanix with FlashArray is Now Generally Available! With this initial release, Nutanix now has a new External Storage Platform with Pure Storage connecting over NVMeoF/TCP. This integration uses volume granular storage which means every vDisk from Nutanix gets created as a Pure Storage volume. This series will outline how to identify a vDisks associated volume and snapshot on a Pure Storage FlashArray.

A Guide to Using iPXE + Pure Cloud Block Store for Stateless EC2 Instances - Part 3

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to Part 3 of the Using iPXE + Pure Cloud Block Store (CBS) for Stateless EC2. In the first part of the series we covered getting all the details ready, Part 2 did a deeper into the AWS and Pure Storage ecosystem and now part 3 will include some advanced day 2 automation.

A Guide to Using iPXE + Pure Cloud Block Store for Stateless EC2 Instances - Part 2

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to Part 2 of the Using iPXE + Pure Cloud Block Store (CBS) for Stateless EC2. In the first part of the series we covered getting all the details ready, Part 2 will dive deeper into the AWS and Pure Storage ecosystem to get an EC2 instance deployed running on an iSCSI SAN booted volume.

A Guide to Using iPXE + Pure Cloud Block Store for Stateless EC2 Instances - Part 1

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Are you searching for a more modern approach to deploying and managing your Amazon EC2 fleet? While the traditional EC2 boot process is dependable, it relies on local EBS storage. In this guide, I’ll show you how to leverage Pure Cloud Block Store to overcome this limitation by using an iPXE-based AMI. This method enables you to bootstrap EC2 instances over iSCSI, allowing for fully stateless deployments.

Unlocking Performance Insights: Using resxtop to Monitor Your Azure VMware Solution Environment

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 05:00:00 +0000

In this blog post, we will explore how to use resxtop to monitor your Azure VMware Solution environment. We’ll cover the basics of getting started with resxtop, key metrics to watch, and tips for interpreting the data to make informed decisions. By the end of this guide, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge to harness the full potential of resxtop and ensure your AVS environment runs smoothly and efficiently.

Navigating the Azure Cloud: Key Considerations for Strengthening Infrastructure Security with Azure Locks

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 05:00:00 +0000

In today’s world, making sure your cloud infrastructure is secured is important. As you migrate to the cloud, the need to protect sensitive data, prevent accidental changes, and maintain compliance becomes increasingly crucial. One powerful tool in your arsenal to achieve this is Azure Locks. In this blog post, we will explore what Azure Locks are, why they are important, and how you can effectively utilize them to enhance the security of your Azure resources.

The Power of PowerShell: Calculating Azure VMware Solution (AVS) Costs

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Gone are the days of manual calculations and complex spreadsheets to estimate costs. With the capabilities of PowerShell and automation tools we have the ability to streamline the collection of data. Through this blog I will guide you through the steps of utilizing PowerShell to calculate Azure VMware Solution costs.

Navigating the Azure Cloud: Key Considerations for Azure VMware Solution (AVS)

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 05:00:00 +0000

The Azure VMware Solution (AVS) is a cloud service provided by Microsoft that allows organizations to seamlessly extend their on-premises VMware environments to the Microsoft Azure cloud. It essentially enables you to run and manage your existing VMware workloads in Azure without the need to rearchitect or refactor them.

Navigating the Azure Cloud: Key Considerations for Harnessing DNS with Azure Private Endpoints

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 12:00:00 +0000

One powerful tool that Azure offers to enhance security and privacy is the Azure Private Endpoint DNS. This innovative feature allows organizations to establish a private and secure connection to their Azure services, minimizing exposure to potential threats and breaches. This blog will highlight some considerations to be aware of when utilizing it.

Using Bicep to Deploy a Microsoft SQL on Azure VM with Cloud Block Store Volumes

Wed, 17 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

This blog will showcase how to deploy an Azure VM that has a configured Microsoft SQL Instance that is connected to a Cloud Block Store (CBS) volume. I have previously showcased VM & CBS deployments with both Powershell and Terraform, but its time to bring it to a new language!

Using Bicep to Deploy an Azure Virtual Machine

Mon, 15 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to another blog on Automation! This one will be focused on deploying resources in Azure using Bicep. Follow along to understand what Bicep is and my thoughts on it.

Using CloudFormation to Manage EC2 in AWS

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:00:00 +0000

An update to a topic I previously covered! How can we automate management of virtual machines in AWS? Cloud Formation (CFT) is another way that can accomplish it. This blog will identify how you can create, update and delete a CFT stack to be able to manage your EC2 infrastructure.

Using the AWS CLI to Collect Amazon S3 Bucket Object Information

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Data collection is the theme of the month! This next ask was to easily identify S3 bucket objects, based on name, class of storage and time created.

Using the AWS CLI to Collect Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) Information

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Most of my recent blogs have been focused on not just how to “do” something, but provide some information on how things work. This specific blog will cover how we can use the AWS CLI to gather information and format it in a way that is useful. This collection will provide not only information about an EBS volume, but also the instance that is attached, identify the boot volumes and even provide the instance type.

Site Recovery Manager - Rename Datastore After Recovery

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 12:00:00 +0000

During a failover, or whenever a datastore is re-signatured VMware will append snap-PREFIX-DataStoreName. In some cases, this will break automation, and in general you may not find your datastore! This blog will cover how to get Site Recovery Manager to rename the datastore to the original name after recovery.

How to Map an Raw Device Mapping (RDM) to a Pure Storage Volume using PowerCLI

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 12:00:00 +0000

When running operations against an RDM, you may need to know the backing volume. Unfortunately with RDM’s there is no easy way to identify this without doing a manual comparison between vCenter Server & the Array. This post will explain how to map an RDM to a Pure Volume to extract the Name and Serial number of the backing volume.

Build and Publish a Powershell Module to the Powershell Gallery

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 12:00:00 +0000

In this blog we will dive into what is a Powershell Module, how its changed and then what can we do to build and publish the module to the Powershell Gallery. I recently did this presentation again at VMworld Explore 2022 and it was a hit, so I figured its finally time to get it here on the blog so it can be referenced and viewed year round.

Understanding Block Storage in Amazon Web Services

Mon, 02 May 2022 12:00:00 +0000

When running workloads in the Public Cloud such as Amazon Web Services, you have a bunch of options when it comes to block storage. How do you know which one to pick? There are alot of choices–tradeoffs, features and sprawl can also occur. In this blog I will cover the different types of disks available to help educate you on some of the purposes and limitations of each. I previously covered what this looks like in Microsoft Azure and figured now would be a good time to cover the differences in AWS.

Understanding Block Storage in Microsoft Azure

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 12:00:00 +0000

When running workloads in the Public Cloud such as Microsoft Azure, you have a bunch of options when it comes to block storage. How do you know which one to pick? There are alot of choices–tradeoffs, features and sprawl can also occur. In this blog I will cover the different types of disks available to help educate you on some of the purposes and limitations of each.

Using Terraform to Deploy the Pure Storage VMware Appliance

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 12:00:00 +0000

Ive previously covered what’s new in the Pure Storage VMware Appliance and how to deploy it via PowerCLI, lets take a look at how to deploy the Pure Storage VMware Appliance using Terraform.

Using PowerCLI to Deploy the Pure Storage VMware Appliance

Thu, 29 Jul 2021 12:00:00 +0000

Now that the latest Pure Storage vSphere Client Plugin is available as a remote plugin is is now deployed as an OVA. I have put together this quick script to automate deploying of the Pure Storage VMware Appliance.

What's New in the 5.0.0 Pure Storage Plugin for the vSphere Client

Wed, 28 Jul 2021 12:00:00 +0000

On July 28, 2021 Pure Storage released the latest version of their plugin version 5.0.0. Not only is this a new version, but it also runs on the new remote plugin architecture that VMware has released in vSphere 6.7U3 and vSphere 7.0+. This post will explore how to deploy and manage version 5.0.0 as well as discuss the latest features in this release! (Some are long awaited!)

Pure Cloud Block Store on AWS - Quick Launch

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 12:00:00 +0000

In previous posts I have covered use cases on how to utilize Pure Cloud Block Store (CBS), but if we look back I haven’t explained how it can be deployed. This blog will cover how to quickly launch CBS with the pre-requisites in AWS.

Pure Cloud Block Store on Azure - Quick Launch

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 12:00:00 +0000

Automating Deployment of vSphere Infrastructure on Equinix Metal

Thu, 20 May 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Did you know that Equinix has a Bare Metal as a Service (BMaaS) offering? Back in March Pure Storage also announced their Pure Storage® on Equinix Metal™ offering. This allows users to not only procure the Pure Storage FlashArray as an op-ex based purchase, but it also lets you spin up physical servers in Equinix Metal DC’s and connect them to a physical dedicated FlashArray. In this series I will cover how to deploy a vSphere environment on Equinix Metal with Terraform.

What's New in Pure1 VM Analytics and OVA Collector 3.1.0

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The Pure Storage OVA is a single OVA deployment that can be configured for different roles. Today VM Analytics is the only available role, with more coming. Version 3.1.0 includes some new features and fixes, lets dive in and take a look.

Using an In-house Provider with Terraform v0.14

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Ever wanted to update a Terraform Provider and not use the hosted Registry? Here at Pure Storage we have a Terraform Provider for Cloud Block Store and I wanted to do some testing myself. I started to pull my hair out trying to get Terraform to use my locally built provider instead of the registry. Check out this blog for a few simple steps to use a local in-house provider instead of the registry!

Modify Resources of the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Service Engine for vSphere with Tanzu

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In a previous role I have used Avi Networks and I love their load balancing solution. If you do not pay attention to the default settings, the Service Engines that handle load balancing deploy at 1 cpu and 2 gb of ram. With this blog I will cover how to change that if you have already deployed the NSX ALB and vSphere with Tanzu or any other Virtual Services.

Deploy vSphere with Tanzu using vSphere Networking with the NSX Advanced Load Balancer

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In my previous post we covered how to deploy the NSX Advanced Load Balancer for use with vSphere with Tanzu. This post will go over the vSphere with Tanzu configuration to use that NSX Advanced Load Balancer

Deploy and Configure the NSX Advanced Load Balancer for vSphere with Tanzu

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

VMware has just released vSphere 7.0 Update 2! With this release NSX Advanced Load Balancer also known as AVI Networks is now a supported load-balancer alongside HA Proxy for vSphere Network deployments. This blog will cover how to deploy and configure the load balancer for use with vSphere with Tanzu.

Using the Pure Storage Cloud Block Store Terraform Provider for Azure

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Im excited to announce the second release of the Pure Storage Cloud Block Store (CBS) Terraform Provider. This release includes support for Cloud Block Store on Azure! Let’s dive in and take a look.

Cloud Block Store Use Cases for Microsoft Azure - Terraform Edition

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Previously I explained how to use Terraform to Deploy an Azure VM. Now that Cloud Block Store iS GA in Azure, I can cover how to use Automation for Test/Dev, Disaster Recovery and Migration use cases to move workloads from on-premises to Microsoft Azure!

Using vRealize Automation 8.x with the Pure Storage vRealize Orchestrator Plugin

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Previously I explained how to use the vRealize Orchestrator Plugin 3.5 with vRealize Orchestrator and Automation 7.x. Back in November of 2020 we released the latest update to our vRO workflow package 4.0 which introduced support for vRealize Automation/Orchestrator 8.x! Our integration with vRA utilizes the vRO Plugin and allows users to self-provision their infrastructure using all the goodness included with vRA such as blueprints, approval workflows and reservations. Lets Dive in and take a look!

vExpert 2021

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 08:00:00 +0000

I am honored to have been selected as a VMware vExpert once again for 2021!

Using the Pure Storage Cloud Block Store Terraform Provider for AWS

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Im excited to announce the first release of the Pure Storage Cloud Block Store (CBS) Terraform Provider. The first release introduces support for Cloud Block Store on AWS. Let’s dive in and take a look at how to utilize the new provider!

Error downloading plugin-in: com.vmware.h4.vsphere.client

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to my first blog of 2021! Its been a crazy year so far, but glad to be back writing. This issue is one that has been bothering me for some time in my vSphere 7 environment. Every time I logged into the vSphere Client i got the following error. “Error downloading plug-in. Make sure that the URL is reachable and the registered thumbprint is correct.” I finally had a few moments to research the issue and resolve it.

What's New in Pure1 VM Analytics and OVA Collector 3.0

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 08:00:00 +0000

On November 16, 2020 the latest version of the Pure1 VM Analytics OVA Collector (3.0) was released and with it comes some new Pure1 features! Let’s take a look at how the collector has changed, and what new features we now have within Pure1 VM Analytics.

Backup and Restore Kubernetes Applications Using Portworx

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 08:00:00 +0000

When deploying any enterprise application it is always important to think about the BC/DR strategy. Containers work really great from a Business Continuity perspective as they are stateless, but what happens if you lose the entire datacenter? What happens if you need to migrate an application to another site? PX-Backup from Portworx by Pure Storage is a great tool for this! Lets take a look how we can backup and restore applications using PX-Backup

Deploying a Linux EC2 Instance with Hashicorp Terraform and Vault to AWS and Connect to Pure Cloud Block Store

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 08:00:00 +0000

Another update to my “Terraforming AWS” series is the ability to deploy a Linux based Instance and connect to an existing data volume sitting on the Pure Cloud Block Store. This post will cover how to setup your environment and deploy and bootstrap your linux instance to connect via ISCSI.

Using Pure1 Meta for Intelligent Datastore Selection and VM Provisioning

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 08:00:00 +0000

When it comes to monitoring your Pure Storage environment Pure1 is a great place for that. It is also a great place to use your analytic’s data to your advantage and use it for intelligent VMware provisioning! In this blog post I will cover how to use this data to your advantage to make sure you can easily deploy VM’s to the most optimal array and datastore.

