Exciting New Features in VMware Cloud Director 10.5: Empowering Cloud Providers

VMware Cloud Director, the leading cloud management platform, has released its highly anticipated version 10.5, packed with a wide array of exciting and powerful features that can significantly enhance the cloud experience for both cloud providers and tenants. Let’s delve into the details of these new capabilities and understand how they can revolutionize the cloud landscape.

VMware Cloud Director 10.5 Networking New Features:

  1. VCD NSX Federation with VDC Groups:
    In a significant advancement, VMware Cloud Director now supports NSX Federation, allowing cloud providers to register an NSX Global Manager instance that orchestrates security policies across regional local NSX Manager instances within the VMware Cloud Director environment. With NSX Federation, providers can include up to 4 NSX Manager instances in a single VDC Group. This breakthrough empowers providers to establish networking availability zones by disaggregating NSX Manager instances across regional data centers, resulting in enhanced networking resilience and availability. By leveraging NSX Federation, cloud providers can design robust and highly scalable network architectures, ensuring seamless connectivity for their tenants. In this release, not all features are supported by NSX Federation under VCD, but more to come with future releases. For more details you can check: Managing NSX Federation 
  2. VMware Cloud Director NSX Advanced Load Balancer HTTP Policies:
    VMware Cloud Director 10.5
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How to Configure vRealize Automation 7.x Management pack in vRealize Operations Manager

The installation of vRealize Operations Manager Management Pack for vRealize Automation is a popular ask due to the benefit of in depth monitoring of vRA offered by vROPs. The vRealize Automation Management Pack for vRealize Operations Manager is very quick to configure as long you know the steps and permissions required. In this post, I will show you how to easily start monitoring your vRA 7.x environment with vROPs. The steps below should get you setup in no time.

1- Download the vRealize Operations Manager Management Pack for vRealize Automation from VMware Solutions Exchange.

2- Log in to vRealize Operations Manager by using the administration console using the Admin user.

3- In the left pane of vRealize Operations Manager, click Administration and click Solutions.

vROPs Solution Tab before installing vRA Management Pack

4- Hit the Green Plus (Add management Pack button), then upload the downloaded management pack.

Installing vROPs management pack for vRealize Automation

5- Accept the EULA and hit next/install on the install screen, then wait for the plugin to complete installation.

6- When you have finished the installation of the vRA Management Pack for vROPs, the next step before you configure it, is to assign a service user proper permission to vRA to allow vROPs to connect/collect monitoring data from vRA. This user will need the following permissions: Tenant Administrator, IaaS Administrator,  Software Architect, and Fabric Group Admin.… Read More

Vote for the VMware CTO Ambassadors VMworld 2017 Submissions

As the VMware CTO Ambassadors program is made off just over 140 of the top VMware field talents, sessions submitted by this group are usually top notch and of great interest to our customers/partners. I wanted to collect all of these sessions in one spot to allows others in the community to recognize them and make sure my readers get a chance to review them and vote for them. Please take time to review them and vote for the ones you like!

Below is the list of the different sessions submitted by CTO Ambassadors ordered in the way received and not in anyway related to it’s greatness. There is a total of almost 50 sessions, so I am sure you will find at least few you like in the list below. Please be kind and vote for the ones you like.

Rate at least 5 of the below sessions, and leave your name in the comments area for a chance to win one of two $50 Amazon gift cards sponsored by the VirtualizationTeam.com blog. Please note VMworld website now allow you to rate submissions and not just vote for it, so you can qualify by just rating submissions even if you don’t rate them highly, although I am sure you will find at least 5 sessions below that worth your 5 stars votes.… Read More

My VMworld 2017 VVD – NFV – SDN session

It’s that time of the year, where it is your chance to vote for the sessions you would like to see at VMworld. This year, I have submitted six VMworld Sessions focusing on VMware Validated Design (VVD), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Software Defined Networking (SDN). I hope you find few you will like and vote for.

For those of you who are ready to rate the sessions, here is the list. If you like to ready the summary of all my sessions in one place, the you can read below. If you rate at least 3 of my sessions (high or low), please leave a comment below for a chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card.

