Tag: Virtualizition

My time at VMworld 2018

fond memoriesWow how time flies. VMworld was just last week, and its hard to believe that its already over. It was a very busy week with all of the announcements from VMware. Visiting with all of the vendors and seeing what new products they are offering. So much happens in such a short amount of time.  I never like the process of traveling.  All the time spent commuting to the airport just to wait a few hours to board the plan.  With all the possible delays I always a fear that I will get trapped in the airport over night.  In the end it is all worth it because it was an exciting week.

recap

It was great being able to meet up with all my old friends from the vExpert community.  It was great to see Jeremy Mayfield again. I have not seen him since .NEXT in Washington DC.  He lives quite far away from me in the frozen white north of Alaska.  It was great to have someone to hang out with during the week, and grab some food at the casino buffet. It was great to finally meet Thom Greene in person. It is always interesting talking to him because we have had such a similar career path.

When I had some free time I spent most of it at the VMTN booth in the Village.  There were a lot of people from the community hanging around it all day.  It was a great place to meet new people, and catch up with old friends. During the day vBrownBag had presentations going on from various people in the community.  It is one of the many things that makes VMworld a unique experience.

At night after all the presentation were over; there was a Hackathon going on.  I had a great time at it, even though I was not able to contribute much. There were some really smart people there. It was amazing to see what the different groups were able to accomplish in just a few hours.

The two big highlights for me were the vExpert party at the Pinball Museum. It was great meeting all the fellow vExperts while enjoying great barbecue and playing some pinball. Then on Wednesday night instead of going to the big party I went to an Influencer dinner.  It is put on by the legend Howard Marks.  It was at this great Thai place and met a lot of great people.  I really had some impostor syndrome kicking in while I was there, because it was full of famous people from the industry.  The contributions that they have made to the community have really helped me in my career.

Tech Field Day Extra was at VMworld this year.  I was a delegate at it for two different sessions. Tuesday morning DELL EMC presented on its Data Protection.  I enjoyed the presentation since I started my career using those data protection products. Wednesday afternoon BlueMedora, Barefoot Networks and Netscout presented. They had a lot a great of information, and as always it was a great event to be a part of. I am very thankful of the Tech Field Day crew inviting me, and over the next few weeks I will be publishing some more post detailing the presentations from these great companies.  So keep an eye on this site over the coming weeks.

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VMworld 2018!!!

It is finally that time of year.  The greatest time of year. It is time for VMworld!!!  August 26-30 is the the time where everyone packs up and spends a week in Las Vegas with some of the greatest minds in Virtualization.

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VMworld is a great opportunity to learn about some of the latest technology in the industry.  The show floor will be backed with tons of vendors.  Some you have heard of and some that you haven’t.  You may find that vendor that has just the solution that you have been looking for.  All the vendors will have lots of information about the various products and solutions that they offer.  It is a great idea to talk to as many as you can.  Always a great opportunity to learn something new, and they usually have some great prize and swag!

The sessions will be excellent as always presented by some of the smartest people you have ever met.  You can take a look of all the sessions here.  If you can’t make it to VMworld they will post most of the sessions on Youtube shortly after.

They will also be offering training sessions on the various VMware products, and if you ready for it you can take one of the certification tests.  Maybe finally get that VCP or VCAP that you have been working on.

The best part of all of this is the networking, and the lifelong friends you will make.  Through VMworld and various other social events I met many great people and friends.  It is a great community to be a part of, and I hope this year I will be able to meet up with as many people I can at the various events.

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ESXi 6.0 to 6.5 Upgrade Failed

The Problem

I am currently running vCenter 6.5 with a mix of 6.0 and 6.5 clusters.  I uploaded the latest Dell customized ESXi 6.5 image to update manager, and had no issues updating my first cluster from 6.0 to 6.5.  In the past I have had some weird issues with update manager, but since 6.5 was integrated into vCenter it has been a lot more stable.  I then proceeded to migrate the next cluster to 6.5 and received this weird error.

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I then tried to mount the ISO to the host and install it that way, but now I get a much more detailed error.

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The Solution

  1.  SSH into the host and run the following command to see list of installed VIB’s

esxcli software vib list

2. Remove the conflicting VIB.

esxcli software vib remove –vibname=scsi-mpt3sas

3. Reboot!

Now that the conflicting VIB has been removed you can proceed with installing the updates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Set NTP on all host in vCenter

Here is a Powershell script that will set NTP on all the ESX host connected to your vCenter.

First connect to the vCenter using Connect-VIserver then run the following code.

 

#Get Host
write-host “Gathering ESX Host”
$esx = get-vmhost

#Configure NTP server
write-host “configuring NTP”
Add-VmHostNtpServer -VMHost $esx -NtpServer 10.10.16.220

#Allow NTP queries outbound through the firewall
wrtie-host “Setting Firewall Permissions”
Get-VMHostFirewallException -VMHost $esx | where {$_.Name -eq “NTP client”} | Set-VMHostFirewallException -Enabled:$true

#Start NTP client service and set to automatic
write-host “Starting NTP service”
Get-VmHostService -VMHost $esx | Where-Object {$_.key -eq “ntpd”} | Start-VMHostService
Get-VmHostService -VMHost $esx | Where-Object {$_.key -eq “ntpd”} | Set-VMHostService -policy “automatic”

 

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Configuring ESXi 6 (vSphere Setup Part 2)

This is part 2 of a series on setting up vSphere.  If you missed the first part you can find it here.