Deploying a EC2 Instance with PowerShell to AWS

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 08:00:00 +0000

Previously, I covered how to Deploy and Bootstrap an EC2 Instance in AWS using Terraform. Not everyone may use Terraform, but quite a few people are using PowerShell today. Lets take a Look at how we can use AWSPowerShell to deploy an EC2 instance in AWS.

Deploying a Windows Azure VM with Hashicorp Terraform to Microsoft Azure

Thu, 05 Nov 2020 08:00:00 +0000

As a followup to my previous post on Automating EC2 deployments, I figured why not show how this can also be done with Microsoft Azure? Check out how to launch an Azure VM instance and run some scripts to customize your installation.

Deploying a Windows EC2 Instance with Hashicorp Terraform and Vault to AWS

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 08:00:00 +0000

As part of demonstrating our products to customers, I tend to reprovision EC2 instances to show how easy it is to mount data in AWS to Cloud Block Store. After doing this manually a little too often, I figured why not automate it? Check out this blog on how I use Terraform to deploy a EC2 instance and configure it for in-guest iSCSI.

Unable to Sync vLCM Updates - Error: 'integrity.fault.HostPatchInvalidVendorCode'

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 08:00:00 +0000

After upgrading my vCenter Server to the latest vSphere 7.0 Update 1, I was unable to see ESXi 7.0 Update 1 Image. When I attempted to sync the updates I got the error “Download patch definitions task failed while syncing depots. Error: ‘integrity.fault.HostPatchInvalidVendorCode’.” Let’s take a look how we can resolve this issue and be able to sync the latest updates.

Using Runecast to Check Pure Storage Best Practices

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 08:00:00 +0000

Today Runecast has announced the release of automated checks of VMware Best Practices for Pure Storage FlashArray! Let’s dive in and take a look!

Using PowerCLI to Provision your Pure Storage Infrastructure

Mon, 17 Aug 2020 08:00:00 +0000

In the continuation of my Automating your Pure Storage Infrastructure blog series, next I will be covering how to use PowerCLI to provision your Pure Storage Infrastructure. This has been one of the most popular ways to automate provisioning, and alot of work has been put into making this an ideal automation solution.

Using Python to Provision your Pure Storage Infrastructure

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 08:00:00 +0000

In the continuation of my Automating your Pure Storage Infrastructure blog series, next I will be covering how to use Python to provision your Pure Storage Infrastructure.

Using Ansible to Provision your Pure Storage Infrastructure

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 08:00:00 +0000

I mentioned previously that there are many things I love about the Pure Storage Flasharray, but one of my favorite is how easy it is to integrate into different automation solutions. In this blog I will cover how to use Ansible to provision your Pure Storage Infrastructure.

Using Terraform to Provision your Pure Storage Infrastructure

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 08:00:00 +0000

There are many things I love about the Pure Storage Flasharray, but one of my favorite is how easy it is to integrate into different automation solutions. In this blog I will cover how to use Terraform to provision your Pure Storage Infrastructure. This will be the first post of many that show how easy it is to accomplish the same task using multiple automation methods.

What's New in the Pure Storage vRealize Orchestrator Plugin 3.5

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 08:30:00 +0000

Released on July 30, 2020 the latest vRO plugin for vRealize 7.x is here!

Using Terraform to Deploy the Pure1 VM Analytics Collector

Tue, 30 Jun 2020 07:30:00 +0000

Pure1 VM Analytics is a great tool to have in your environment. You don’t need to even have a Pure Storage array, but it makes it even better! Back in 2019 the collector was converted to an OVA format and has been much simpler to deploy. You can deploy it through the UI or even Powershell. With the latest update to the Terraform vSphere provider we can now deploy OVA’s, so lets jump in to see how we can deploy the VM Analytics collector!

Using Terraform to Deploy the VMware Event Broker Appliance

Mon, 29 Jun 2020 08:30:00 +0000

With the addition of OVF/OVA customized properties in Terraform, I figured I would put together a few runbooks for appliances to deploy. In my first post I covered how to deploy SRM, this post will include the details on how to deploy the VMware Event Broker Appliance (VEBA).

Using Terraform to Deploy the VMware Nested ESXi Appliance

Mon, 29 Jun 2020 08:30:00 +0000

With the addition of OVF/OVA customized properties in Terraform, I figured I would put together a few runbooks for appliances to deploy. This post will cover the details deploy the Nested ESXi Appliance.

Using Terraform to Deploy the Site Recovery Manager 8.3 Appliance

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 08:30:00 +0000

Previously I covered how to deploy the SRM appliance using PowerCLI, but as I started to tinker with Terraform I figured why not create a new blog post to document the process. Without the latest Terraform vSphere 1.20.0 Provider, this wouldnt be possible! Lets dive in and take a look on how we can do some appliance deployments.

Using the VMware Event Broker Appliance to Automatically Expand a Pure Storage FlashArray Datastore

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 08:30:00 +0000

Something we get asked quite often it seems here at Pure Storage, is can we automatically expand a datastore when it gets full? The answer is yes! With all of the integrations with automation platformsm, Pure Storage Arrays have many options. This blog will cover how to handle this with the VMware Event Broker Appliance (VEBA)!

Updating the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) with PowerCLI - Revisited

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In previous blogs, I covered how to update your VCSA using PowerCLI and with Postman. I also had multiple code sessions at VMworld 2019 where I got great feedback on the module. It’s been a while since I have looked at the module, and time has passed so I thought it was due for an update. The module will no longer need to be manually imported, it is now located in the Powershell Gallery!

Configuring vRealize Orchestrator to use Pure1 Integration

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 08:00:00 +0000

The more I play with our integrations the more I am impressed. My latest project within vRealize Orchestrator had me utilizing our Pure1 integration. This post will cover how to generate the needed pieces to configure the Pure1 Integration within vRO.

Unable to Provision a vVol Hard Disk on a VM Located on VMFS Datastore

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 08:00:00 +0000

An interesting issue came in from one of our customers that they were unable to provision a new vVol Disk on a VM that was based on a VMFS Datastore. After some troubleshooting it seems there was a regression which no longer makes this available in the UI. Take a look at this blog post on how I will cover a workaround.

Updating a vSphere with Kubernetes Supervisor Cluster

Fri, 29 May 2020 08:00:00 +0000

With the release of the first vSphere 7.0 update we now are seeing how updates for vSphere with Kubernetes environments can be completed! Let’s dive into this post to see how I completed the upgrade of my vSphere with Kubernetes environment.

What's New in the 4.3.1 Pure Storage vSphere Client Plugin

Tue, 26 May 2020 08:30:00 +0000

In May 2020 Pure Storage released the latest version of their plugin version 4.3.1! This post will explore what’s new in this release!

Deploying Tanzu Kubernetes Clusters (TKC) on vSphere with Kubernetes using the TKG CLI

Tue, 19 May 2020 08:00:00 +0000

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) is a great tool to deploy VMware Kubernetes on different Platforms. In previous blogs I covered how you could deploy a TKG to VMware Cloud on AWS as well as to a regular vSphere Environment. Today we will demonstrate how to use the TKG CLI to provision a Tanzu Kubernetes Cluster (TKC) to a vSphere With Kubernetes Environment.

Running vVols in VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) on Pure Storage Cloud Block Store (CBS) on AWS

Fri, 15 May 2020 08:00:00 +0000

Another post of a cool project this week. With the tools we have available during our hackathon it was asked if we could run vVols in VMware Cloud on AWS. Because of the locked down nature of VMC we could not run vVols directly on that cluster, but I did find a way that we could. Dive into this blog post to see how vVols run on CBS.

Deploying Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) on VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC)

Wed, 13 May 2020 08:00:00 +0000

In a previous post I covered how you can deploy TKG on vSphere, for the second part of our internal hackathon we had a requirement to install TKG on VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC). This post will go over how I was able to get TKG deployed on VMC.

Deploying Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) on vSphere

Mon, 11 May 2020 08:00:00 +0000

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) is part of VMware’s new Tanzu Portfolio of products. I have done quite a bit with vSphere with Kubernetes and Tanzu Kubernetes Clusters on vSphere with Kubernetes, but something came up and I began to explore native TKG. This blog will cover how to deploy TKG on vSphere and get your management and tkc clusters provisioned.

What's New in the Pure Storage vRealize Operations Management Pack 3.0

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 08:30:00 +0000

Released on April 15, 2020 the long awaited Pure Storage vRealize Operations Management Pack 3.0 is here!

What's New in the 4.3.0 Pure Storage vSphere Client Plugin

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 08:30:00 +0000

On April 2, 2020 Pure Storage released the latest version of their plugin version 4.3.0! This post will explore the latest features in this release!

Using PowerCLI to Deploy the Site Recovery Manager 8.3 Appliance

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 08:30:00 +0000

My latest project was to rebuild one of my labs to run vSphere 7 and Site Recovery Manager 8.3. In my current role I am constantly am deploying new lab environments for certain demos. If i can avoid using a manual process for it I will, in this case I am showing how you can deploy the SRM OVF using PowerCLI.

Pre-Requsites

VMware PowerCLI

Link to Script

deploy-srm83.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, you will need to extract the SRM 8.3 ISO and fill in the appropriate variables on the script.

Part 6: Deploying vSphere with Kubernetes - Provisioning and Managing a Tanzu Kubernetes Cluster

Mon, 13 Apr 2020 08:30:00 +0000

vSphere 7 with Kubernetes is finally here and I couldn’t be more excited for it to be available. This blog series will cover the requirements, prequisites and deployment steps in order to deploy a vSphere with Kubernetes (vk8s) environment using vSphere 7 and NSX-T 3.0.

Part 5: Deploying vSphere with Kubernetes - Using vSphere with Kubernetes

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 14:00:00 +0000

Part 4: Deploying vSphere with Kubernetes - Enabling vSphere with Kubernetes

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 13:30:00 +0000

Part 3: Deploying vSphere with Kubernetes - Deploy and Configure NSX-T

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 13:00:00 +0000

Part 2: Deploying vSphere with Kubernetes - Configuring vCenter Server

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 12:00:00 +0000

Part 1: Deploying vSphere with Kubernetes - Prerequisites

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 11:00:00 +0000

vExpert Cloud Management 2020 Award

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

VMware and their vExpert Program has announced the vExpert Sub-Program announcements and I am glad to see I have been accepted into the vExpert Cloud Management group!

Replacing the Pure Storage FlashArray VASA Certificate

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Maintaining Certificates in your environments is an important thing to do to make connections between your client and server are encrypted. With this blog we will go over how to replace your Pure Storage FlashArray Certificate for the vStorage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) using a Microsoft Certificate Authority.

Replacing the Pure Storage FlashArray Management Certificate

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Maintaining Certificates in your environments is an important thing to do to make connections between your client and server are encrypted. With this blog we will go over how to replace your Pure Storage FlashArray Management Certificate using a Microsoft Certificate Authority.

VMworld 2019 Distinguished Speaker Award

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

VMware has been working on a new program that recognizes the hard work of speakers who maintain a high feedback score over the span of previous two VMworld Conferences. I am proud to announce I have received the VMworld Distinguished Speaker Award for 2019.

Glad to be part of the Inaugural VMware{code} Coach Program

Thu, 26 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

VMware has been working on building an influencer program for the VMware{code} community for sometime. I am proud to announce I am one of the inaugural coaches for 2020!

Configuring and Using the Pure Storage vSphere Plugin with Pure1 Authentication

Wed, 25 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Beginning with version 4.2.0 the Pure Storage vSphere Client Plugin had a whole slew of new features added, one of those features was the ability to integrate authentication with Pure1 allowing fleet registration of all your Pure Storage Arrays among other things. This does require a slight change on how you would normally register your arrays in the plugin, so lets take a look at how we can accomplish this!

Using vRealize Automation with the Pure Storage vRealize Orchestrator Plugin

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Moving forward with Automation, we will now expand our horizons past vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) into vRealize Automation (vRA)! Our integration with vRA utilizes the vRO Plugin and allows users to self-provision their infrastructure using all the goodness included with vRA such as blueprints, approval workflows and reservations. Lets Dive in and take a look!

Using the Pure Storage vRealize Orchestrator Plugin

Mon, 16 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Adding to the series of VMware and Pure Storage blogs is Automation! When it comes to automating your VMware Environment with Pure Storage we have a vRO Plugin for you! Dive in and take a look at how you can get your environment automated.

vSphere 6.0 Reaches End Of General Support

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

All good things must come to an end, today marks the End of General Support for vSphere 6.0 and its compatible products.

Using the Pure Storage vRealize Operations Management Pack

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

When it comes to monitoring your Pure Storage environment, Pure1 is an amazing tool. However, some customers have an investment in the VMware vRealize Suite and wish to look at some of the Pure Storage Array information within their vRealize Operations environment.

Using the Pure Storage vSphere Plugin

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome back! If you followed my previous post on Installing and Updating the Pure Storage vSphere Plugin, you may be wondering well What’s Next? Now its time to use it, which will empower your VMware Administrators to be awesome Pure Storage Administrators without ever needing to login to the Pure Storage UI!

Installing and Updating the Pure Storage vSphere Plugin

Tue, 03 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the first of many Pure Storage blogs. As I get ramped up with the latest information I plan to do a series of getting started with Pure Storage features. These blogs will cover things such as the vSphere Client (HTML5) Plugin, FlashArray, FlashBlade and integrations with other VMware products. First up is learning to install and update the Pure Storage vSphere Client Plugin.

vExpert 2020

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I am honored to have been selected as a VMware vExpert once again for 2020!

This is my eighth year as a vExpert (2013,2014,2015,2016,2017,2018,2019 and now 2020). It has been great to see the community grow and the amount of vExperts increase. Although I’m no longer employed at VMware I plan to still support the VMware community in any way I can. I plan to put more blogs on the personal blog this year and am excited to see folks at whichever industry events I am able to attend.