Two VCDXs Deep Dive into VVD Network Stack. [2269] (Breakout Session)
VMware Validated Design The Why? Who? What? Why? & How? [2258] (Breakout Session)
Addressing the Most Common VMware Validated Design Decisions Deviations [2232](Breakout Session)
VMware Validated Design Experts Panel [2062] (Panel Discussion)
Software Defined Networking (SDN) vs Network Function Virtualization (NFV) [2242] (Breakout Session)
Question the VVD Network Stack Decisions [2277] (Panel Discussion)

Below is a summary of my sessions and looking forward for your votes and support.

Two VCDXs Deep Dive into VVD Network Stack.

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VMTurbo is now Turbonomic

Turbonomic is VMTurbo new name!VMTurbo has just re-branded themselves to Turbonomic. I have just received an e-mail few days back from VMTurbo stating the change of the company name to Turbonomic.

While it sounded interesting to change the name of the company out of a sudden, it all came to make sense reading their explanation on their website. As they shift their products from being only Virtual Machines focused to cover containers and public cloud, they wanted their name to reflect that.

 

 

Below is how Turbonomic (previously VMTurbo) explain the reason for the name change:

“Our company was founded on the vision of managing any workload, on any infrastructure, anywhere, at anytime. Over the past few years, we’ve delivered a platform that empowers over 1500 customers to deliver better application performance, agility, and efficiency.

Today, our customers are moving beyond VMs to leverage containers and public clouds as they transition from monolithic to cloud-native applications.

We are thrilled to enable this journey for our customers while continuing to stay true to the core vision of the company. Given this transformation, we know there is an opportunity to capture this movement and take customers anywhere they want to go.”

 … Read More

Resource Actions does not show up in vRealize Automation 6.2.1

I had an instance of vRealize Automation 6.2 with few resource actions that were built under Advanced Services with things like take snapshot and move VMs to a different folder in vCenter. These were working like a charm in vRealize Automation 6.2, but as soon I upgraded to 6.2.1 they stopped showing in the items actions menu. I have re-checked my configuration and tried few additional resource actions with no luck.

After a bit of research I have found out that its a known problem caused by a bad DLL within the 6.2.1 and its easy to fix by following KB2111713. I have as well happen to be able to reproduce the same issue with a fresh install of vRA 6.2.1, so if your resource actions does not show up in the actions menu, although you have done all the right steps KB2111713 or the step below is your way to fix it.

1- Download the new DLL by following the download link in KB2111713, the download name is vRA_621.zip, where it includes a single DLL file which in turn called  “DynamicOps.Api.v61.dll".

2- Stop all of your vRA IaaS Services in the following order: 1- Proxy Agents 2- DEMs, 3- DEM Orchestrator 4- vCloud Automation Center Manager service

3- Backup your old DynamicOps.Api.v61.dll… Read More

How to change the certs for VAMI on VMware vCAC Appliance

I have been working with several customers & after changing the certs for things like vRealize Auotmation using VAMI, they notice that when they access VAMI at port 5480 (ex: https://vra.vt.com:5480), they noticed they still get the self signed cert instead of the signed cert they have installed. The reason for that is the cert that you install through VAMI is not used for VAMI, but to secure connection to the application where in the vRA/vCAC example it’s used to secure connections to the vRA/vCAC portal that is being served at 443.

vRA 62 VAMI invalid security Certificate

For those who want to have a secure signed certs for VAMI, you will have to do it through the command line for now. Below is the instructions provided to me by GSS on how to do so for both the vCAC/vRA identity appliance as well the vCAC/vRA appliance. Please note you can use very similar steps for most of the other VMware appliances that uses VAMI.

Logon to the appliance console (EXVMware Identity Appliance console and execute the following commands:

  1. Copy the rui.pem file (certificate pem file) to the /tmp folder
  2. ls -l /opt/vmware/etc/lighttpd/server.pem and make a note of the server.pem timestamp
  3. cp /opt/vmware/etc/lighttpd/server.pem /opt/vmware/etc/lighttpd/server.pem.bak
  4. cp /tmp/rui.pem
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Is it time to upgrade your homelab? VMTurbo is giving you the chance to win it!

If you are like me, you are always looking for a new hardware to upgrade your home lab. Unfortunately, maintaining your home lab up to date has proven to be not cheap. For that reason, it seems VMturbo is giving away home labs for three lucky winners who register for their upcoming  VMTurbo 5.1 Release Webinar. The lab they are offering can be a great test bench for many of the Virtualization/SDDC/Cloud product that you love to test/play with. Below is the specs of the Home Lab they are offering you a chance to win!

