Friday 24 November 2017

Retaining resource pools when disabling vSphere DRS

Today we have been covering DRS and one of the topics was restoring a resource pool when DRS had been disabled and then re-enabled.



As resource pools are a bit of DRS functionality, they are deleted when DRS is disabled.

You may turn off vSphere DRS for a cluster.
If you disable vSphere DRS, the resource pools are removed from the cluster.
When vSphere DRS is disabled, the cluster’s resource pool hierarchy and affinity rules are not reestablished when DRS is turned back on.
To avoid losing the resource pools, save a snapshot of the resource pool tree on your local machine.


You can use the snapshot to restore the resource pool when you enable vSphere DRS.

When we edit the setting for the DRS cluster and choose to disable DRS we are presented with a warning and asked if we wish to create a snapshot of the resource pools and also the location for the snapshot.

To restore a resource pool tree, you need to meet the following prerequisites:

You can restore a previously saved resource pool tree snapshot when you enable vSphere DRS.
vSphere DRS must be turned on. You can restore a snapshot only on the same cluster that it was taken. No other resource pools are present in the cluster.

To restore the Snapshot, re-enable DRS .

  •   Browse to the cluster in the vSphere Web Client navigator.
  •   Right-click the cluster and click All vCenter Actions.
  •   Select Restore Resource Pool Tree.
  •   Click Browse and locate the snapshot file on your local machine.
  •   Click Open.
  •   Click OK to restore the resource pool tree.




Wednesday 22 November 2017

VMware vCenter High Availability with vSphere 6.5

We've been talking today about VMware vCenter High Availability, the talk today was an introduction.

The purpose of vCenter High Availability is to protect the vCenter Appliance against failures.

The vCenter High Availability cluster uses 3 x VMs in order to protect the appliance, these are:

The Active mode or primary node is the running state. Runs the active instance of vCenter Server.

The Passive node is a clone of the Primary. Recieves updates from the Active node and synchronises the state. It is identical to the Active node, except that all services are stopped.

The Wintness/Quorum node. that does not take over in the case of a failure. It is purely there to break the tie in case of a split brain/network partition.


This product however only protects the vCenter component.

For a more in depth coverage of protecting the vCenter and PSC with HA. I'd recommend watching the following presentation.

vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller 6.5 High Availability , presented by Adam Eckerle and Emad Younis

"In this video we discuss high availability for the Platform Services Controller which includes how the load balancer works for this solution. Then we go into native vCenter Server high availability (VCHA) and how it can be used to protect vCenter Server when embedded and external."




Tuesday 21 November 2017

VMware - Webinar to help prepare yourself for VCAP -DCV Deploy exam

Are you preparing for you VMware VCAP-DCV Deploy exam?

Do you have a spare hour on the 29th November 2017?

If the answer is yes, why not sign up and attend the

VMware - Webinar to help prepare yourself for VCAP -DCV Deploy exam.

The session runs at 10 AM on Wednesday 29th October and lasts for 1 hour, the session will be presented by Ian Worrall a VCI working for VMware

Here's the introduction.

"Back by popular demand, this webinar focuses on the Deploy element of Data Center Virtualisation.
VCAP- DCV Deploy Exam prep: this session will help to prepare and revise prior to sitting the exam. It will include advice on the areas addressed by the exam, the materials to utilize for study, and methods to help revise.

The session will also include some example questions and information to help the audience familiarize themselves with the exam format."

Enjoy

Thursday 16 November 2017

VMware and AWS Together - VMware Cloud on AWS [ENT307]

Just been watching another session on VMC on AWS

For me best of both worlds, flexibility of the Cloud and the reliability of the VMware Hypervisor.

VMware and AWS Together - VMware Cloud on AWS [ENT307]

Presented by Paul Brockelman

"VMware CloudTM on AWS brings VMware’s enterprise class Software-Defined Data Center software to Amazon’s public cloud, delivered as an on-demand, elastically scalable, cloud-based VMware sold, operated and supported service for any application and optimised for next-generation, elastic, bare metal AWS infrastructure.

This solution enables customers to use a common set of software and tools to manage both their AWS-based and on-premises vSphere resources consistently. Further virtual machines in this environment have seamless access to the broad range of AWS services as well.

This session will introduce this exciting new service and examine some of the use cases and benefits.

The session will also include a VMware Tech Preview that demonstrates standing up a complete SDDC cluster on AWS and various operations using standard tools like vCenter."

Wednesday 15 November 2017

VMware Cloud on AWS A technical Deep Dive Presentation

As part of my playing / presenting VMware and AWS technologies, I stumbled across this presentation by Andy Reedy, Wen Yu, and Aarthi Raju of AWS.

If you got an hour to spare, it is definitely worth a look.

Tuesday 14 November 2017

VMware Storage Hub - A hub of information

I'm now into my revision for my vSAN exam and have found the following site a useful resource for not only vSAN, but also storage and availability. It is always a useful site all matters storage within VMware.

It is the VMware Storage and Availability technical document site

The site is broken down into three separate sections

VMware vSAN

Hyperconverged Infrastructure technical resources. vSAN documents to help you at every stage with HCI, from evaluation to optimization.