Back to Work, I'm Going to

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

When the unfortunate reduction in force (RIF) struck in January at VMware, I was in disbelief and didn’t even know where to start. Over the past two years I had the amazing opportunity to not only present to customers and partners in places I never imagined, but the ability to be an internal subject matter expert and create some amazing content. VMware is an amazing place to work and the relationships I’ve made and my impact to the products are beyond things I thought I could ever accomplish. However things must come to an end. The RIF had nothing to do about performance, it was strictly a business decision and many team members across multiple business units were affected. I wish everyone the best of luck, as there are some amazing things coming!

My Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Exam Experience

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It has now been about two months since I have began learning Kubernetes as I started to cover Project Pacific in my new role. With that said, one of my goals was to achieve the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) to prove my current knowledge. This post will be a recap of my experience studying for the exam.

Considerations for vSphere Component Backup and Restore: Part 2

Wed, 23 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Now that we have covered the considerations to backup each component in your vSphere Environment, it’s time to think about the rollback or restore process. In the previous post we discussed how to backup each individual component, in this post we will continue the conversation and discuss considerations to restore or rollback your vSphere Environment components.

Platform Services Controller / vCenter Server

When things don’t go right with an update, upgrade or configuration change of your Platform Services Controller or vCenter Server you need to understand the proper steps it takes to rollback. In these scenarios sometimes there may have been a failure in the process, or after a successful upgrade was completed, an incompatibility was found which would result in a rollback. A reason we see the need to rollback a vCenter Server is when a supporting solution such as a backup vendor or monitoring vendor is not compatible. In this case you will need to revert to the previous version.

Considerations for vSphere Component Backup and Restore: Part 1

Mon, 21 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

You spend time planning and implementing updates, upgrades and configuration changes to vSphere Environments. Rollback or recovery is usually the last thing on the mind. Did you know there are multiple ways to successfully backup each component in a vSphere Environment? There are also many ways to recover those same components.

In this series we will talk about considerations to backup and restore or rollback your vSphere environment if we have a need to.

VMworld EU 2019 - vSphere Lifecycle Sessions

Tue, 24 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

VMworld US has wrapped up and now its time to focus on VMworld EU! Let’s jump in and find out what’s going on in the world of vSphere Lifecycle. Check out this post to see how I will be engaging with our customers at this years events!

Windows Server 2008 is Going EOL - What about my vCenter Server?

Mon, 12 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 will be end-of-life on January 14th, 2020. This impacts quite a few folks who may have deployed their vCenter Server for Windows on these Operating Systems. I have been asked quite often recently, “What are my options?” Let’s dive in and find out what it takes to move to a supported OS!

Handling the Lifecycle of a vCenter HA Environment

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

vSphere 6.5 first introduced vCenter HA and since its inception has been deployed in many environments. When it comes to upgrading or updating your vCenter HA environment there are some specific considerations. If you have wondered what it takes to handle the lifecycle of a vCenter HA enabled vCenter Server, keep reading!

vCenter HA Overview

vCenter HA has seen wide adoption as customers wish to provide provide high availability for their vCenter Server. VMware Solutions such as Site Recovery Manager, NSX and Horizon View rely heavily on the availability of the vCenter Server being online, so having a low RPO and RTO assists in availability of these business critical applications. vCenter Server 6.7 Update 1 introduced workflow improvements by bringing vCenter HA into the vSphere Client. There are no longer two separate Basic and Advanced workflows. If the vCenter Server is self-managed the passive and witness nodes will be automatically deployed. However, if the vCenter Server is not self-managed the workflow will prompt you for the managing vCenter Servers credential.

VMworld 2019 - Sessions and Events

Tue, 18 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

VMworld US 2019 is just around the corner and the session acceptance emails have just been sent out. Check out this post to see how I will be engaging with our customers at this years events!

vCenter Server Converge Tool - What About My Certificates

Fri, 07 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

As more customers get ready to run the vCenter Server Converge Tool in their environments, a common question that has been asked is “What Happens to my Certificates?” Well that is a good question so lets find out!

vCenter Server Appliance CLI - JSON Creator

Wed, 24 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I am proud to announce that my first VMware Clarity Project the VCSA JSON Creator is now live! This has been something I have wanted to do for some time, and am glad to finally have the first version available for feedback. Let’s dive in and take a look.

vCenter Server Converge Tool - How do I Converge an Environment Using the UI

Thu, 11 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

vSphere 6.7 Update 2 is now available! Inside this update include enhancements to the vCenter Server Converge Tool. Let’s dive in and take a look at whats new and see how to converge a deployment using the new UI.

About Me

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

David Stamen is a Technical Strategy Director at Everpure Focused on New Product Introduction and Cloud Solutions.

I can be found blogging at:

And I can also be found on Bluesky, Twitter/X and on LinkedIn

Privacy Policy

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Patching the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) using the REST API - Part 2 (PowerCLI Module)

Thu, 31 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Previously I covered how to use the VCSA Installer to do a scripted upgrade and then I covered Patching the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) using the REST API - Part 1 (Postman Collection) However, after learning recently how to call API’s from Powershell I thought to myself, why not write a Powershell Module for this?

Introduction

Using tools such as Postman can make it utilizing API’s a bit easier, but you still need to be familiar with a separate tool or UI. I was able to develop my own version and build my first Powershell Module that you can use to patch the VCSA in a simple method. Some of the function names below may not be 100% exact and this is due to the accepted verbs for Powershell. If you have further recommendations I would be happy to entertain changing the Powershell verbage.

Patching the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) using the REST API - Part 1 (Postman Collection)

Thu, 20 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I am a huge fan of Automating the vSphere Lifecycle process. The next step I wanted to cover was patching the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) using the REST API.

Unable to Update to vCenter Server 6.5 U2d on VCSA

Mon, 19 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

When trying to update your vSphere 6.5 environment to vSphere 6.5u2d it may show that there are no available updates.

Upgrading to VMware vSphere 6.7 eBook - Now Available

Mon, 19 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I am proud to announce availability of the new Upgrading to VMware vSphere 6.7 eBook.

vSphere Update Manager 6.7 Unable to Scan Cluster

Thu, 25 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I recently deployed a couple new vSphere 6.7 labs and was having some issues running Check Compliance within Update Manager.

VMworld EU - Sessions and Events

Wed, 24 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

VMworld EU is around the corner and just like VMworld US I will be quite busy! If you are interested in where to find me, look below to see some my planned sessions.

What's New with Auto Deploy in vSphere 6.7 U1

Thu, 18 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

If you havent heard vSphere 6.7 U1 is now out and is loaded with all new features! If you have used 6.7 GA you may have noticed the Auto Deploy functionality did not yet make it into the long awaited vSphere Client. With vCenter Server 6.7 U1 we now have feature parity and this means Auto Deploy has been added to the vSphere Client. Lets jump in and see some of the new functionality that has been included.

Why and How To Upgrade to vSphere 6.7 U1

Thu, 11 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

vSphere 6.7 Update 1 is finally here! Lets jump in and find out how and why to upgrade!

Automating the Upgrade of the Virtual Distributed Switch

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 08:02:47 -0400

We are on the home stretch of our Automating your vSphere Upgrade blog series. The final step of completing our upgrade will be upgrading our Virtual Distributed Switch (VDS). When upgrading your VDS on vSphere 6.7 the version is actually 6.6 (we will cover the details later). Please make sure prior to upgrading your VDS to 6.6 all ESXi hosts have been upgraded to ESXi 6.7, if you still have hosts on ESXi 6.5 you will only be able to upgrade to version 6.5.

Automating Migration of VMFS-5 to VMFS-6 Datastores

Sun, 07 Oct 2018 08:13:29 -0400

Next up in our Automating your vSphere Upgrade blog series is your VMFS Datastore. vSphere 6.5 and vSphere 6.7 both support the latest VMFS-6. Once all of your ESXi hosts that are connected to the VMFS-5 datastore have been upgraded to vSphere 6.5 or vSphere 6.7 you can then proceed to migrate your datastore to VMFS-6.

Automating Upgrade of VMware Tools and VM Compatibility

Sat, 06 Oct 2018 08:25:31 -0400

Next up in our Automating your vSphere Upgrade blog series is your VMware Tools and VM Compatibility. Upgrading these both have different requirements so we will cover when and how you should upgrade your VMware Tools and VM compatibility in the below post.

Upgrading Platform Services Controller and vCenter Server via the CLI Installer

Fri, 05 Oct 2018 09:08:15 -0400

The first topic we will cover in our Automating your vSphere Upgrade series is updating our core infrastructure. Upgrading Platform Services Controller(PSC) and vCenter Server via the CLI installer. In our workshops one of the common things I hear is that most folks aren’t using the CLI based tools that have been included in the installer. I am a huge fan of these as they make migrations and upgrades seamless–especially when having to perform the task if you have multiple PSC’s and vCenter Servers. Using the CLI tools don’t have to be intimidating, as we go through this blog we will cover some how-to’s and benefits of using the CLI based approach.

L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF) Patching Considerations

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:47:06 -0400

On Tuesday August 14th, Intel Released their news on the latest vulnerability L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF) or ForeShadow. In response to this VMware released vSphere patches to address the issues. Since then I have seen quite a few threads come up and thought i would address them from a patching perspective.

VMworld 2018 - Sessions and Events

Wed, 18 Jul 2018 10:19:35 -0400

This will be my first VMworld attending as an employee and quite a bit of things will be going on. Just in case anyone was interesting in vSphere Upgrades I wanted to share out some key sessions that I recommend including my own.

Patching your vCenter Server Appliance from 6.7 to 6.7a

Wed, 23 May 2018 12:45:07 -0400

On May 22nd we released the first update to our vCenter Server 6.7 version, 6.7a. I will let you know how you can patch your 6.7 GA vCenter Server to 6.7a.

Upgrading to VMware vSphere 6.7

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 08:32:15 -0400

It’s finally out! vSphere 6.7 is the next major release of VMware’s virtualization software. I’ve been using 6.7 through the vSphere Beta Program and testing even newer features in my current role. I am here to talk to you about planning your vSphere upgrade and some planning and considerations you should have when going to the latest release.

The first, thing I would like to mention is there is no supported migration from vSphere 5.x to 6.7. You must be running vSphere 6.0 or 6.5.

vExpert 2018

Mon, 12 Mar 2018 06:41:02 -0700

I am honored to have been selected as a VMware vExpert once again for 2018!

This is my sixth year as a vExpert (2013,2014,2015,2016,2017 and 2018). It has been great to see the community grow and the amount of vExperts increase. Now that my new role will have me travelling and presenting more, I look forward to meeting up with many new and existing vExperts this year!

To Infinity and Beyond

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 10:34:32 -0500

Life can always surprise you. For the past few years I have been chasing the dream like most to work for the “mothership” and recently the calling came.

This month, I will be joining the CPBU at VMware as a Technical Marketing Engineer focused on vSphere upgrades. I will be working alongside Adam Eckerle, Emad Younis, Kyle Ruddy, Mike Foley, Brian Graf, Nigel Hickey and more!

Nigel has it perfect when he titled his announcement “Oh the places you’ll go”. This job will include quite a bit of travel, both domestic and international, and I couldn’t be more excited.

Reconfigure HA - The object 'vim.Datastore:datastore-XXXX' has already been deleted or has not been completely created

Fri, 19 Jan 2018 10:27:02 +0000

Another lovely Friday starting off with strange issues, when taking a host out of standard maintenance we noticed that HA would not reconfigure, and kept saying The object ‘vim.Datastore:datastore-1131’ has already been deleted or has not been completely created. This was strange because no other hosts had this issue.

I proceeded to follow standard troubleshooting steps, reconfigure HA…same issue….disable HA for entire cluster and re-enable…..same issue…whoops thats not good!

Using Forestry.io to Manage Your Hugo Blog

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 08:26:54 -0500

Happy New Year! So towards the end of the year I kind of slacked on writing some blog posts, when I finally did I realized I had no clue how to create a post. I know…I know this is terrible, however its still much better than wordpress. I stumbled across an awesome tool that would help you manage your hugo/jekyll website Forestry.io

It is quite simple, you login with your Github, Bitbucket, etc account and it can detect your existing repositories. From here, click on Add Site.

VCAP6.5-DCV Design Experience

Thu, 21 Dec 2017 10:29:15 -0500

So today I successfully passed the VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6.5 – Data Center Virtualization Design Exam 3V0-624!

I had set a personal goal at the beginning of the year, that I would pass the VCAP6-DCV Design and unfortunately after months of studying I took it and failed in March. I was ready to give up based on the cost of the exam and the time i spent studying. However, I found out recently that a new version based on 6.5 was released in August and the Visio like design sections were dropped (which were the biggest pain), so I worked to acquire a voucher from work and decided on 3 days ago since I had some downtime at work I would go for it.

My New Desk by StandDesk

Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:33:29 -0400

I have been looking for a new desk for awhile. Working from home I do not get to go into an office, or walk around to meet up with coworkers. I found myself sitting for way too long which hasn’t been best for the low back and leg pains I experience.

I heard from a friend that getting a standing desk may be something that would be good. Standing desks come in all shapes and sizes but I knew from the start that I wanted a dedicated standing desk and just not a riser (one that sits on an existing desk).

vRA 7.3 - Using Active Directory Policies

Tue, 22 Aug 2017 14:00:46 -0400

So it seems to be that time of year again with new projects coming around. This time its all about vRA. This is probably my first of many blogs to come about things I have come across.

My question today was how do I pre-create a computer AD account, join a device to the domain and then clean it up when the machine is destroyed.

Turns out this is super simple in vRealize Automation 7.3!

vCenter 6.5U1 Update Issues with VCHA Advanced Deployment

Wed, 02 Aug 2017 16:08:43 -0400

vSphere 6.5U1 was released on July 27th. This is an incremental update a lot of people wait for before upgrading from a previous version. I have been lucky to have been running on vSphere 6.5 for quite some time and have been enjoying it very much.