  • Intel NUC with Intel Core i5-4250U
  • G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (2x8G) 204-Pin DDR3 Memory
  • SAMSUNG 840 EVO 250GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive
  • Synology DS415+ Diskless System DiskStation 4-Bay NAS
  • 2x Dell 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Hard Drive
  • Cisco SG300-10 10-port Gigabit Managed Switch
  • Rosewill 7ft. Cat 6 Network Cable

VMTurbo has valued this Lab configuration at $1600 USD, and would be really nice to put your hands on it for free. Below is what VMTurbo ad look like:

VMTurbo Home Lab Offer

 

I have registered for my chance to win, what about you? Remember its like the Lottery, you can not win unless if you Sign Up, beside this one is free!… Read More

vCAC 6 Property Dictionary Relationship

Note: If you are looking for how use Property Dictionary Relationship in vRA 7.0, then you want to look at my updated article at: vRealize Automation 7 Property Dictionary Relationship, though if you are looking for vRA 6.0, then please keep reading below.

Property Dictionary Relationship in vCAC 6 allow you to build a relationship between the different drop down menu boxes provided to your End User for input. This provide a more elegant and flexible solution when it come to user input in the vCAC request form. It will help you provide the user with only the valid choices rather than provide them with every choice in the list. Let’s take an example.

vCAC Property Dictionary Relationship

The above diagram demonstrate a vCAC request form with three drop down menus into it for Location, Storage, & Network. Let’s assume you have the following list of items for each list as below:

Location Storage Network
Toronto Toronto_T1 Toronto_Prod_PG01
Toronto_T2 Toronto_Prod_PG02
Toronto_T3 Toronto_DMZ_PG01
Boston Boston_T1 Boston_Prod_PG01
Boston_T2 Boston_Prod_PG02
Boston_T3 Boston_DMZ_PG01
Paris Paris_T1 Paris_Prod_PG01
Paris_T2 Paris_Prod_PG02
Paris_T3 Paris_DMZ_PG01

If you implement the above table values into a property dictionary drop down menus(Without building relationship), you will have 3 options to choose from for location, and 12 options to choose from for storage and network no matter what location you have chosen, although only 3 options for Network or storage is valid for any particular location.… Read More

vCloud Automation Center 6.1 Upgrade (Step-by-Step)

As the long waiting vCAC 6.1 was released beginning of this week, I have decided to test the upgrade process in my home lab as many of my customers are getting ready to benefit of the new features and enahancements in this release. The good news for everyone that the process is straight forward, where the only challenge I had during the upgrade is satisfying the Java requirements. This post will take you in a step by step fashion of the vCAC 6.0.1 to vCAC 6.1 upgrade process.

Upgrading the vCAC Appliance

  1. Shutdown the services on the vCAC Appliance using the following commands:
    • service vco-server stop
    • chkconfig vco-server off
    • service vcac-server stop
  2. Stop the vCAC Appliance before upgrade
  3. Shutdown all the services on your IaaS Windows Server. Under Start => Administrative tools => Services. Make sure to shutdown:
    • All VMware vCloud Automation Center agents
    • All VMware DEM workers
    • VMware DEM orchestrator
    • VMware vCloud Automation Center Manager Service
  4. You can download the update by going to the vCAC Appliance and let it directly download the vCAC update from the internet (What I am going to do here). Else you can actually download an iso image or create your own web repo that you connect the appliance to for update.
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Learn PowerShell From Scratch with Veeam

As IT around the globe has been tasked to deliver more with less resources has pushed admins to automate as many tasks as possible. The more tasks you can automate in your datacenter, the more efficient you can do your work and the less chances for error you will do with repeatable tasks. Most of the time you will find a great tool out there that help you to automate the task at hands, but there is always the case where you fact a task that you wish you can automate but there is no tool available to automate the task or the available tool in the market is out of budget. That does not mean you have to continue doing that tasks manually forever, but you will have to script it.

