Learn VMware vSphere resource management

As a part of my learn vSphere from Scratch video training, I have just released my latest lesson “Learn VMware vSphere resource management”, unlike other lessons in the series which were focused solely on someone learning vSphere from scratch, this lesson can be useful to more versed vSphere admins as well any one starting from scratch. This lesson cover the following topics in a great details:

– Learn about virtual machine autonomy.
– How does VMware vSphere Manage its resources?
– How is resource scheduling in vSphere work?
– How does Virtual Machines resource allocation, limit, & reservation work?
– How does ESXi host manage CPU & Memory over commitment?
– Learn more about ESXi extensive memory management techniques such as TPS (Transparent page sharing, ballooning, & swaping)
– What is memory compression?
– Find out what a VM is made of, & learn more about the files that make  up a VM.
– What the type of Virtual Machines disks VMware ESXi support, & when to use each format?
– What is a snapshot,  what to use it for, & how to use it?
– Learn how to manage virtual machines in the vSphere interface.
– Learn what each of the virtual machines setting mean & what is it used for.… Read More

Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass [specialize]

I was at a customer which I have deployed vCloud Automation Center 6.1 for, and they tried to create a new blueprint. They have copied the old blueprint and only changed the VM template used in that blueprint from Windows 2012 to Windows 2008 R2. They saved and published the new blueprint without any problem, then they tried to deploy the new blueprint. The blueprint deployment kept failing with the following error:

“Request failed: Machine VTTestVM001: Timeout customizing machine”

From the error, I was able to tell it was getting stuck at the guest customization stage, so I deployed one more VM and waited till it get to the guest customization stage, then opened a console to the VM to be greeted  with the following Sysprep error:

Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass [specialize]. The settings specified in the answer file cannot be applied. The error was detected while processing settings for component [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup]”

Below is a screenshot showing the actual error on screen:

Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file or pass [specialize]

After I hit OK, the machine restarted again and gave the following error and kept repetitively restarting and giving the same error afterword:

“The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error.Read More

Learn Virtualization & VMware vSphere from Scratch

Few months back I got to speak to different friends of mine in the IT field, who were specialized in networking, storage, SAP, Database, Hardware and so on. I was surprised they had zero to little exposure to Virtualization although they are well versed into their field of expertise. They even held highest certifications in their fields like CCIE & the equivalent for the different specialty. This has kinda surprised me as working with Virtualization/Cloud Admins on daily basis, I had thought most IT professional by now are well versed with Virtualization. This has proved being far from the true, the more I speak to IT Professionals outside the Virtualization field.

Figuring out that many IT Professionals are still stuck in the past within the physical infrastructure, I decided to explore the cause and try to help improve the situation. Asking my friends about the cause of not catching up on Virtualization although they are aware its rapidly changing every IT field. I asked my networking friends if they are already aware that there is more virtual network ports than there is physical these days and they were surprised of that fact. I asked them what will they do when 90% of the network ports become virtual network ports and a part of a virtual switch.… Read More

vCenter Upgrade Error 28035. Setup failed to copy LDIFDE.EXE from System folder to ‘%windir%\ADAM’ folder

During the upgrade of vCenter I have faced the exact error that is documented in KB#2013675. The error was as follow:

————

Error 28035. Setup failed to copy LDIFDE.EXE from System folder to ‘%windir%\ADAM’ folder

———–

Below is an actual screenshot of the error:

vCenter upgrade error 28035 setup failed to copy LDIFDE

Further, in the vminst.log file, we found the following error:

———-

  • Unable to copy c:/Windows/ADAM/LDIFDE.EXE to C:/Windows/ADAM/LDIFDE.EXE

———

If you have read KB#2013675, then you will notice the above errors are an exact match of the errors documented in that KB. If so why, I am creating this post if a KB is out there that include the solution, because that solution alone which is shown below did not resolve my issue:

——- KB#2013675  Solution Start —-

To resolve this issue, manually install the Active Directory Lightweight Services Role for the server.
To manually install the Active Directory Lightweight Services Role for the server:
  1. Open the Server Manager for the server and click Add Role.
  2. Select the Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services option.
You should be able to install vCenter Server after the Role tasks complete

——- KB#2013675  Solution End —-

If the above solution does not work for you, just like was the case in our situation, then try the below solution after you apply the solution documented in the KB.… Read More

Upgrading vCenter with vCenter Heartbeat

I have went through the upgrade process of vCenter 5.0 to vCenter 5.1 which was protected by vCenter heartbeat(Please note same process apply for upgrade to 5.5 as well). The process end up being more of uninstalling and re-installing vCenter heartbeat rather than upgrade to avoid the undesired behavior of SSO lockdown that can be caused by the upgrade process of vCenter Hearbeat when SSO is hosted on the same VM as vCenter which was the case in my scenario. Let start by giving a summary of the upgrade process before going into a details:

a.  Uninstall vCenter Heartbeat 6.5 if installed
b.  Setup Single Sign On.
c.  Upgrade vCenter Server from to 5.0 to 5.1
d.  Upgrade Update Manager from 5.0 to 5.1
f. Install vCenter Heartbeat 6.6 (UAT & Prod).

below is the process  changes involved when upgrading vCenter that is protected by vCenter Heartbeat in more details:

1-      Preparation:

  • Make sure you have adequate backup. Maybe Image backup of your vCenter VMs?
  • Make sure to have license keys on hand.
  • Make sure All Windows Updates is disabled.
  • Write down all the IPs configurations.
  • Prepare a service account to use for heartbeat with local admin and vcenter admin privillage
  • Make sure to have a local administrator account on the machine that you know the password off.
Read More

vCenter 5.5 Upgrade fails when installing Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package prerequisite with the error: Error Code 3010

While at a customer site and trying to upgrade their vCenter 5.0 to 5.5, every time we tried to run the installer it ran for a bit then gave us the follow error:

vCenter SSO Error 1722

Then the following errors appeared in a log files that was opened automatically in a notepad.

—————–  Error start —————–

Action 12:39:49: VM_InstallVCREDIST_x64. Configuring Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package (x64)…
Action start 12:39:49: VM_InstallVCREDIST_x64.
CustomAction VM_InstallVCREDIST_x64 returned actual error code 3010 (note this may not be 100% accurate if translation happened inside sandbox

MSI (c) (5C:E4) [12:40:32:470]: Note: 1: 1722 2: VM_InstallVCREDIST_x64 3: F:\ 4: D:\Single Sign-On\prerequisites\vcredist_x64.exe /s /v/qn
Error 1722. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program run as part of the setup did not finish as expected. Contact your support personnel or package vendor. Action VM_InstallVCREDIST_x64, location: F:\, command: D:\Single Sign-On\prerequisites\vcredist_x64.exe /s /v/qn

MSI (c) (5C:E4) [12:42:05:103]: Product: vCenter Single Sign-On — Error 1722. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program run as part of the setup did not finish as expected. Contact your support personnel or package vendor. Action VM_InstallVCREDIST_x64, location: F:\, command: D:\Single Sign-On\prerequisites\vcredist_x64.exe /s /v/qn

Action ended 12:42:05: VM_InstallVCREDIST_x64. Return value 3.
MSI (c) (5C:E4) [12:42:05:103]: Doing action: FatalError
Action 12:42:05: FatalError.Read More

vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 SSO Issues

While rebuilding my home lab to use the latest version of vCloud Automation Center, I have decided to rebuild it from scratch with the latest vCenter Server Appliance and ESXi. After deploying the vCenter Appliance 5.5c and going through the configuration, I wanted to join the appliance to my domain and allow users from my domain to authenticate.  While I was able to join the appliance to my domain and that seemed to work just fine as in the below screen shot, I was having a problem configuring SSO for native active directory. I kept getting the following error:  ” ‘alias’ value should not be empty ”