Now that you have installed ESXi 6 it is time to start configuring.

  1. Once the host reboots you will be greeted with this screen.  Press F2 to go to the setup screen where you will login with root and the password you provided earlier.2016-06-03 14_17_49-OFFICE - TeamViewer - Free license (non-commercial use only)2016-06-03 14_19_16-OFFICE - TeamViewer - Free license (non-commercial use only)

 

2. Now its time to configure the management network. Go to Configure Management Network and then to Network Adapters.

2016-06-03 14_21_00-OFFICE - TeamViewer - Free license (non-commercial use only)2016-06-03 14_21_17-OFFICE - TeamViewer - Free license (non-commercial use only)

3. Make sure all the NIC’s you want to use for management are selected.  Since this is in an nested lab I only have one to use.

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4. Now for a test lab this option is not really needed, but here is where you can configure the VLAN for the management network.

2016-06-03 14_24_53-OFFICE - TeamViewer - Free license (non-commercial use only)

5. Set the IP to static and fill in the appropriate IP information for your environment.  Unless you want to you use it is best to disable IP6.

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2016-06-03 14_42_05-OFFICE - TeamViewer - Free license (non-commercial use only)

6. Set the appropriate DNS  and hostname information.

2016-06-03 14_41_36-OFFICE - TeamViewer - Free license (non-commercial use only)

7. Setup the custon DNS suffix which would be your domain name.

2016-06-03 14_43_42-OFFICE - TeamViewer - Free license (non-commercial use only)

8.  Now its time to reboot the host so all of the configuration can take affect.

2016-06-03 14_44_36-OFFICE - TeamViewer - Free license (non-commercial use only)

In part three of setting up ESXi I will go over the deployment of the VCSA.

 

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Installing ESXi on Bare Metal (vSphere Setup Part 1)

Installing ESXi is a simple and straight forward process, but there are a few things you need to keep in mind.  The hardware compatibility list is very important.  You should always make sure your hardware is on it if you are using it in an production environment. In a test environment the setup will probably work, but there could always be some issues you may encounter.

We will cover the following items.

  • Check hardware compatibility
  • Download the ESXi image
  • Create bootable image
  • Install
  • Configure

Hardware Compatibility

  1. Check for hardware compatibility here.  If your system is not listed and your using this for test  then have no fear.  You will probably be able to install and run everything without and issues.

2016-05-20 14_19_24-VMware Compatibility Guide - System Search.png

2. Go into the BIOS and make sure the CPU virtualization support is turned on.

Download ESXi

  1. Download ESXi from the VMware website.

2016-05-20 14_20_47-Evaluate and Download VMware Products for a Virtual Infrastructure - VMware _ Un

Once you have the ISO you can burn it to a CD or create a bootable USB drive.  If you want to create a bootable USB drive Rufus works really well for that.

Installing ESXi

  1. Choose the ESXi installer or wait for it to default to that.

2016-05-20 14_25_06-VMware ESXi 6 - VMware Workstation

2.  You will see two different progress screens.

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3. Press enter then F11.

4. Choose location to install it.

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5. Choose language

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6. Choose password

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7. It will not scan your system for its hardware.

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8. Press F11 to insall.

2016-05-20 14_35_43-VMware ESXi 6 - VMware Workstation

9. Wait for the progress bar.

2016-05-20 14_36_36-VMware ESXi 6 - VMware Workstation

10. Press enter to reboot.

2016-05-20 14_38_00-VMware ESXi 6 - VMware Workstation

Now ESXi is installed.  In my next post I will show how to setup the configuration on a ESXi host.

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Analyzing vSphere with Free Tools “Syslog”

Virtualization is a great technology, but sometimes it can be hard getting a closer look into your environment.  Over the next few post I am going talk about a few free tools that I use in my environment.  They have given me a lot of support in managing my environment, and I would like to think the people who made them.

Syslog can be a very useful tool.  The problem with it is that it can be very painful to use.  Luckly VMware has a great tool for that and that tool is LogInsight. It makes a great syslog server and has a lot of other features that you may find invaluable.  It is a paid product so what is a great alternative?  Sexilog is that great alternative.  With it you point all your esx host to it and watch the magic happen. Very quickly you get a better insight what is happening inside your environment. It may not have as many features as LogInsight, but nothing beats it on feature compared to price.

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Home Lab Setup (Part 1)

I am working on achieving the VMware VCIX. To practice for this I am setting up a home lab.  There are other options than using an home lab such as Ravello, but I wanted to set up my own self enclosed enviroment. I will be utilizing the VMUG Advantage for licensing aspect of the VMware products in my lab.

My setup includes

  1. AMDFX 8-Core CPU
  2. 16Gb Ram
  3. 1 SSD
  4. 2 7200RPM drives
  5. Workstation 12

Setup is 3 Host within Workstations each running on an individual HD.  This should spread the IO load and keep the environment running at a acceptable level.

First I deploy the 3 host.

  1. From Home screen select “Create New Virtual Machine”
  2. Select Typical
  3. Select Install Disk Image and chooise your vSphere 6 ISO
  4. Name Host and Select first HD
  5. Store as single file.
  6. Select power on and finish

Do this two more times for the other 2 host and HD.

Now under Network Adapter settings for our 3 host we select “Custom VMnet2” and we will use this as our Management network.

Now go into each host and fill in all the network information such as the IP and gateway.

Now we have a nested virtualized lab. With step 2 I will setup the vCenter appliance and management workstation for connecting to everything within the enviroment.

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