Obviously we never upgrade production first, if we can help it. I decided to attempt an upgrade on one of our QA vCenters that was deployed using the VCHA Advanced workflow. I followed my standard upgrade steps Updating a VCHA 6.5 vCenter however when I went to failover the Active node to the upgraded passive/witness nodes, services would not start, I then noticed that the hostnames had reset to localhost.localdom which is kind of a big issue as vCenter relies on the hostname being set.

Another New Blog Platform

Mon, 31 Jul 2017 16:51:28 -0400

Another New Blog Platform!

So it seems there is a bit of battle between the Jekll/Hugo/Ghost platforms. I have been trying to be a little more flexible with Jekyll and it was giving me issues, so I decided to switch to Hugo. After doing the redesign I have been getting feedback that it is much cleaner, so I hope you enjoy it too!

All links should be functional and moved nicely, if they dont work, please leave a comment!

Using PowerCLI to Add vRealize Operations License Key

Thu, 27 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I have been working on doing a vCenter Consolidation Project. This included migrating our systems to a new vRealize Operations Server. This particular one included 73 different vSOM keys, and as you may know there is currently no way to enter in multiple keys at a time. I reached out to Kyle Ruddy and he informed me there is an API to do this, and that started my adventure to get this working.

Configuring Unifi Controller and USG for L2TP VPN

Tue, 25 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I have been waiting for native GUI support for L2TP vpn with local users and it is finally here! Ubiquiti Unifi Equipment now supports local radius auth using the 5.5.x code of controller! Please see below on how you can get this setup. For my example i will be using the Stable Candidate 5.5.11.

Unifi Controller 5.5.11

Configuration is quite simple! Just follow these few easy steps and you will be up in no time.

Using PowerCLI to Set vCenter Permissions on Datacenter

Mon, 17 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I have been working on doing a vCenter Consolidation Project. This has meant recreating multiple permissions groups. I couldnt find an easy way to apply permissions at a datacenter so I updated this script to be used.

Pre-Requsites

VMware PowerCLI

Link to Script

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to update columns in the CSV such as Datacenter, Group and Role.

vExpert 2017

Wed, 08 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I am honored to have been selected as a VMware vExpert once again for 2017!

This is my fifth year as a vExpert (2013,2014,2015,2016 and 2017). It has been great to see the community grow and the amount of vExperts increase. I did a quick count, and in 2016 we are up to 1464 vExperts!

vSphere 6.5 - Updating Appliance configured with vCenter HA

Fri, 03 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Warning:

A few others and myself have noticed that when updating a VCHA Cluster to 6.5U1 it resets the hostname to localhost.localdomain stopping vCenter Web Client from Loading.

Warning2:

It also seems that if you try to redeploy VCHA Advanced after an upgrade, it still resets the hostname, I have a case opened and will update here as neccessary.

The first vSphere 6.5 Patch (6.5a) was just released! So far it seems there are a few critical fixes but the biggest feature is NSX 6.3 support.

vSphere 6.5 - vCenter HA Health Degraded due to Password Expiration

Wed, 01 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

One of my favorite new features of vSphere 6.5 is definately vCenter HA. I was checking out alerts when I noticed i had an alarm for vCenter HA being degraded.

Looking through the GUI, I was unable to find anything in regards to why the Health was a warning and why the components would not sync. Then I remembered a previous case I had opened for VCHA.

There is a log file located in /var/log/vmware/vcha

Exporting PowerDNS Zones to Bind Files

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Can you easily export PowerDNS zones using a MySQL DB? The answer may not be as easy as it seems.

I have been working on a Migration from PowerDNS using a MySQL DB. We have a custom solution which gets updated and gets pushed to Akamai. The problem is, this custom solution requires all the zones to be in bind format. Doing some research I found out there is no easy way to get these zones into a bind zone file. You could setup a secondary server and do zone transfers, but that wouldnt meet my requirements.

Functional Branding of vSphere Web Client Logon Page

Thu, 19 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I had a use case I wanted to investigate in regards to the new VCHA that is part of VMware vCenter Server 6.5. One thing I noticed, is when you have VCHA configured, there is no way to know which node of the HA cluster you are connecting to without being logged on.

As people have noted before William Lam’s - How to Customize Webclient Login UI

I figured since I am using the embedded SSO, I could update the login page to show any information for that particular node. In my case I updated the text to show which node you are connected to. You can see this without even logging in!

Using the VMware Content Library Assistant Fling

Thu, 29 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

So VMware Flings have been on a roll recently. They have released what they call “VMware Content Library Assistant.” This is a java based CLI app, that connects to your vCenter and searchers for your templates and then automatically creates and uploads them.

You can find the fling at the following URL…https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vsphere-content-library-assistant)

Once you download the fling, you can just run the following command.

java -jar sphere-content-library-assistant-1.0.jar -s servername -u username -p password

In my case my java home isn’t setup on my mac so I had to run the following command to get it to work.

Installing Ubiquiti Unifi Controller

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have been using Ubiquiti equipment for awhile at home and I figured i would finally write a blog post about it. Ubiquiti equipment is “enterprise class” equipment for the consumer.

I figured I would create a post that goes over two ways of loading the controller. The first option will be installing it on Ubuntu on bare metal or a VM, the second option is a docker container.

If you are installing this on a bare metal or virtual machine, i suggest a debian based image. My preference is Ubuntu.

vSphere 6.5 - vCenter HA (VCHA) Issues

Mon, 21 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

So as everyone has probably seen, vSphere 6.5 is now GA. One of the features i have been waiting for the most is vCenter HA. I have spent some time trying to get this working in my lab. Unfortunately after countless tries i was stuck. Thanks to folks in the vExpert Slack for helping me try to resolve this, but unfortunately this was a case for VMware Support.

Every time I would try to configure vCenter HA using the Advanced Wizard, I would get the following error.

vSphere 6.5 - New License Import from My VMware

Wed, 16 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

So as everyone has probably seen, vSphere 6.5 is now GA. As usual right away I have upgraded the homelab and have already found a neat new feature.

When you are adding in your VMware licenses, you now have an option to Import License Keys Data…

To start you need to generate a report from my.vmware.com.

Log in and Navigate to Download Reports
Click on the Available Reports dropdown, and select the Product Licenses, Details and History. You will be asked which account you would like to select, and if there was a specific timeframe to select. In my case i have selected all accounts and then click Create.

Using Powershell to Create Windows SMB Shares

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have been knee deep in migrations, so after clicking through a few times to create clustered file shares, I finally decided to script them. Here is that script I thought I would share. Thanksfully there was the NTFSSecurity module published by microsoft that makes permissions a breeze. You can get more details by viewing the module page.

Pre-Requsites

NTFS Security Module

Link to Script

Create-SMBShare.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

Fill in the appropriate variables, and execute the script.

VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6 – Data Center Virtualization Design Guide (3V0 622)

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I am about to start down my path of studying for my VCAP6-DCV Design Exam. I figured I would throw up the blueprint and fill in each section as applicable. Either way here is the blueprint laid out for anyone who may benefit. This is it as of 7/25/16.

Section 1 – Create a vSphere Conceptual Design

Objective 1.1 – Gather and analyze business requirements

Skills and Abilities

Existing Content from VCAP5-DCD

My VCAP6 DCV Deploy Beta Experience

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Today I took my VCAP6-DCV exam. This exam was announced with a two week availability in the US priced at $100.

My experience with the exam was actually pretty good. The new interface for the advanced exams is that of an HOL. You are dropped onto the desktop and have a window that slides in and out to pull up the manual and other consoles.

I would definately read up on Josh Andrew’s post about what to expect.

Using PowerCLI to Get and Set DVS Traffic Shaping Settings

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have been in process in configuring traffic shaping for multiple port groups. It seems with PowerCLI 6.3 R1 there are no native Powershell Cmdlets. Luckily I stumbled across @Lucd and his PowerCLI functions to manage these settings, i have put these into a script to mass get and set the settings for all port groups of a DVS’s.

Pre-Requsites

VMware PowerCLI

Link to Script

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute the script. I will walk you through the process.

Using Veeam Powershell to Manage ReIP Rules

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hello! Welcome to my First Veeam PowerShell Script! I have been working on tons of migrations using Veeam Backup and Replication and need to create re-ip rules to update the static IP assignments. Obviously the first rule of scripting if you do something more than once, automate! I was bad at this one, I originally tried and gave up so I did about 20 manually which started to become a huge headache.

Troubleshooting Cisco ENIC and FNIC Drivers with VMware Update Manager 6.x

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have been having issues ever since I updated to vSphere 6.x getting the Cisco Drivers to properly update through VMware Update Manager(VUM). Every time I would run through a compliance check, they would always report they were up to date even when they were running an older version.

I have recently made a breakthrough working with VMware Support and stumbling through some old blogs. Cisco Support has been terrible on this issue and after repeated attempts to get this case escalated i think the 10th time is a charm.

Using PureStorage Powershell to Configure SysLog Servers

Mon, 14 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Currently working on the final steps of getting our new equipment configured. The next step was to configure Syslog on all of our Pure Arrays. Another reason to script this task! Easily populate your arrays and server and at the click of a button you can configure all your arrays easily.

Pre-Requsites

PureStorage Powershell SDK

Link to Script

Set-PureStorageSyslog.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute the script. I will walk you through the process.

Using UCS PowerTool to Configure Syslog Servers

Mon, 14 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Time for more UCS Scripting! This time to configure Syslog. The script is pretty straightforward, but nice to have to easily set up Syslog across multiple UCS domains.

Pre-Requsites

UCS Powertool

Link to Script

Set-UcsSyslog.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute the script. I will walk you through the process.

# UCS PowerTool Script that to set Syslog
# @davidstamen
# http://davidstamen.com

#Define Variables
$cred = Get-Credential
$domains = "ucs01.lab.local","ucs02.lab.local"
$SyslogServer = "syslog.lab.local"
$Name = "primary"
$Facility = "local7"
$AdminState = "enabled"
$Severity = "notifications"

#Cycles through each UCS setting values
Foreach ($ucs in $domains) {
 Connect-UCS $ucs -Credential $cred
 Get-UcsSyslogClient -Name $Name | Set-UcsSyslogClient -AdminState $AdminState -ForwardingFacility $Facility -Hostname $SyslogServer -Severity $Severity -Force
 Disconnect-UCS
}

Execute the Script

Run .\Set-UcsSyslog.ps1

Using PowerCLI to Install Host VIBs

Thu, 03 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

So currently Cisco has an issue with installing their ENIC and FNIC VIBs through Update Manager for ESXi 6.x. Until that is resolved I need to manually push out patches to these hosts. Obviously I do not want to do this manually, so I will be utilizing PowerCLI to accomplish this task.

Pre-Requsites

VMware PowerCLI

Link to Script

Install-HostVIB.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute the script. I will walk you through the process.

Using UCS PowerTool To Set SNMP Configuration

Tue, 01 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Time for more UCS Scripting! This time to enable SNMP. The script is pretty straightforward, but nice to have to easily set up SNMP across multiple UCS domains.

Pre-Requsites

UCS Powertool

Link to Script

Set-UcsSnmpConfiguration.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute the script. I will walk you through the process.

#Define Variables
$cred = Get-Credential
$domains = "ucs01.lab.local","ucs02.lab.local"
$Descr = "SNMP config for UCS"
$AdminState = "enabled"
$SysContact = "admin@lab.local"
$SysLocation = "US"
$Community = "public"

#Cycles through each UCS setting values
Foreach ($ucs in $domains) {
 Connect-UCS $ucs -Credential $cred
 $servers = Get-UCSRackUnit
 Foreach ($server in $servers) {
 Set-UcsSnmp -Descr $Descr -AdminState $AdminState -SysContact $SysContact -SysLocation $SysLocation -Community $Community -force
 }
 Disconnect-UCS
}

Execute the Script

Run .\Set-UcsSnmpConfiguration.ps1

vExpert 2016

Fri, 05 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I am honored to have been selected as a VMware vExpert once again for 2016!

This is my fourth year as a vExpert (2013,2014,2015 and 2016). It has been great to see the community grow and the amount of vExperts increase. I did a quick count, and in 2016 we are up to 1360 vExperts!

Can’t wait to see what this year brings.

Using Ansible to Run Powershell Scripts

Thu, 04 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

In the midst of playing with Ansible and figured my most common use case would be executing powershell scripts on remote servers, so scavenged around and put this together.

Pre-Requsites

Link to Git Project

ansible_powershell

Preparing to Execute the Script

This script assumes you have already installed and configured Ansible, downloaded the Git Repo and installed the WinRM python module.

Define your group variables. Create a hostgroup.yml file in this folder. This is where you specify the username, password and WinRM port to use. This file should mimit the host group defined in your hosts file.

Using Ansible to Create Cisco ACI Filters

Wed, 03 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

In the midst of rolling out Cisco ACI, we have a need to automation creation of filters to apply to contracts. I tried to use the ACI-PowerTool for this task, however it doesnt seem to work with the newer code we are on. So I went back and attempted to use the ansible modules and it worked flawlessly, below is a sample playbook that will create a filter and add the associated filter entries. The below example are the required ports for Horizon View.

Cisco Champion 2016

Sun, 31 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I am honored to have been accepted once again as a Cisco Champion for 2016!

I had a bit of a gap in blog posts this past year due to a job change. However, look forward to more posts on Cisco UCS and maybe even some Cisco ACI.

I am a member of the Cisco Champions Program. Cisco Champions are passionate about Cisco and enjoy sharing our knowledge, expertise, and thoughts across the social web and with Cisco. I am not a representative of Cisco. My views as a Cisco Champion are my own.

Using PowerCLI to Install Software in a Guest VM

Fri, 29 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have been constantly trying to figure out the best way to deploy updated agents to some of our virtual desktops. It isnt a large environment so I have no need for SCCM or other deployment tools, but its big enough having to RDP to each VM was a pain. I finally decided to bang out a script, and surprised how well it works.