Alias Value should not be empty

The solution for this particular problem was easy, actually it was more of Ooops I have forget to restart the vCenter Appliance after joining the appliance to my domain. Actually it tell you to do so as in the below screenshot:

You actually need to restart the appliance after configuring AD

I wanted to document this, as I am positive there will be the case where others will miss this as well and try to fight this error and thought I will save them time. This is especially true that I have seen other posts on forums and blogs that claim rebooting after this step is not required although the documentation state so.… Read More

Unitrends Virtual Backup 8.0 Sneak Peek

I have participated in the Unitrends Virtual Backup 8.0 (formerly PHD Virtual Backup) beta program, and Unitrends has been kind enough to allow me to share my finding with you on my blog. Please note while the screenshots below still show PHDVirtual logo, I believe these will be replaced with the Unitrends logo in the official release.

I have downloaded the beta and the first thing that has impressed me is their new setup wizard. It is really slick to say the least, just for those in doubt, below is the screen shots of the setup wizard while trying to deploy it for the first time in my environment.

The below screenshot are an actual setup steps that I took from my lab environment and not from Unitrends website or documentation as I can see these setup wizard simulating many power point slides I have seen before for how descriptive they are. Well done Unitrends!

Unitrends Virtual Backup Wizard

This is the first screen I was welcomed with as soon I pointed my browser to the appliance. Yes, that was an instructional video that explain the PHD Virtual topology in a very quick manner and here is the video for those of you curious to see what that video was about.… Read More

VMware VCAP5-DCD fresh tips

Last Saturday, I have thought it is finally the time to attend the overdue VCAP5-DCD exam. After obtaining my VCDX4, I have decided to award my self some break of doing certification exams, which got me to push my VCAP5-DCD exam beyond what I originally anticipated. Last Monday, I looked at the availability of the next exam slot for VCAP5-DCD in a nearby test center and Saturday 21st of June was it. That meant on Saturday morning while people are cheering for their favorite team to score in the World Cup, I was scoring through my VCAP5-DCD. The good part, I have won my game and got the “You have Passed” message at the end of the exam.

vSphere VCAP Design

I thought I might share my experience on here and some tips of what to study.

Let me start with my VCAP5-DCD experience:

  1. This exam is a real marathon. I went to the exam with this being expected already from what I have read on other blogs. While 4 hours for 100 Questions sound like a lot of time, I had only 3 minutes left when I got to question 90. It is important to note, I was already running through questions as quickly as possible as I kinda expected it to be tight on time, but still were barely got to Q99 when the exam timed out.
Read More

vCloud Automation Center and vCenter Appliance

Yesterday, I was asked twice if using our vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) with vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) is a viable option. As one of the two requests came from inside our VCDX family, It seems to be not a common knowledge, not when I get asked by another VCDX about it.  I thought this seems to be a good topic to address in a blog post, as the following questions seems to come often:

  • Does vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) 6 support vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA)?
  • Do your recommend using vCSA with vCAC?
  • What’s the added benefits of using vCSA  in my vCloud setup?
  • What extra limitations does using the vCenter Server Appliance with vCloud Automation Center impose to my environment?

I am sure you either had one of these questions on your mind or had been asked one of these at least once if you are working on a vCloud Automation Center setup. I will try to address these questions in this post.

Does vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) 6 support vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA)?

vCloud Automation Center and vCenter Appliance

I guess the image above gave the answer away, but for those of you who liked it spelled out, yes vCAC 6 support vCSA. Just make sure you check the vCenter interoperability matrix to ensure you are getting a supported version of the vCenter Server Appliance with the version of vCAC you are planning to install.… Read More

vCenter Appliance fsck failed

While I have been working with a customer on upgrading their infrastructure to vSphere 5.5, they had a power outage during the night which got their full virtual infrastructure down including storage (Not sure what the story with their UPS/Power generator). After they have brought their virtual infrastructure backup up both their vCenter Appliance and VDP appliance and few other Linux VMs has failed the fsck check while it was booting and it was stuck at the following error:

=========================================

fsck failed.  Please repair manually and reboot.  The root
file system is currently mounted read-only.  To remount it
read-write do:

bash# mount -n -o remount,rw /

Atention:  Only CONTROL-D will reboot the system in this
maintanance mode.  shutdow or reboot will not work.

Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D to continue):

==========================================

Below is an actual screenshot of the error for you to compare it with what you got:

VMware vCSA fsck failed

Below is the steps I have followed to fix this on both vCSA and VDP Advanced:

  1. Stay Calm & Don’t Panic!
  2. Take a backup/snapshot in case the below steps does not work for you and you need to revert it back to the current state when you call support or call for help.
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

vCenter Server Appliance Error: failed to connect to VMware Lookup Service

While working with VMware vCenter Server Appliance 5.5, I needed to change the IP Address of the appliance as my customer were changing their IP scheme. It was quite to go to the VMware vCSA then to the network tab then Address tab and change the IP Address. After rebooting the appliance to ensure the IP change has taken affect and is working properly and consistent, I was able to login to the vCenter Server Appliance Management portal, but I was not able to connect to using the Web Client and was kept getting the following error:

“Failed to connect to VMware Lookup Service https://<vCenter Appliance IP>/lookupservice/sdk – SSL certificate verification failed”

Or as shown in the below screenshot:

Web Client Error after changing vCenter Appliance IP

 

It seems changing the IP Address of the vCenter Server Appliance does not regenerate the certificate with the new IP and you will have to configure the appliance to generate a new one manually. The good news it is pretty easy to do, and below is the instruction:

  1. Log in to the vCenter Server Appliance Web interface at https://<vCSA IP>:5480/.
  2. Click the Admin tab.
  3. Regenerate certificates:
    • vCenter Server 5.1: Select Toggle certificate setting so that the Certificate regeneration enabled displays Yes.
Read More

vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 limitations

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 has been gaining huge attraction lately, especially with many of the major limitations affecting the vCenter Appliance in previous verions have been lifted. This is including the limitation where it was only supposed to support 5 hosts and 50 VMs when using the embedded database. In fact the all shiny new VMware vCSA 5.5 support up to 100 hosts and 3000 VMs using the embedded database, which seems to be able to deliver up to the scale required by most customers.

Note: It seems a misleading assumption has been going around that 100 hosts and 3,000 VMs is the maximum supported configuration by VMware vCSA 5.5, where is that is absolutely not true. This limit only apply when using the embedded  built-in vPostgres where it actually can support up to the vCenter maximums of 1,000 hosts and 10,000 VMs when connected to an external Oracle Database. This is clearly documented on page 7 of vSphere 5.5 Maximums guide and a copy of that table is shown below. I believe this misleading belief has spread as many bloggers has mentioned the 100 hosts and 3,000 VMs limit while failing to point out it is not the actual limit of the appliance, but it only apply when using the embedded database. Read More

Deploying VMware vCenter 5.5 Appliance

Lately for most of my labs and even for many customers I have been deploying the VMware vCenter 5.5 Appliance, as it is much quicker to install and give less chances for error. Further it saves customers a Windows license and not to mention being much easier to maintain, patch and upgrade. Further, with many of the earlier versions limitations being lifted it becoming much more viable option than ever before. For that I have decided to document the process of installing the VMware vCenter 5.5 Appliance in a hope to encourage more of you to try it out.

 VMware vCenter 5.5 Appliance Installation Steps:

1- Download the VMware vCenter 5.5 Appliance OVA (I rather the OVA as all you have to get and deploy is a single file)

2- Deploy the VMware vCenter 5.5 OVA into one of your hosts.

  1. Launch the vSphere Client or vSphere Web Client.
  2. Go to File > Deploy OVF Template.
  3. Browse to the location of the vCenter Server Appliance downloaded .ova or the .ovf file and click Open.
  4. In the OVF Template Details page, click Next.
  5. In Name and Location, enter the name of your vCenter Server Appliance and click Next.
Read More