  • vSAN
  • HCI
  • Storage
  • Hyperconverged
vSphere Storage

Storage topics fundamental to vSphere and ESXi including information about VMFS and other storage enhancements.


  • VVols
  • vSphere
  • Storage
  • VMFS
  • NFS
Site Recovery Manager

VMware Site Recovery Manager is the industry-leading solution to enable application availability and mobility across sites in private cloud environments.


  • SRM
  • DR
  • Availability
  • Disaster
  • Recovery
  • Migration

Monday 13 November 2017

VMware Education - VMware vSAN Troubleshooting Tools, Tips and Tricks Webcast

I've been playing a bit with VMware vSAN, and today I start the prep for my VSAN Specialist exam.

As part of my prep I have just listened to am interested webcast from VMware.

Title:

The webcast is hosted by Francis Daly of VMware

"Attend this 60-minute webcast and leave with a better understanding of:


  • VMware vSAN architecture
  • Troubleshooting tools you need based on actual customer use cases
  • Effective troubleshooting techniques used by the VMware Technical Support Team
The webcast is available via those lovely people at VMware Education Services and is available at the following link


Also for a list of the Questions in PDF format for the Q&A visit the following link.



Sunday 12 November 2017

Free eBook From VMware - Network Virtualisation For Dummies

One of my favourite topics when delivering courses, is always networking.

So a huge thank you to VMware for making available another free ebook:

Network Virtualisation For Dummies

The book is written by Mora Gozani

Here's the description from the book itself.

"This book is loaded with information that can help you understand and capitalize on network virtualization. In plain and simple language, I explain what network virtualization is, why it’s such a hot topic, how you can get started, and steps you can take to get the best bang for your IT buck."

The book is 77 pages in length. So if you have a few spare moments, give is a read.



Wednesday 8 November 2017

VMware vSphere 6.5 Host Resources Deep Dive By Frank Denneman & Niels Hagoort - Free ebook

Exclusive access to the VMware vSphere 6.5 Host Resources Deep Dive download is brought to you by Rubrik and VMUG.

Visit the link

Nice book, excellent resource. Worth a look and a download.
 

"The VMware vSphere 6.5 Host Resources Deep Dive is a guide to building consistent high-performing ESXi hosts. Written for administrators, architects, consultants, aspiring VCDX-es and people eager to learn more about the elements that control the behavior of CPU, memory, storage and network resources."

VMware vSphere 6.5 Upgrade and Troubleshooting webcast


Are you upgrading to vSphere 6.5? Then why not register for the following webcast from VMware.

Title: Session 3: vSphere 6.5 Install and Upgrade Troubleshooting - (EMEA Session)
Date: Thursday, November 16, 2017
Time: 12:00 PM Greenwich Mean Time
Duration: 1 hour
Presenter: Ali Ahmad
Senior Technical Training Specialist
VMware


 "In this final session of our “Upgrading to vSphere 6.5” webcast series we will provide an overview of the vCenter Server 6.5 on Windows install and upgrade workflow to enable you to plan your vCenter install and upgrade. We will also discuss troubleshooting approaches which will help you identify, resolve, and avoid issues during an Install and Upgrade."

To register, visit the VMware webcast site

Enjoy

Sunday 5 November 2017

Preparing for my vSAN Specialist Exam

Finally, I have managed to clear all the work I've built up over the last few months and I'm now about to prepare for and hopefully pass my vSAN Specialist exam.

As a VCI I talk about vSAN on the majority of the courses I deliver on the VMware side of life.

The first thing for me as I prepare for all of the VMware exams I take is to download the exam prep document. This is obtained from the VMware Certification site.

The exam is broken down into nine separate sections as follows:

  • Section 1-Storage Fundamentals
  • Section 2–vSAN Fundamentals
  • Section 3–vSAN Configuration
  • Section 4–vSAN Policies and Virtual Machines
  • Section 5–Managing and Operating vSAN
  • Section 6–Stretched Clusters and Two-Node Clusters
  • Section 7–Monitoring and Troubleshooting vSAN
  • Section 8–Interoperability with vSphere Features
  • Section 9-Designing a vSAN Deployment
My first step toward the exam will be to access the following course.

VMware vSAN: Deploy and Manage [V6.6]

After I've worked through the course I'll also play with the various VMware vSAN Hands on Labs 

As I go, I'll try to keep this site up to date with my journey to vSAN

Friday 3 November 2017

VMware Cloud on AWS - AWS Podcast

I'm in the fortunate position of working for not only a VMware VATC (VMware Authorised Training Company), but also an AWS training company.

I've worked on VMware for years and AWS not as long.

I've been looking at the VMC on AWS hybrid cloud technologies for a number of months now, and it was nice to get some insight from the AWS side of things.

If you've got a spare fifteen minutes, visit the AWS podcast site and have a listen to the:

#214: VMware Cloud on AWS | October 30 2017

"VMware Cloud on AWS is now available to customers! Simon speaks with Andy Reedy, Manager of Solutions Architecture at AWS, about how it works and what customers can do with this capability."

For more information on VMC on AWS product visit:

VMware Cloud on AWS product page