Pre-Requsites

VMware PowerCLI

Link to Script

InstallVMSoftware.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute the script. I will walk you through the process.

Using PowerCLI to Replicate Templates to Multiple Clusters

Tue, 26 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We have multiple clusters within our vCenters that are defined as a rack. Each rack has its own storage, so storage is not shared between clusters. I needed to develop a way to easily replicate templates between clusters, so a local copy existed on each cluster to take advantage of VAAI.

I really wanted to utilize the vSphere Content Libary for these, but there is currently no publicly available documentation on how to deploy a VM from a Content Library via a Script. I am hoping when that is available, I will update this post.

Using UCS PowerTool To Set Equipment Labels

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

For conformity, we like to set the UCS Equipment labels to match the Service Profile Name. This allows us to match it quickly without having to dig down into the assigned profile. This script will set the UsrLbl and Name fields on the equipment tab to match the name of the Service Profile.

Pre-Requsites

UCS Powertool

Link to Script

Set-UCSEquipmentLabel.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute the script. I will walk you through the process.

Using UCS PowerTool To Generate Tech Supports

Thu, 14 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Automation, Automation, Automation! I had to download some support bundles for every chassis in our multiple zones. Instead of manually going through the GUI, I figured why not script it! This script will connect to each UCS domain and automatically generate a support bundle and download it for each chassis.

Pre-Requsites

UCS Powertool

Link to Script

Create-UCSTechSupport.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute the script. I will walk you through the process.

Unable to Boot EFI VM on ESXi FC Storage

Wed, 13 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

For the past week, I have been troubleshooting the strangest issue. I have been attempting to move some Windows 8.1 VM’s from our legacy datacenter(iSCSI) to our new datacenter(FC).

Whenever I would move the VM to our new DC, it would fail to boot properly. It would boot straight to Windows Recovery. If I moved the same VM to any other type of storage(NFS, iSCSI, Local) the VM would boot perfectly fine. I opened a case with VMware and our Storage vendor and no one had any idea what was causing it.

Upgrading VCSA from 6.0 U1a to 6.0U1b using CLI

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to my post about upgrading your VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) to 6.0 U1b.

This process is very straight forward. We will begin with updating our Platform Service Controllers (PSC) and then proceed with the vCenter Appliance.

SSH to your Primary PSC.
If you are currently in the bash shell, type appliancesh to switch shells to run the update.
Run software-packages install –url –acceptEulas to download and install the packages from the VMware Repo.
- You can use the –ISO switch or supply a custom url as well if needed.
Sit back and wait. Once it is finished you will be prompted to reboot.
- Reboot by typing shutdown reboot /r reason

Using UCS PowerTool To Upload UCS Firmware

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It’s patch time! That means time to upload the firmware bundles to all my UCS domains. Instead of doing it manually I figured i would create a quick script to do that for me.

Pre-Requsites

UCS Powertool

Link to Script

UploadUCSFirmware.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute the script. I will walk you through the process.

VCAP6-Design Beta Study Guide

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

It is now VCAP6-Design study time! Here is my blueprint laid out, and hopefully will be populated with some content.

Section 1 – Create a vSphere Conceptual Design

Objective 1.1 – Gather and analyze business requirements

Skills and Abilities

Associate a stakeholder with the information that needs to be collected.
Utilize inventory and assessment data from a current environment to define a baseline state.
Analyze customer interview data to explicitly define customer #### Objectives for a conceptual design.
Determine customer priorities for defined #### Objectives.
Ensure that Availability, Manageability, Performance, Recoverability and Security (AMPRS) considerations are applied during the requirements gathering process.
Given results of the requirements gathering process, identify requirements for a conceptual design.
Categorize requirements by infrastructure qualities to prepare for logical design requirements.

Tools

Using UCS PowerTool To Configure UCS Policy Backup and Export

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Im finally getting to dive back in to working with UCS. My latest task with my project of configuring 9 UCS Domains, was configuring the Policy Backup and Export. See below on how to automate this process!

Pre-Requsites

UCS Powertool

Link to Script

Set-UCSPolicyBackupandExport.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute the script. I will walk you through the process.

Using UCS PowerTool To Configure UCS Certificates

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Im finally getting to dive back in to working with UCS. My latest task with my project of configuring 9 UCS Domains, was swapping out certificates. The first few I did via the GUI, and I thought can this be scripted? Well the answer is yes! See below for information on executing the script.

Pre-Requsites

UCS Powertool

Link to Script

AddUCSCert.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute the script. I will walk you through the process.

Installing Host VIB's Using PowerCLI

Mon, 30 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Normally when i need to install and update a host VIB I use Update Manager. However there is currently a bug with Cisco’s latest enic/fnic drivers that wont let you install them via UM.

I had to run these updates on over 50 hosts and I really didn’t want to have to ssh and install it manually. Lucky I remember Brian Graf’s Host Client Install Fling and borrowed some of the code to come up with the below script.

Using CLI to Manage DVS Host Uplinks

Mon, 30 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Ever needed to modify a DVS uplink configuration from ESXi Shell? I am currently troubleshooting some issues with DVS uplinks no longer being assigned on reboot.

As a heads up. If you are doing this on ESXi 6.0.. don’t. It can cause an issue with the proxy DVS having different ID than the actual DVS causing my original issue, still working with VMware Support to find out more details.

After “Restoring Network Configuration” a few too many times, I finally realized I could just add the uplinks back via CLI until support can figure out why this is occurring, here are the details on how to manage the uplinks on a DVS via CLI.

Configuring Multiple UCS VLAN's

Mon, 23 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

We are currently working on some Cisco ACI Integration and wanted to add a large VLAN Pool to a UCS Configuration.

Since currently Cisco UCS does not allow selecting multiple VLAN’s easily when adding to a VLAN Group or vNIC Template, we now have a pretty decent script that will do it for you.

The script can be found here.

# PowerCLI Script for adding VLAN to VLAN Group and vNIC Template
# @davidstamen
# http://davidstamen.com

#Define Variables
$cred = Get-Credential
$ucs = "ucs01"
$startvlan = "100"
$endvlan = "150"
$vnictemplate = "vnic-template"
$vlangroup = "vlan-group"

#Connect to UCS
Connect-UCS $ucs -credential $cred

#Assumes VLAN Name is the VLANID. Adds VLAN from start to end to vlan group
for($i=$startvlan;$i -le $endvlan;$i++){Get-UcsFabricNetGroup -Name $vlangroup |Add-UcsFabricPooledVlan -Name "$i"}

#Assumes VLAN Name is the VLANID. Adds VLAN from start to end to vnic template
for($i=$startvlan;$i -le $endvlan;$i++){Get-UcsVnicTemplate -Name $vnictemplate | Add-UcsVnicInterface -ModifyPresent -DefaultNet false -Name "$i"}
Disconnect-UCS

You now are done! In my case I had to add 500 VLAN’s, so this script saved me quite a bit of time.

Disconnected vNIC's?

Wed, 18 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Ever wonder why a VM isn’t on the network?

I was working on deploying some test VM’s and for some reason all the VM’s that were cloned decided to start with the network disconnected, and the connect on power on was also not selected.

I decided to throw together this quick one-liner that will make sure every VM is set to start connected on power on and is currently connected.

Reusing Horizon View Desktop Names

Wed, 11 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever worked with a Horizon View pool with 10 VM’s and deleted 3 and it recreated as 11? May want to pay attention to learn how you can reuse view desktop names.

First you will need to connect to the ADAM database on one of your servers. Use KB2012377 for instructions.

To connect to the View ADAM database:

Log in to one of the View Connection Servers as Domain Administrator.
Click Start > Administrative Tools > ADSI Edit.
In the console window, right-click ADSI Edit and click Connect to.
In the Name field type:
- View ADAM Database
Select Select or type a Distinguished Name or Naming Context.
In the field below Select or type a Distinguished Name or Naming Context, type:
- dc=vdi,dc=vmware,dc=int
Select Select or type a domain or server.
In the field below Select or type a domain or server, type:
- localhost:389
Click OK.
Click View ADAM Database [localhost:389] to expand.
Click DC=vdi,dc=vmware,dc=int to expand.

Section 1: Configure and Administer vSphere 6.x Security

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Section 1 of the VCP6-DCV blueprint

Objective 1.1: Configure and Administer Role-based Access Control

Compare and contrast propagated and explicit permission assignments
- An example of a propagated permission:
  - Most inventory objects inherit permissions from a single parent object in the hierarchy. For example, a datastore inherits permissions from either its parent datastore folder or parent data center. Virtual machines inherit permissions from both the parent virtual machine folder and the parent host, cluster, or resource pool simultaneously.
- An example of an explicit permission:
  - User1 is assigned Permission to only see and modify VM1
View/Sort/Export user and group lists

Section 10: Administer and Manage vSphere Virtual Machines

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Section 10 of the VCP6-DCV blueprint

Objective 10.1: Configure Advanced vSphere Virtual Machine Settings

Determine how using a shared USB device impacts the environment
Configure virtual machines for vGPUs, DirectPath I/O and SR-IOV
Configure virtual machines for multicore vCPUs
Differentiate virtual machine configuration settings
Interpret virtual machine configuration files (.vmx) settings
Enable/disable advanced virtual machine settings

Objective 10.2: Create and Manage a Multi-site Content Library

Publish a content catalog
Subscribe to a published catalog
Determine which privileges are required to globally manage a content catalog
Compare the functionality of Automatic sync and On-Demand sync
Configure Content Library to work across sites
Configure Content Library authentication
Set/configure Content Library roles
Add/remove Content Libraries

Objective 10.3: Configure and Maintain a vCloud Air Connection

Create a VPN connection between vCloud Air and an on-premise site
Deploy a virtual machine using vCloud Air
Migrate a virtual machine to vCloud Air
Verify VPN connection configuration to vCloud Air
Configure vCenter Server connection to vCloud Air
Configure replicated objects in vCloud Air Disaster Recovery service
Given a scenario, determine the required settings for virtual machines deployed in vCloud Air

Check out another blueprint section

Section 2: Configure and Administer Advanced vSphere 6.x Networking

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Section 2 of the VCP6-DCV blueprint

Objective 2.1: Configure Advanced Policies/Features and Verify Network Virtualization Implementation

Create/Delete a vSphere Distributed Switch
- In the vSphere Web Client, navigate to a data center.
- In the navigator, right-click the data center and select Distributed Switch > New Distributed Switch.
- In Name and Location, type a name for the new distributed switch, or accept the generated name, and click Next.
- In Select version, select a distributed switch version and click Next.
- In Edit Settings configure the distributed switch settings.
  - Use the arrow buttons to select the Number of uplinks.
  - Use the drop-down menu to enable or disable Network I/O Control.
  - Select the Create a default port group check box to create a new distributed port group with default settings for this switch.
  - (Optional) To create a default distributed port group, type the port group name in the Port group name, or accept the generated name.
  - Click Next.
- In Ready to complete, review the settings you selected and click Finish.
Add/Remove ESXi Hosts from a vSphere Distributed Switch

Section 3: Configure and Administer Advanced vSphere 6.x Storage

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Section 3 of the VCP6-DCV blueprint

Objective 3.1: Manage vSphere Storage Virtualization

Discover new storage LUNs
Configure FC/iSCSI/FCoE LUNs as ESXi boot devices
Create an NFS share for use with vSphere
Enable/Configure/Disable vCenter Server storage filters
Configure/Edit hardware/dependent hardware initiators
Enable/Disable software iSCSI initiator
Configure/Edit software iSCSI initiator settings
Configure iSCSI port binding
Enable/Configure/Disable iSCSI CHAP
Determine use cases for fiber channel zoning
Compare and contrast array thin provisioning and virtual disk thin provisioning

Objective 3.2: Configure Software-defined Storage

Discover new storage LUNs
Configure FC/iSCSI/FCoE LUNs as ESXi boot devices
Create an NFS share for use with vSphere
Enable/Configure/Disable vCenter Server storage filters
Configure/Edit hardware/dependent hardware initiators
Enable/Disable software iSCSI initiator
Configure/Edit software iSCSI initiator settings
Configure iSCSI port binding
Enable/Configure/Disable iSCSI CHAP
Determine use cases for fiber channel zoning
Compare and contrast array thin provisioning and virtual disk thin provisioning

Objective 3.3: Configure vSphere Storage Multi-pathing and Failover

Explain common multi-pathing components
Differentiate APD and PDL states
Given a scenario, compare and contrast Active Optimized vs. Active non-Optimized port group states
Explain features of Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA)
Understand the effects of a given claim rule on multipathing and failover vExplain the function of claim rule elements:
- Vendor
- Model
- Device ID
- SATP
- PSP
Change the Path Selection Policy using the UI
Determine required claim rule elements to change the default PSP
Determine the effect of changing PSP on Multipathing and failover
Determine the effects of changing SATP on relevant device behavior
Configure/Manage Storage Load Balancing
Differentiate available Storage Load Balancing options
Differentiate available Storage Multi-pathing Policies
Configure Storage Policies
Locate failover events in the UI

Objective 3.4: Perform Advanced VMFS and NFS Configurations and Upgrades

Describe VAAI primitives for block devices and NAS
Differentiate VMware file system technologies
Upgrade VMFS3 to VMFS5
Compare functionality of newly created vs. upgraded VMFS5 datastores
Differentiate Physical Mode RDMs and Virtual Mode RDMs
Create a Virtual/Physical Mode RDM
Differentiate NFS 3.x and 4.1 capabilities
Compare and contrast VMFS and NFS datastore properties
Configure Bus Sharing
Configure Multi-writer locking
Connect an NFS 4.1 datastore using Kerberos
Create/Rename/Delete/Unmount VMFS datastores
Mount/Unmount an NFS datastore
Extend/Expand VMFS datastores
Place a VMFS datastore in Maintenance Mode
Select the Preferred Path/Disable a Path to a VMFS datastore
Enable/Disable vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI)
Given a scenario, determine a proper use case for multiple VMFS/NFS datastores

Objective 3.5: Setup and Configure Storage I/O Control

Describe the benefits of SIOC
Enable and configure SIOC
Configure/Manage SIOC
Monitor SIOC
Differentiate between SIOC and Dynamic Queue Depth - Throttling features
Given a scenario, determine a proper use case for SIOC
Compare and contrast the effects of I/O contention in environments with and without SIOC

Check out another blueprint section

Section 4: Upgrade a vSphere Deployment to 6.x

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Section 4 of the VCP6-DCV blueprint

Objective 4.1: Perform ESXi Host and Virtual Machine Upgrades

Configure download source(s)
Setup UMDS to setup download repository
Import ESXi images
Create Baselines and/or Baseline groups
Attach Baselines to vSphere objects
Scan vSphere objects
Stage patches & Extensions
Remediate an object
Upgrade a vSphere Distributed Switch
Upgrade VMware Tools
Upgrade Virtual Machine hardware
Upgrade an ESXi Host using vCenter Update Manager
Stage multiple ESXi Host upgrades
Align appropriate baselines with target inventory objects.