If you are not familiar with scripting or the task in hand that you are trying to automate is only can be done using PowerShell and you have not picked up PowerShell yet, then its your lucky day. Veeam has created a 3 video series with almost of 4 hours of play time to help you learn PowerShell. Did I mention yet its free? What are you waiting for!… Read More

vCenter Single Sign On 5.5 Whats New

vCenter Single Sign On has a considerable amount of changes in vSphere 5.5, with few major ones. Many of these changes have went undetected or unnoticed by the Virtual Infrastructure Admins. If you have deployed vSphere 5.5 and missed these changes or planning to install vCenter SSO 5.5 and want to learn what has changed from the vSphere 5.1 days, then this post is for you:

Below is the list of the major changes introduced in vCenter Single Sign On:

 vCenter SSO Architecture Improvements:

1- Multi master: Unlike 5.1, vCenter SSO 5.5 has A built-in automatic multi-master replication architecture that ensure that all SSO instances are always kept in sync. While this sound great, most admins are not sure what it means nor how it affect the way they design SSO. To understand the value of this change, you must understand how SSO worked in 5.1. and how that changed in 5.5.

In 5.1 if you wanted to enable SSO for multiple vCenters in your environment, you needed to point all of them to the same SSO instance which made all of those vCenters dependent on that single SSO instance. This has made that single SSO instance to be crucial for the operation of all of your vCenters, as if that SSO instance goes down you will not be able to access any of your vCenters.… Read More

VMware Onyx the easy way to generate vSphere Power CLI & vCO Java Script Code

Every vSphere admin will get to a day where he wants to automate particular tasks, though he always have to weight the benefits vs the  time required to automate using a vSphere Power CLI script or implementing the vCO Java Script Code required. What if you can generate such scripts and automation procedure in no time and without much of scripting knowledge. What if you can click your way through the VMware vSphere Client and the code magically is written for you in your language of choice of the below languages:

– vSphere Power CLI

– vCO Java Script

– C#

What I have been describing above is a VMware Fling called Onyx. Onyx is a standalone application that serves as a proxy between the vSphere Client and the vCenter Server. It monitors the network communication between them and translates it into an executable PowerShell code. Later, this code could be modified and saved into a reusable function or script. I am sure many of you got excited already, but to get you even more excited and to see Onyx red handed in action check out the below video:

Below you will find the exact steps to get you started with VMware Onyx, the best vSphere Power CLI tool out there.… Read More

VMware vCenter Log Insight 1.5

With the continuous exponential growth of logs in the datacenter, it getting close to impossible to consume them the traditional way. This is no difference in a virtualized environment, where you have the logs for vCenter, ESXi hosts, virtual machines, OS of the VMs, Application logs, & so on. To help admins better digest and better utilize logs, VMware has released VMware vCenter Log Insight.

VMware vCenter log Insight will help admins better digest logs through an easy to use and customize GUI interface. What make vCenter Log insight great for virtualized vSphere environments, that it has special vSphere  dashboard that can make utilizing your vSphere environment logs much easier than ever been possible. The nice thing about the product that it does not stop at vSphere, but it can be utilize with almost any product that generate logs. In addition, many product packs are being created to increase its usability with products outside the vSphere family. The below video should give you a good indication of what you can do with the product:
 

The below video demonstrate how to install vCenter Log Insight:
 

Even more the product is being further enhanced, & the below features were added in VMware vCenter Log Insight 1.5… Read More

VMware ADP (Application Dependency Planner)

I have recently been delivering a Virtualization Assessment engagement for an Enterprise customer, where they have benefited of the recently introduced VMware Application Dependency Planner(ADP). I thought many enterprises & consultants out there would be interested to find out the what, why, when & how they can benefit of this new offering. Below I will try to give a brief of the answers:

What is Application Dependency Planner (ADP)?

VMware Application Dependency Planner is a consulting tool that provides automated, real-time application discovery and dependency mapping to accelerate datacenter migration, precisely plan infrastructure consolidations, and confidently virtualize business critical applications. VMware and partner consultants can use this agentless, non-intrusive, and continuous dependency mapping tool across physical and virtual application infrastructures to quickly gain an understanding of service dependencies with accuracy and efficiency.

Not to confuse it with VMware vCenter Application Discovery Manager (ADM). Where ADM had to be licensed by the customer to use it & permanently run it to keep an updated Application Dependency Mapping, ADP is a consulting tool that VMware Consultants and partners can use to help customer prepare for any Data Center transformation being Virtualization, Cloud Computing, SDDC, or even a disaster recovery. The customer does not have to purchase an ADP license, & the consultant will deliver the Application Dependency mapping for the customer applications as a service as a part of consulting engagement (Ex: Virtualization Assessment Engagements offered by VMware & its partners).… Read More