Tag : VSphere
Written by Christopher Lewis on June 11, 2018 .
With the release of VMware vSphere 6.7, the feature parity between the legacy flex and HTML5 client is getting closer. In addition, with the release of VMware NSX-v 6.4.1 more VMware NSX-v features are also available in the HTML5 client (as seen below).
Note: At one of the keynotes at VMworld 2017 Europe, Ray O’farrell committed to the HTML5 client would have FULL feature parity at the next MAJOR release.
Written by Christopher Lewis on October 9, 2017 .
The following post is a part of my unofficial study guide for the VMware Specialist: vSAN Digital Badge. The full study guide can be found here .
Objective 2.1 - Provide a high-level description of vSAN
VMware vSAN™ aggregates local or direct-attached data storage devices to create a single storage pool shared across all hosts in the vSAN cluster. vSAN eliminates the need for external shared storage, and simplifies storage configuration and virtual machine provisioning.
Written by Christopher Lewis on March 25, 2017 .
Prerequisites
- A VMCA SSL Certificate (such as
root_signing_cert.cer) - A RSA Private Key (such as
root_signing_cert.key)
Process Overview
The high level steps are as followed:
- Log into the External Platform Services Controller.
- Replace the Root Certificate.
- Connect to the PSC Appliance.
- Renew the Machine SSL Certificate.
- Renew the Solution User Certificate.
- Connect to the VCSA Appliance.
- Renew the Machine SSL Certificate.
- Renew the Solution User Certificate.
- Reboot the Platform Services Controller.
Process Breakdown
Log into External Platform Services Controller
Navigate to https://psc-appliance.fqdn/psc.
Platform Services Controller vCenter VCSA VMCA VMware vSphere
Written by Christopher Lewis on January 8, 2017 .
In this post we will look to expand on my previous post HOWTO: Deploy a vSphere 6.5 External Platform Services Controller (VCSA) and deploy the VMware vSphere 6.5 vCenter Server Appliance so that it takes advantage of the external Platform Services Controller.
Prerequisites
Like with anything VMware Appliance related, you will need to have both Forward and Reverse DNS entries manually added to your DNS Server.
To install the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), you first have to mount the ISO. In Windows 10 this is simple!
VMware vSphere Platform Services Controller PSC vCenter Server
Written by Christopher Lewis on November 15, 2016 .
If you didn’t already here the news, VMware vSphere 6.5 is now GA . Whilst lots of people will be concentrating on upgrading vSphere 5.x/6.x to 6.5 I’m going to start with the basics…
To install the Platform Services Controller using the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), you first have to mount the ISO. In Windows 10 this is simple!
Installation Steps
So first things first, double click on VMware-VCSA-all-6.5.0-<buildnumber>.iso to mount it as a drive on your system. (In my instance on my Windows 10 machines, this was drive letter H:)
VMware vSphere Platform Services Controller PSC vCenter Server
Written by Christopher Lewis on September 19, 2016 .
If you plan to deploy the Platform Services Controller without using it with VMware vCenter, such as when deploying it for SSO for vRealize Automation 6. The options for configuring SYSLOG are not available through the GUI without the VMware vCenter Web GUI.
Problem:
How do you configure SYSLOG on a Platform Services Controller when its not deployed with VMware vCenter Server 6.x?
Solution:
- Log into the Platform Services Controller as Root via SSH.
- Type echo ‘. @SYSLOG-IP/FQDN:514;RSYSLOG_SyslogProtocol23Format’ » /etc/vmware-syslog/syslog.conf and press enter.
- Type /etc/init.d/vmware-syslog restart.
This will forward all messages to the target SYSLOG Server (such as VMware’s vRealize Log Insight).
Written by Christopher Lewis on August 11, 2016 .
This is the final post in a series of post on automating the deployment of the Platform Services Controller (PSC). To be honest I didn’t expect these posts to turn into a series but as I like to share.
The previous two articles in this series can be found here:
- HOWTO: Automate the installation of the External Platform Services Controller using PowerCLI & JSON - Part 1
- How to Automate the installation of the External Platform Services Controller using PowerCLI & JSON - Part 2
Within this final post, I will tackling the automated deployment of a two node PSC Cluster and will be sharing the script I use.
Written by Christopher Lewis on July 29, 2016 .
Over the last few months I have been designing and building a solution for vRealize Automation 6 for a customer. (I know, I know, its not the latest and greatest version with all the whiz-bang features of vRA7 - but the only solace I take is that the VCAP-CMA exams are currently based on vRA 6 - so hopefully it is good practice).
You will have noticed that the last few posts I have created are concerning the VMware vSphere Platform Services Controller (PSC) and how to install it (and automate it). This is because I am using the PSC as the SSO solution instead of the Identity Appliance (which not highly available and therefore not suitable for production environments) or the vSphere 5.5 SSO (out dated and replaced with the vSphere PSC).
VMware Platform Services Controller vRealize Automation vSphere
Written by Christopher Lewis on July 25, 2016 .
As a follow on to my previous article, HOWTO: Automate the installation of the External Platform Service Controller using PowerCLI & JSON - Part 1 , I had a new customer requirement to deploy the Platform Service Controller as the identity solution for vRealize Automation 6.x, but this time directly onto a VMware vCenter Server rather than an VMware vSphere ESXi host.
I can hear you all screaming at the article about vRealize Automation 7, how it is much cooler and has its own highly available vIDM - but this project started when vRA7 had only just come out and the customer didn’t want to take the risk.
Platform Services Controller PowerCLI PowerShell PSC VMware vSphere
Written by Christopher Lewis on July 3, 2016 .
As a follow on to my previous article on how to deploy HOWTO: Deploy the VMware vSphere 6.0 Platform Services Controlle r, I thought I would share a way to automate the delivery of the vSphere Platform Services Controller using PowerCLI/Powershell.
The main credit for this article goes to the information in the brilliant PowerCLI Reference 2nd Edition (see my review here ) of which my colleague Jonathan Medd ( www.jonathanmedd.net / @JonathanMedd ) was a co-author.
Platform Services Controller PowerCLI PowerShell PSC VMware vSphere
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 3: Creating a Pricing Card in VMware Aria Automation
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 2: Creating a Pricing Card in VMware Aria Operations
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 1: Understanding Pricing Cards in VMware Aria
- Zero2Hero - Using Aria Automation to Deploy Multiple Machines with Multiple Disks - Part 5
- Zero2Hero - Using Aria Automation to Deploy Multiple Machines with Multiple Disks - Part 4