Objective 4.2: Perform vCenter Server Upgrades

Compare the methods of upgrading vCenter Server
Backup vCenter Server database, configuration and certificate datastore
Perform update as prescribed for Appliance or Installable
Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA)
Given a scenario, determine the upgrade compatibility of an environment
Determine correct order of steps to upgrade a vSphere implementation

Check out another blueprint section

Section 5: Administer and Manage vSphere 6.x Resources

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Section 5 of the VCP6-DCV blueprint

Objective 5.1: Configure Advanced/Multilevel Resource Pools

Understand/Apply
Determine the effect of the Expandable Reservation parameter on resource allocation
Create a resource pool hierarchical structure
Configure custom resource pool attributes
Determine how resource pools apply to vApps
Describe vFlash architecture
Create/Remove a Resource Pool
Add/Remove virtual machines from a Resource Pool
Create/Delete vFlash Resource Pool
Assign vFlash resources to VMDKs
Given a scenario, determine appropriate shares, reservations and limits for hierarchical Resource Pools

Check out another blueprint section

Section 6: Backup and Recover a vSphere Deployment

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Section 6 of the VCP6-DCV blueprint

Objective 6.1: Configure and Administer a vSphere Backups/Restore/Replication Solution

Compare and contrast vSphere Replication compression methods
Differentiate VMware Data Protection capabilities
Configure recovery point objective (RPO) for a protected virtual machine
Explain VMware Data Protection sizing guidelines
Create/Delete/Consolidate virtual machine snapshots
Install and Configure VMware Data Protection
Create a backup job with VMware Data Protection
Backup/Restore a virtual machine with VMware Data Protection
Install/Configure/Upgrade vSphere Replication
Configure VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA) integration with vSphere Replication
Configure vSphere Replication for Single/Multiple VMs
Recover a VM using vSphere Replication
Perform a failback operation using vSphere Replication
Deploy a pair of vSphere Replication virtual appliances

Check out another blueprint section

Section 7: Troubleshoot a vSphere Deployment

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Section 7 of the VCP6-DCV blueprint

Objective 7.1: Troubleshoot vCenter Server, ESXi Hosts, and Virtual Machines

Monitor status of the vCenter Server service
Perform basic maintenance of a vCenter Server database
Monitor status of ESXi management agents
Determine ESXi Host stability issues and gather diagnostics information
Monitor ESXi system health
Locate and analyze vCenter Server and ESXi logs
Determine the appropriate Command Line Interface (CLI) command for a given troubleshooting task
Troubleshoot common issues, including:
- vCenter Server service
- SSO
- vCenter Server connectivity
- Virtual machine resource contention, configuration and operation
- Platform Services Controller (PSC)
- Problems with installation
- VMware Tools installation
- Fault Tolerant network latency

Objective 7.2: Troubleshoot vSphere Storage and Network Issues

Identify and isolate network and storage resource contention and latency issues
Monitor networking and storage resources using vROps alerts and all badges
Verify network and storage configuration
Verify a given virtual machine is configured with the correct network resources
Monitor/Troubleshoot Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (SDRS) issues
Recognize the impact of network and storage I/O control configurations
Recognize a connectivity issue caused by a VLAN/PVLAN
Troubleshoot common issues with:
- Storage and network
- Virtual switch and port group configuration
- Physical network adapter configuration
- VMFS metadata consistency

Objective 7.3: Troubleshoot vSphere Upgrades

Collect upgrade diagnostic information
Recognize common upgrade issues with vCenter Server and vCenter Server Appliance
Create/Locate/Analyze VMware log bundles
Determine alternative methods to upgrade ESXi Hosts in event of failure
Configure vCenter Server logging options

Objective 7.4: Troubleshoot and Monitor vSphere Performance

Monitor CPU and memory usage (including vRealize OM badges and alerts)
Identify and isolate CPU and memory contention issues
Recognize impact of using CPU/memory limits, reservations and shares
Describe and differentiate critical performance metrics
Describe and differentiate common metrics, including:
- Memory
- CPU
- Network
- Storage
Monitor performance through esxtop
Troubleshoot Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) issues
Troubleshoot virtual machine performance with vRealize Operations
Compare and contrast Overview and Advanced Charts

Objective 7.5: Troubleshoot HA and DRS Configurations and Fault Tolerance

Troubleshoot issues with:
- DRS workload balancing
- HA failover/redundancy, capacity and network configuration
- HA/DRS cluster configuration
- vMotion/Storage vMotion configuration and/or migration
- Fault Tolerance configuration and failover issues
Explain the DRS Resource Distribution Graph and Target/Current Host Load Deviation
Explain vMotion Resource Maps

Check out another blueprint section

Section 8: Deploy and Consolidate vSphere Data Center

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Section 8 of the VCP6-DCV blueprint

Objective 8.1: Deploy ESXi Hosts Using Autodeploy

Describe the components and architecture of an Auto Deploy environment
Use Auto Deploy Image Builder and PowerCLI scripts
Implement Host Profiles with an Auto Deploy of an ESXi Host
Install and configure Auto Deploy
Understand PowerCLI cmdlets for Auto Deploy
Deploy multiple ESXi Hosts using Auto Deploy
Given a scenario, explain the Auto Deploy deployment model needed to meet a business requirement

Objective 8.2: Customize Host Profile Settings

Edit answer file to customize ESXi Host settings
Modify and apply a storage path selection plugin (PSP) to a device using host profiles
Modify and apply switch configurations across multiple hosts using a Host Profile
Create/Edit/Remove a Host Profile from an ESXi Host
Import/Export a Host Profile
Attach and apply a Host Profile to ESXi Hosts in a cluster
Perform compliance scanning and remediation of an ESXi Hosts and clusters using Host Profiles
Enable or disable Host Profile components

Objective 8.3: Consolidate Physical Workloads using VMware Converter

Install vCenter Converter standalone instance
Convert physical workloads using vCenter Converter
Modify server resources during conversion
Interpret and correct errors during conversion
Deploy a physical host as a virtual machine using vCenter Converter
Collect diagnostic information during conversion operation
Resize partitions during the conversion process
Given a scenario, determine which virtual disk format to use

Check out another blueprint section

Section 9: Configure and Administer vSphere Availability Solutions

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Section 9 of the VCP6-DCV blueprint

Objective 9.1: Configure Advanced vSphere HA Features

Modify vSphere HA advanced cluster settings
Configure a network for use with HA heartbeats
Apply an admission control policy for HA
Enable/disable advanced vSphere HA settings
Configure different heartbeat datastores for an HA cluster
Apply virtual machine monitoring for a cluster
Configure Virtual Machine Component Protection (VMCP) settings
Implement vSphere HA on a Virtual SAN cluster
Explain how vSphere HA communicates with Distributed Resource Scheduler and Distributed Power Management

Objective 9.2: Configure Advanced vSphere DRS Features

Configure VM-Host affinity/anti-affinity rules
Configure VM-VM affinity/anti-affinity rules
Add/remove Host DRS Group
Add/remove virtual machine DRS Group
Enable/disable Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) affinity rules
Configure the proper Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) automation level based on a set of business requirements
Explain how DRS affinity rules effect virtual machine placement

Check out another blueprint section

VCP6-DCV Study Guide

Wed, 14 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

About to start to study for the VCP6 once again. So I figured I would start over with the guide as much of the blueprint has changed.

As I progress through the sections this page will be updated with new content.

Unregistering vSphere 6 VCSA from PSC

Tue, 13 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So I am in the process of doing some vSphere 6 testing and needed to test a redeployment of one of my VCSA’s. The problem is when I went to redeploy it I got the following error.

Decoding the error, I pretty much figured that the object already existed in the SSO database and I needed to delete the existing object. Here is how you do that.

Log in as root to the appliance shell of the Platform Services Controller appliance with which the vCenter Server Appliance is registered.
To enable the Bash shell, run the shell.set –enabled true command.
- Run the shell command to start the Bash shell and log in.
Run the cmsso-util unregister command to unregister the powered off vCenter Server Appliance.
- cmsso-util unregister –node-pnid vCenter-FQDNorIP –username administrator@your_domain_name –passwd vCenter-Single-Sign-On-password

Using Vagrant to Deploy an Ubuntu Server running KVM

Mon, 12 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

With all this talk about VMware vs KVM I figured that I would attempt to load a base install of KVM to see what it was all about.

Here is a quick vagrant runbook that will quickly get a 3 linux servers deployed and installed with KVM to play with.

There are 3 nodes..MGMT01,KVM01 and KVM02. I use MGMT01 VMM to manage KVM01 and KVM02.

The code can be found here.

Using PowerCLI to Build Out vCenter

Thu, 08 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to share this handy script i created when you have a need to build out a new vCenter.

This script can be extremely handy as it will take care of creating the datacenter, cluster, adding hosts, creating datastores and then applying the appropriate host profile. It is all done via CSV files so it is extremely customizable.

Files to modify to customize your configuration

createdatacenter.csv - Contains the name of the datacenter to create.
createcluster.csv - Contains the name of the cluster to create and the datacenter to put it in.
createhosts.csv - Contains the Name of the host and which cluster to place them in.
createdatastores.csv - Contains the name of the datastore, naaid of the lun and the datastore cluster to put it in.
applyhostprofile.csv - Contains the name of the host and hostprofile to apply.

The code and Github Link can be found below.

ESXi 5.5 Update 3a Released

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

ESXi 5.5 Update 3a and its associated patch have been released. If you have been following KB2133118 in regards to the the Snapshot Consolidation causing Virtual Machines to crash a fix is now available.

If you are currently running ESXi 5.5 U3 you can use update manager to install the patch.

If you are looking to install ESXi 5.5 U3 from scratch or update from a previous version you should make sure you update to 5.5 U3a which includes the snapshot consolidation patch.

ESXi 6.0 Update 1a Released

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

ESXi 6.0 Update 1a has been released. If you have been following KB2124669 in regards to the the NETDEV WATCHDOG issue causing an ESXi host to hang. The update is now available.

If you are currently running ESXi 6.0/6.0U1 you can use update manager to install the update.

If you are looking to install ESXi 6.0 U1 from scratch or update from a previous version you should make sure you update to use the latest ISO.

Using Vagrant to Deploy a 2012R2 DHCP Failover Cluster

Thu, 01 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So I am in the process of rolling out a new 2012R2 DHCP Server Cluster, and I thought i would share my scripts with the community.

I have also rolled it into a Vagrant package so you can easily test it on your own, and execute the scripts by themselves against your environment to deploy.

Here is a link to the GitHub repository containing all the code.

The code is also fairly simple, it pulls in data from a few .CSV files and deploy’s the servers, installs the roles, creates the scopes, creates MAC Address allow policies and then creates a couple reservations.

Indexing your Horizon View Database

Wed, 30 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I am currently troubleshooting some issues with the Horizon event database having some performance issues. Working with support they pointed me to KB2094580.

By Default the view event database is not indexed. I was curious as to way I always had issues pulling up events in the Horizon View Administrative interface, but as soon as I followed the steps, it was almost immediate now, where i use to have to wait an extremely long time.

Upgrading Horizon View Linux Desktop

Thu, 24 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Horizon 6.2 is now available and Linux support has improved. Previously it was only supported on a limited set of older operating systems.

Originally when we deployed we had deployed Ubuntu 12.04, however now the newer kernel 14.04 is supported so I will show you how to upgrade your desktop to the latest version and now use the new agent as well.

If you followed my [previous]({{ site.url }}/horizon%20view/horizon-view-block-linux-vdi-console-access/) post to disable Console access. Go ahead and shutdown the desktop and change it back to 1 to enable console, or you can do this all via SSH as well.

Upgrading vRealize Operations Horizon Adapter to 6.1

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

vRealize Operations 6.1 is now available, I thought I would put a quick guide together as I go through the upgrade process. This guide will show how to upgrade the Horizon Adapter for vROPS.

To upgrade from vRealize Operations Horizon Adapter to the most recent version, follow these steps.

Download the neccessary file(s) needed. In my case I needed the vRealize Operations for Horizon Broker Agent and the vRealize Operations for Horizon Adapter.

Upgrading vRealize Operations to 6.1

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

vRealize Operations 6.1 is now available, I thought I would put a quick guide together as I go through the upgrade process.

To upgrade from vRealize Operations Manager to the most recent version, follow these steps.

