Category Archives: VMware

My experience on implementing VMware Datastores into VPLEX

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The purpose of this operation was to encapsulate existing datastores into VPLEX to take benefit of the synchronous and high availability features of VPLEX Metro between 2 sites.

Unfortunately I got into trouble with an issue that I really didn’t expect and anticipate. This is why I thought important to give you my experience on this and hopefully help anyone planning to do the same. But before going any further, let me give you some info regarding the customer environement and VPLEX.

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "vplex"

VPLEX is a virtual storage system that stands between your storage arrays and your hosts. It virtualizes all arrays connected to it and then presents as one storage system your volumes to hosts.

So basically, you attach any compatible storage to VPLEX and then the magic goes, all your hosts will see just one array with the volumes you’d like to present. I won’t go into details on how to configure VPLEX as this is out of scope in this article.

One of the strength of VPLEX is that it’s a great storage system and perhaps the best allowing to have a real active-active infrastructure and migrate VMs easyly between multiple sites. But is good also for migration of multiple storage arrays.

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VMware released vSphere 6.5 Update 3

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VMware just released vSphere Update 3 that includes mainly security fixes and enhancements.

So what’s new with ESXi 6.5 U3

The ESXi 6.5 Update 3 release includes the following list of new features.

  • The ixgben driver adds queue pairing to optimize CPU efficiency.
  • With ESXi 6.5 Update 3 you can track license usage, refresh switch topology and see improvements in the search and Developer Center in the vSphere Client.
  • ESXi 6.5 Update 3 provides legacy support for AMD Zen 2 servers.
  • Multiple driver updates: ESXi 6.5 Update 3 provides updates to the lsi-msgpt2, lsi-msgpt35, lsi-mr3, lpfc/brcmfcoe, qlnativefc, smartpqi, nvme, nenic, ixgben, i40en and bnxtnet drivers.
  • ESXi 6.5 Update 3 provides support for Windows Server Failover Clustering and Windows Server 2019.
  • ESXi 6.5 Update 3 adds the com.vmware.etherswitch.ipfixbehavior property to distributed virtual switches to enable you to choose how to track your inbound and outbound traffic, and utilization. With a value of 1, the com.vmware.etherswitch.ipfixbehavior property enables sampling in both ingress and egress directions. With a value of 0, you enable sampling in egress direction only, which is also the default setting.

To see the full release note it’s here : https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/rn/vsphere-esxi-65u3-release-notes.html

And what’s up with vCenter 6.5 U3

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WMware Cloud on DellEMC announced at DellTechnologies World

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At DellTechnologies World, some good announcements have been made including also new partnerships that we’ll talk about in another post.
But before going further, it is important to remind you guys what happened last year at VMworld.

The project Dimension was revealed, which is a new way to deliver the SDDC on hardware as-a-service to customer’s on-premises. It can be implemented on either your datacenters or on an edge location.

So basically, you can have hardware as-a-service on-prem where you can then implement your SDDC stack and never care about hardware maintenance, upgrade, patching etc.. because VMware does it for you. This is a brand new concept which I think is the best combination for Hybrid Cloud to also get rid of CAPEX.

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[VMware Tips] How to unlock an ISO file mounted to a VM running vCenter

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You might be wondering why the need to add a dvd drive to a VM running vCenter in the first place.

Well, I recently had to upgrade a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) from version 6.5 to 6.5 U1e for a customer by using the offline bundle rather than the online method. This is why I needed to add a dvd drive to the vCenter VM and then mount the VCSA update ISO file. Everything went just fine and my VCSA was up to date and running after a couple of minutes and a reboot.

The thing is that I didn’t immediately un-mount the ISO file and remove the dvd drive from the vCenter VM after the upgrade ; and a few days later I had to configure VCHA (vCenter High Availability) which allow to have a passive vCenter to go online in case of failure of the active node. I won’t go into further details as this is not the topic today.

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VMware released vSphere 6.5!

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As many of you already know, VMware unveiled vSphere 6.5 during its yearly event VMworld last month in Barcelona.

vsp6-5

vSphere 6.5 has now been released and can be download here, so you can experiencing it, test it out as you like or even implement it in order to upgrade your production environment.

 

So, let’s recap what’s new in that new version of vSphere.

At VMworld, VMware announced a lot of new interesting features an improvements in their flagship product. Let’s discover some of them in that new release.

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vSphere HTML5 Web Client

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vsphere-html5-2

Many of you might have heard about the incoming and so awaited new vSphere Web Client in HTML5.

It is now available as a technical preview and can be downloaded here.

vsphere-html5

The difference is significant compared to the vSphere Web Client with the Flash plug-in. The new one is really fast and smooth. You will really enjoy it to completely let go of the old VI client for those like me who still using it to avoid the Flash version of the vSphere Web Client.

Note that the new vSphere Web Client HTML5 will be officially launched with the release of vSphere 6 Update 2.

Well done VMware, you’re going in the right direction!