Download the PAK file(s) needed based on the type of cluster.

vApp clusters
- The vApp cluster requires the deployment of the OS upgrade and the product upgrade .pak files.
  - For an OS upgrade, the file is: vRealize_Operations_Manager-VA-OS-xxx.pak
  - For the product upgrade of vApp clusters, the file is: vRealize_Operations_Manager-VA-xxx.pak
vApp heterogeneous clusters
- The vApp heterogeneous cluster requires the deployment of the OS upgrade and the product upgrade .pak files.
  - For an OS upgrade, the file is: vRealize_Operations_Manager-VA-OS-xxx.pak
  - For the product upgrade of a heterogeneous cluster that has VA nodes with Windows Remote Collectors, the file is: vRealize_Operations_Manager-VA-WIN-xxx.pak
RHEL standalone clusters
- The RHEL standalone cluster requires the deployment of only the product upgrade .pak file.
- For the product upgrade of RHEL clusters, the file is: vRealize_Operations_Manager-RHEL-xxx.pak
RHEL heterogeneous clusters
- The RHEL heterogeneous cluster requires the deployment of only the product upgrade .pak file.
- For the product upgrade of a heterogeneous cluster that has RHEL nodes with Windows Remote Collectors, the file is: vRealize_Operations_Manager-RHEL-WIN-xxx.pak
Windows clusters
- The Windows cluster requires the deployment of only the product upgrade .pak file.
- For the product upgrade of Windows clusters, the file is: vRealize_Operations_Manager-WIN-xxx.pak

The rest of the upgrade process is pretty straightforward.

Unable to join PSC to Domain via Webclient

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I am actually pretty surprised this bug still exists. I came across this issue with my first deployment of vSphere 6. Now I am circling back around to do a POC and it still exists.

When trying to join a Platform Services Controller to the domain via the vSphere Webclient I get the following error: “java.lang.reflect.invocationTargetException”

There are currently two workarounds now with 6.0U1 I am aware of.

The first method is to join to the domain using the CLI.

/opt/likewise/bin/domainjoin-cli join domain username

The second method is to use the new PSC interface to join to the domain.
- Navigate to https://fqdnofpsc/psc
- Select Appliance Settings
- Click on Manage
- Under Active Directory Select Join and enter in your details

Unable to SSH to vSphere 6 VCSA or PSC

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So I am in the midst of setting up a vSphere 6 POC and it has been a bit since I played with it. I came across a problem I thought i would document and share.

While trying to setup my Platform Service Controllers for HA. I was having issues sshing into the appliance. I kept on getting errors, that the packet sizes were too big or just authentication would fail.

Enabling Biometrics in Horizon View 6.2

Wed, 16 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Horizon 6.2 Introduced Biometric Authentication, with initial support for TouchID on IOS devices.

This post will explain how to enable it, as its not really something greatly documented right now. I think they are aware and hopefully in a future update this will be easier.

Here is a link to the current VMware documentation.

NOTE: This feature does require a 3rd party trusted signed certificate to work. From my current testing and speaking with others self-signed certificates will not function.

Upgrading Horizon View 6.1 to 6.2

Wed, 16 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I had the opportunity to upgrade my Horizon View environment from 6.1 to 6.2. As always VMware has made this very easy!

First download the bits from here.

The upgrade documentation can also be found here.

Warning: In my environment I do not have a composer server, if you had one this would be upgraded first The upgrade order is as follows. Composer Server, Connection Servers and then Security Servers.

Log on to your connection server and launch the executable.

Using PowerCLI to Extend VMDK and Windows OS Disk

Tue, 15 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to share this handy script i created when you have a need to extend a disk.

This script can be extremely handy as it will take care of extending the VMDK and then going to the OS and then performing the expansion there as well. This has been helpful when needing to extend a large batch of servers (60+).

Syntax: .\ExtendVMDKandGuest VMNAME

You will then be prompted to enter in the Hard Disk #, the size you want to be extended, and then which drive letter that volume belongs to.

Using PowerCLI to Detach Luns

Mon, 14 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I thought I would share this script, its been circulating a bit but I feel it is a nice one to have in your toolkit.

Have you ever had to remove a LUN from a cluster and thought “Do I really need to detach all the LUN’s, before un-mapping from my SAN?”

Unmount Datastore
Detach LUN
Un-map from SAN
Rescan Cluster

Well here is a handy script with output. All you need to do is unmount your datastore(s), and then enter in your naaid of your LUN’s and the cluster you want to remove it from, save it an execute. All the LUN’s will be detached without having to manually go and detach it from every LUN in your cluster.

vSphere 6.0 Update 1 Released

Thu, 10 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Today vSphere 6.0 U1 is released. This is normally the update everyone waits for before upgrading their production environments to the latest version. I think the first time in awhile, a lot of people will wait.

You see, VMware has had a bug KB2124669 since ESXi 6.0 that can cause an ESXi host to randomly lose connection, freeze and overall act really terrible. With the release of 6.0U1 it still exists.

Deploying and Hosting Jekyll on Ravello Systems

Tue, 08 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know you could get host your own blog on Ravello Systems?

Its actually quite easy and even easier with Jekyll. Jekyll is a great static content platform perfect for hosting your blog. It is all based on html/css/markdown and requires absolutely no database.

Please use my previous [blog]({% post_url 2015-09-08-how-to-deploy-a-jekyll-blog %}) on how to get it deployed.

Disclaimer: This is in no way supported or recommended by Ravello Systems, running this 24x7 even with 1CPU will consume most of your free trial/vExpert hours. So please use this at your own risk.

Lets get started!

How To Deploy a Jekyll Blog

Tue, 08 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So after getting my blog up and running I figured I would do a quick how-to, on how to get a blog up and running. Its actually something you can do in less than 15 minutes.

~ $ gem install jekyll
~ $ jekyll new myblog
~ $ cd myblog
~/myblog $ jekyll serve
# => Now browse to http://localhost:4000 and you will see the blog running!

Easy Enough? Now how do you create a blog post?

Using Vagrant to Deploy an Ubuntu Server running NGINX

Tue, 08 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So as I was getting around to trying to get a host platform setup for a Jekyll blog I was looking at an alternative to GitHub Pages. I decided I would run it on Ubuntu Server using NGINX as the web platform.

Here is a quick vagrant runbook that will quickly get a linux server deployed and install NGINX to host your website.

The code can be found here.

The bootstrap_linux_nginx.sh file runs the following commands to install NGINX. You can add commands to your file to automatically create your configuration and sites to publish automatically. By default this will just bring up the default nginx site.

Welcome to Jekyll!

Fri, 04 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

New Blog Platform!

I have had a bit of issues with performance on my blog recently and looking on how to not overpay for hosting services. A good friend of mine suggested using Jekyll and GitHub Pages, so I took the challenge. Within a day I was able to get my blog posts exported from Wordpress and published on a new platform and it was quite simple! Be on the lookout for some upcoming posts.

Horizon View - Block Linux VDI Console Access

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So I have had some time to play around with the new Linux Horizon View Agent and using Ubuntu as a VDI guest and it works pretty well. However as most of us have seen, when a user is logged onto the guest the screen is shown in the console. In some organizations this may pose a privacy or security risk.

Right now there is no true workaround as that is how the view session is handled, however there is a workaround to disable console access.

HTML Based Published Apps with Horizon View 6.1.1

Wed, 10 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So Horizon View 6.1.1 was released recently with added support for published applications to finally be accessible via the HTML client. The process is pretty straightforward, however I came across one hiccup I wanted to share.

I am assuming you have already upgraded your View Composer, Connection and Security Servers and are now focused on getting the agents up to date.

Install/Update Agents on virtual desktops to 6.1.1 (The HTML Access 3.4 client will not work with previous agent versions)

Install/Update Agents on RDS servers to 6.1.1

Install the HTML Access 3.4 to all your connection servers within the appropriate enviroment if load balanced

Now you can logon to your HTML Client and look for your published apps….however you will see that they are missing….looking into the actual guide for the html access there is an additional step.

HTML Access Guide

Log on to a connection server running 6.1.1 (If you are in a mixed enviroment this change cannot be made on a previous version.

Navigate to Farms and then edit each RDS farm to enable HTML Access.

Voila you now have access to all your applications via the HTML client with a fancy new interface!

Honored to be a PernixPro

Thu, 07 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I have been glad to have been accepted as a PernixPro. Look forward to seeing some more FVP related content on this blog, I am honored to have this title.

PernixPro™ members are an elite community of IT professionals committed to advancing FVP storage acceleration technology. By facilitating collaboration between PernixData experts and the industry’s top luminaries, PernixPro breaks down the barriers to widespread adoption of server-side storage, giving companies of all sizes a cost-effective solution for scaling storage performance independent of storage capacity. - See more at: http://pernixdata.com/partners/pernixpro

VCP6-DCV Delta Exam (Beta) Thoughts

Mon, 27 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Here is a bit of my experience with the VCP6-DCV Delta beta exam.

Initial Thoughts

Today I sat and took the VCP6-DCV Delta Exam beta. I have never taken a VMware beta exam so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, from what I have been told, I expected lots of questions with bad grammar and horrible spelling. However today I got something a bit different. Ill explain it best without violating any NDA.

vSphere6 - Unable to use session credentials

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So one thing I have come across with a few VCSA6 installs was the inability to use login with current credentials via the Web client or vSphere client.

Working with VMware support we were finally able to get it working with a few tweaks and there is a current pending KB that has not been published yet. (KB2113038) I have been told this affects both an embedded deployment (VCSA and PSC together) and external deployment (VCSA and PSC seperate.)

PowerCLI - Extend VMDK and Guest OS

Thu, 02 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So as always things change across multiple Window’s operating systems and VMware revisions. I had a need to extend the drives on about 50 VMs today and really didn’t want to do all that clicking. I remember awhile back it was easy to do this with a Basic Set-Harddisk and use the -ResizeGuestPartition but alas that has been removed from the current functionality. So I took my search to google and found a couple scripts that worked ok, but nothing that was a seamless experience.

VCP6-DCV Beta Exam

Wed, 01 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

VMware has announced https://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrReg/plan.cfm?plan=64178&ui=www_cert the availability of the VCP6-DCV beta exams. The beta exam includes 3 seperate exams. If you are currently an active VCP you can either take the VCP6-DCV or VCP6-DCV Delta exam, and if you are currently not certified you are required to take the vSphere 6 Foundations and VCP6-DCV to obtain the certification.

vSphere 6 Foundations : Exam code: 2V0-620

VCP6-DCV : Exam Code: 2V0-621

SRM - Unable to uninstall due to UAC

Wed, 18 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I was trying to remove SRM 5.1 from our environment and kept getting an error that UAC must be disabled. Even though UAC was set to “Never Notify” SRM didnt like this.

To fully disable UAC run the following command from an elevated command prompt and then reboot the system.

REG ADD “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System” /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
Note:

You can also avoid this by doing the uninstall as the builtin local administrator account

Unable to Configure Event Database in vRealize Operations View Broker Agent

Fri, 06 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I was in the process of getting vRealize for Horizon configured, and as I was going through the broker agent configuration for the life of me I couldn’t get the eventdb portion to work. Everytime i entered in the user name and password, I would receive the following error. FAILED (Format of the initialization string does not conform to specification starting at index 88.)

I knew it wasn’t a password issue as I was able to logon to SQL Manager with no issue, and the Horizon View EventsDB was working fine, so I went on a google search to try to hunt through logs. SQL Server was reporting i was entering the wrong password which made me think. In past issues some applications haven’t like certain characters in passwords.

PowerCLI - Troubleshooting Multiple Default Servers

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I use a customized version of http://www.virtu-al.net/vcheck-pluginsheaders/vcheck/ by Alan Renouf to connect to multiple servers. However a coworker of mine was trying to run it, and the script would only return data from the 2nd vCenter we were connecting to.

Doing some troubleshooting we noticed their DefaultVIServerMode was set to single. This means that only a single servers connection will occur at once. Changing this setting is very easy, there are 3 scopes, but only one really needs to be set. You can review the 3 scope options https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/PowerCLI/PowerCLI51/html/Set-PowerCLIConfiguration.html

PowerCLI - Enable CPU and Memory HotAdd

Wed, 14 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I had a need to enable CPU and Memory hotadd to many virtual machines prior to a template being updated, doing some research there is no easy way, however there are some functions out there to do it. You can copy and paste each function into a powershell window and then run the associated command.

Enable-MemHotAdd $ServerName Disable-MemHotAdd $ServerName Enable-vCPUHotAdd $ServerName Disable-vCPUHotAdd $ServerName
Enable Memory HotAdd

Function Enable-MemHotAdd($vm){ $vmview = Get-vm $vm | Get-View $vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec $extra = New-Object VMware.Vim.optionvalue $extra.Key="mem.hotadd" $extra.Value="true" $vmConfigSpec.extraconfig += $extra $vmview.ReconfigVM($vmConfigSpec) }
Disable Memory HotAdd

Function Disable-MemHotAdd($vm){ $vmview = Get-VM $vm | Get-View $vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec $extra = New-Object VMware.Vim.optionvalue $extra.Key="mem.hotadd" $extra.Value="false" $vmConfigSpec.extraconfig += $extra $vmview.ReconfigVM($vmConfigSpec) }
Enable CPU HotAdd

Function Enable-vCpuHotAdd($vm){ $vmview = Get-vm $vm | Get-View $vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec $extra = New-Object VMware.Vim.optionvalue $extra.Key="vcpu.hotadd" $extra.Value="true" $vmConfigSpec.extraconfig += $extra $vmview.ReconfigVM($vmConfigSpec) }
Disable CPU HotAdd

Function Disable-vCpuHotAdd($vm){ $vmview = Get-vm $vm | Get-View $vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec $extra = New-Object VMware.Vim.optionvalue $extra.Key="vcpu.hotadd" $extra.Value="false" $vmConfigSpec.extraconfig += $extra $vmview.ReconfigVM($vmConfigSpec) }
Notes: Enabling CPU Hotadd disables vNUMA. So enable enable this if its really neccessary in your environment.

KB2040375

Updating Trend Micro Deep Security Manager Certificate

Fri, 19 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So going though v7, v8 and v9 of the certificate guides I continued to have some issues getting the certificate to work and the steps never included ways to add subject alternative names. Upon further research I have identified a good step by step to replace the trend micro DSM certificate and include subject alternative names using a Microsoft certificate authority.

Stop the “Trend Micro Deep Security Manager” service

If not already created, create a folder on the root of C:\ called “certs”

Go to C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\Deep Security Manager and create a new folder called “Backupkeystore”

Copy .keystore and configuration.properties to Backupkeystore folder

Open administrative command line & change directory to “C:\Program Files \Trend Mirco\Deep Security Manager\jre\bin\”

Run this command “keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA -dname cn=(FQDN of Server)”. This will create a “.keystore” file under the C:\Users\ directory

When prompted for password enter a password for the keystore.

Run this command “keytool -certreq -keyalg RSA -alias tomcat -file certrequest.txt”

When prompted for password use same password as entered in step 6.

Open the certrequest.txt located in C:\Program Files \Trend Micro\Deep Security Manager\jre\bin\ and copy the contents of the file.

Access the CA server site https://certsrv and click “Request a certificate”.

Select “advanced certificate request”

Select “Submit a certificate request by using a base-64-encoded CMC or PKCS #10 file, or submit a renewal request by using a base-64-encoded PKCS #7 file”

Paste copied text from certrequest.txt in “Base-64-encoded certificate request” field, select “Web Server” under Certificate Template and enter Subject Alternative Names under Additional Attributes using the following format: “san:dns=&dns=” and click “Submit.”

Click “Download certificate chain” and save as “trend.p7b” in the certs folder on the C: drive

From administrative command prompt run this command “keytool -import -trustcacerts -alias tomcat -file C:\certs\trend.p7b -keystore C:\Users\.keystore”

When prompted for password use same password as entered in step 6.

When prompted to “Install reply anyway”, type “yes”

Copy .keystore from C:\Users%username%\ and paste it into C:\Program Files \Trend Micro\Deep Security Manager

From administrative command prompt change directories to C:\Program Files \Trend Micro\Deep Security Manager and run this command “.\configuration.properties”. This will open the configuration.properties in notepad.

Look for the line keystorePass= and delete the entry after the = symbol, enter the password used in step 6 after the = and save and close the file.

Restart the “Trend Micro Deep Security Manager” service

Cisco Champion 2015

Wed, 26 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I am honored to have been accepted as a Cisco Champion for 2015! I guess this means I will continue and post to expand content on Cisco UCS and Cisco IronPort.

Identify DirSync Distribution Groups in Office365

Wed, 19 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So after recently implementing directory sync i wanted to make sure any new groups were properly set up in active directory.

Unfortunately i was unable to find any commands so thanks to MS Support I was able to find a way to identify these. You would think it would be under Get-DistributionGroup but it is actually under Get-MSolGroup. After connecting via remote powershell you can run the below command to see all that are not synced.

Horizon View 6 - Single Sign On with Published Applications

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So I have been working in a few situations where i have wanted to use Horizon 6 published (RDS) applications but having to either launch the Horizon View client within a VDI or have users be forced to logon again has been a deal breaker.

Upon further research i finally found the right combination of settings to allow users to launch the RDS Hosted Applications via a Shortcut and automatically login to the view client making this process seamless.

Office 365/Exchange EAC Pop Ups not working with Chrome 37

Thu, 16 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Chrome depreciated one of the features that allowed these popups to work, here is a temporary workaround to get it working.

Download the Chrome Policy Plugin here

Open the zip file you just downloaded and locate the .ADM file that best matches your system:

Extract the .ADM file to any folder on your hard drive

Go to Start > Run, and run gpedit.msc

Right-click Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates, and select Add/Remove Templates:

Add the adm template that you saved to disk earlier:

You should now see the template underneath a Google > Google Chrome section within Administrative Templates

Depending on which operating system you have, it might be under a Classic Administrative Templates (ADM) folder:

Click on Google Chrome in the left-hand pane and then double-click on the item called Enable deprecated web platform features in the list within the right-hand pane:

NOTE: It helps to sort the table in the right-hand pane by the Setting column in order to find the Enable deprecated web platform features item more easily.

In the new screen that appears, click the Enabled radio button:

In the Options section of the same screen, click the Show… button

On the new screen that appears, type ShowModalDialog_EffectiveUntil20150430 into the first cell of the table that’s displayed and hit ENTER: -IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure there are no spaces either before or after the ShowModalDialog_EffectiveUntil20150430 Otherwise, Chrome will reject the setting (see the Troubleshooting section for more information).

Click OK

To verify that this policy has taken effect, navigate to the following URL in Chrome: chrome://policy

If everything is set up correctly, you should see a screen like the following

vSphere Data Protection - Insufficient Disk Space for Upgrade

Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

As I was upgrading my VDP-A environment from 5.5 to 5.8 the upgrade failed due to the following error.

“Please make sure you have at least 20GB for repo, 10GB for var, and 1GB for root partition.”

Upon further research there seems to be an issue from 5.5.1 and 5.5.5 appliances with the /space partition filling up due to PostGres events. The issue can be resolving by installing the following VDP patch (vdp_patch-5.5.5.190.)

Unable to Install .NET 3.5 on Server 2012R2

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So upon trying to install .Net 3.5 on a new server today it would not allow me to, it kept telling me the source files were unavailable even after pointing to source directly to multiple ISO’s and copied the files locally.

Upon further research I stumbled across this microsoft KB article and used it to ultimately find my fix. KB2734782

Here are the full steps I followed to get .NET installed.

Open gpedit.msc to modify your local group policy.

Sysprep runs repeatedly on virtual machines deployed to ESXi 5.1 build 1743533

Tue, 08 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

We had a strange issue that any time a VM was snapshotted it then forced a reboot and sysprep. Reviewing the customization logs(C:\windows\temp\vmware-imc\guestcust.log) I noticed the following error..Unable to set customization status in vmx.

Upon further research it seems this is a known issue and is resolved in ESXi 5.1 Express Patch 5 KB2077640 as referenced in this article KB2078352.

However the hotfix only fixes future occurences, you still need to fix all the VMs affected. See below for the powercli script I created to connect to all my vcenters, get VM’s that are affected and then fix them. Please note as this is not referenced in the KB that the VM will need to be POWERED OFF and then POWERED ON for the change to go into affect. A restart will not fix it.

Configuring ESXi 5.5 Dump Collector

Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Thank you to everyone who listened to me on the EMEA vBrownbag. Here are copies of documentation and scripts on how to configure ESXi to use the remote dump collector.

Check the ESXi Dump Collector Configuration Example:

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost)){ $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost $esxcli.system.coredump.network.get()}

Setting the ESXi Dump Collector Example:

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost)) { $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost $esxcli.system.coredump.network.set($null, “vmk0″, “IPtoDumpCollector″, “6500″) $esxcli.system.coredump.network.set($true)}

Configuring ESXi 5.5 Syslog Collector

Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Thank you to everyone who listened to me on the EMEA vBrownbag. Here are copies of documentation and scripts on how to configure ESXi to use the Syslog collector.

Check the ESXi Syslog Collector Configuration Example:

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost)){ $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost $esxcli.system.syslog.config.get()}

Setting the ESXi Syslog Collector Example:

Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost)){ $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost $esxcli.system.syslog.config.set($null, $null, $null, $null,"udp://IPtoSyslogServer:514″) $esxcli.system.syslog.reload()}

Post-Installation Changes

If you wish to change the default port or maxsize of the syslog rotation, these can be changed by modifying the vmconfig-syslog.xml file. See below link with instructions on how to make the changes and restart the Syslog Collector Service. 2021652

Deploying vCloud Connector 2.6 and Configuring For vCHS (Part 3)

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In Part 1 we showed you how to deploy vCloud Connector 2.6, and in Part 2 we showed you how to configure it.

Here in Part 3 we will show you how to migrate a workload from your private cloud to your public cloud.

Lets go back to our vCenter and select our vCloud Connector Plugin

Expand your vCenter and select the folder that contains the VM you wish to copy to vCHS. (The source VM must be powered off)

Deploying vCloud Connector 2.6 and Configuring For vCHS (Part 1)

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So luckily i was selected for the June 2014 wave of vCloud Hybrid Service access as a vExpert. I have been looking forwarding to using vCHS since it went GA and am glad to finally have the opportunity to use it hands on.

Once I got access I knew I wanted to copy some of my existing workloads to vCHS instead of having to start from scratch. I begin to look for some good guides on implementing vCloud Connector 2.6 but couldn’t find anything as it was just released and majorly overhauled.

Deploying vCloud Connector 2.6 and Configuring For vCHS (Part 2)

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Here is Part 2 a continuation of Deploying vCloud Connector 2.6 and Configuring For vCHS (Part 1) (http://davidstamen.com/2014/06/03/deploying-vcloud-connector-2-6-and-configuring-for-vchs-part-1/) where we will configure vCloud connector to your Private(vCenter) and Public(vCHS) clouds.

Lets start with getting the vCloud Connector Server ready. Just in case you forgot what IP you assigned we can open the appliance and view the management information.

As we can see here the URL to configure the appliace is https://192.168.0.13:5480 and the default username is admin and default password is vmware.

Create VMFS Datastore Using PowerCLI

Thu, 22 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

For upcoming testing there was a need to create 140 datastores on a cluster for testing. Who wants to do that much clicking and typing? Not me! You can use the below PowerCLI commands to get the SCSI ID’s, Create the Datastore and then Rescan all hosts in the cluster.

How do i get the CanonicalName for allocated disks?

Get-SCSILun -VMhost 192.168.1.103 -LunType Disk | Select CanonicalName,Capacity
How do I create a VMFS datastore for the CanonicalName I identified above?

New-Datastore -VMHost Host -Name Datastore -Path CanonicalName -VMFS
How do i rescan all the hosts in the cluster to see the new datastore?

Get-Cluster -name Cluster | Get-VMhost | Get-VMHostStorage -RescanAllHBA

vSphere 5.x Storage vMotion Does Not Rename Virtual Machine Files.

Wed, 21 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

After upgrading vCenter this functionality is no longer enabled by default. Please perform the following steps to enable rename of files upon successful Storage vMotion.

Log into the vSphere Client as an Administrator

Click Administration > vCenter Server Settings

Click Advanced Settings

Add this advanced parameter key:

provisioning.relocate.enableRename

Set the value to: true

Click Add

Click OK

Restart the VMware VirtualCenter Server service for the changes to take effect

HA Error: Datastore Heartbeat is less than 2

Thu, 08 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

If you are configuring a cluster with less than 2 datastores, you will receive an HA warning “The number of heartbeat datastores for host is 1, which is less than required: 2” You can add an option to the HA Advanced Options to supress this warning.

Log in to vCenter Server

Right-click the cluster and click Edit Settings

Click vSphere HA > Advanced Options

Under Option, add an entry for das.ignoreInsufficientHbDatastore

Under Value, type true

Click Cluster Features

De-select Turn on vSphere HA and click OK

Wait for all the hosts in the cluster to re-configure HA, then right-click the cluster and click Edit Settings

Click Cluster Features

Click Turn on vSphere HA

Click OK

HA Error: Network Redundancy

Thu, 08 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

When setting up a cluster for testing you may not have 2 nics to use for management. to bypass the warning you can configure HA to not alert you for this issue.

To perform the steps in the c# client.

From the VMware Infrastructure Client, right-click on the cluster and click Edit Settings.

Select vSphere HA and click Advanced Options.

In the Options column, enter das.ignoreRedundantNetWarning

In the Value column, type true

Click OK.

Right-click the host and click Reconfigure for vSphere HA. This reconfigures HA.

To perform the steps in the webclient.

From the vSphere Web Client, right click on the cluster.

Click on the Manage tab for the cluster, then under Settings click vSphere HA.

Click on the Edit button in the top right corner.

Expand the Advanced Options section, and click Add.

In the Options column, type das.ignoreRedundantNetWarning.

In the Value column, type true.

Click OK

Right-click the host and click Reconfigure for vSphere HA.

Get NAA.ID for Virtual Machine RDM's in VMware

Tue, 06 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is a great script to keep handy. If you have multiple RDM’s on a VM and need to get the NAA_ID for them the below PowerCLI command will get you that information.

Get-VM VMNAME| Get-HardDisk -DiskType "RawPhysical","RawVirtual" | Select Parent,Name,DiskType,ScsiCanonicalName,DeviceName,CapacityGB | fl

If you then need to match the SCSI virtual disk to the Guest OS this is a great article on how to do so.

KB2051606

Blocking Attachments With Executable Content

Thu, 01 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t know whats going on in the past few weeks but the sheer amount of zeroday exploits via email have risen. To protect yourselves against this I would recommend setting up a transport rule to drop or reject any email with executable content. This can be done for Exchange 2013 or Office365 (Exchange Online).

Enable SSH on vSphere Management Assistant 5.0

Thu, 01 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

While continuing to build out my lab for VCAP-DCA today I had to deploy the vMA (vSphere Management Assistant). Upon deployment i tried to SSH to it and unfortunately was not able to. By default SSH is turned off, perform the steps below to enable it.

Cisco UCS and Native VLAN Tagging

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Building out some new servers today I came across an issue where the servers would have no network connectivity even though the vNICs were properly tagged and assign a VLAN ID. Upon further research, I noticed that “Native VLAN” was not selected. This is a must for any operating system that does not do VLAN Tagging such as ESXi.

So remember to set the VLAN to Native if using an operating system that does not support VLAN tagging!

Nested ESXi and NFS

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I was working today on configuring NFS/Openfiler in my lab and came across an issue that my nested ESXi host’s couldn’t talk over the VSS (Standard Switch) I created. Upon further research when using nested ESXi you need to enable “Promiscuous Mode” on the VSS to allow the traffic to pass.

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