VMware Software Defined Data Centre Upgrade and Product Interoperability Consideration

Today I've been looking at the upgrade of  VMware vCenter to 6.7, and one of the concerns is that the VMware Software Defined Data Centre is so much more than just vSphere.

Products that also require consideration are listed below.

• vRealize Automation
• vRealize Orchestrator
• vRealize Operations Manager
• vRealize Log insight
• NSX Manager
• NSX Controller
• NSX Edge
• Platform Service Controller
• vCenter Server
• VUM (Windows)
• ESXi
• vSphere Replication
• Site Recovery Manager 
• VMware Tools (VM)
• VM Hardware version
• vSAN

As part of the upgrade the consideration is that, there has to be compatibility between all the products and components that go to build the SDDC  (Software Defined Data Centre), we IT people do love our acronyms.

With the above in mind I have found the VMware  Product Interoperability Matrices web page quite useful.

Upcoming VMware Webcast : What's new Digital Workspace Training and Certification

With the evolution of the Cloud, and as an instructor/trainer of technical courses, I'm seeing a massive interest in End User Computing / digital workspace.

I posted a few weeks ago about the VMware VCP-DW certification.

If you're free tomorrow Thursday 24th May 2018 , why not sign up for the:

What’s New: Digital Workspace Training and Certification - webcast

Summary from the webcast page:

Join us for an exciting webcast looking at the training opportunities for VMware’s Workspace ONE powered by AirWatch technology. Andy will provide an update on new courses being released, plus an update on accreditations and the new VCP-DW certification. This session is a great opportunity to find out what your next step is and information regarding our brand-new certification. You will be in expert hands to answer all your questions about training and updating your skills for your digital workspace.

Choose Your Time:

08:00 AM – 9:00 AM PDT
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM BST
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM SGT

Also while on the webcast intro page, why not also visit some of the many On-Demand webcasts available.

VMware vSphere 6.7 vCenter Server High Availability Light Board

As mentioned in many of my posts, I am a VCI teaching VMware Data Centre Virtualisation courses, along with my presentations, I like to make as many resources available as possible to delegates.

One topic that always interests people on the VMware courses is vCenter high availability, with this in mind, it's worth a few minutes of your time to watch another light board by: 

Fiedhlim O'Leary of VMware presenting vCenter High Availability in vSphere 6.7

Enjoy

VMware vSphere 5.5 to 6.7 Upgrade lightboard

As you may be aware vSphere 5.5 is coming to end of life, in class I get asked about the upgrade process for 5.5 to 6.7.

We cover the upgrades on the VMware vSphere 5.5 to 6.7 What's New course.

However Fiedhlim O'Leary of VMware has produced a light board video on the subject of upgrading from VMware vSphere 5.5 to 6.7

VMware vSphere 6.7 What's New Overview Lightboard

VMware vSphere 6.7 has now been with us for a few weeks, and as a VCI this is now one of my areas of coverage.

Fiedhlim O'Leary of VMware has produced a nice little 5 minute presentation that's worth a look if you're interested in an overview of the new features.

VMware vSphere 6.x Configuration Maximums

As a VMware Certified Instructor, I get asked a lot of questions about configuration maximums, and in the past I used to reference a lot of PDFs.

Thankfully now, I don't have to, all I have to do is load a handy little website from VMware, that us the.

VMware Configuration Maximums website

At time of writing. The site covers/covered all of the current 6.x products, with the exception of the 6.5 Update 2 (that may now be there, depending on when this blog is accessed).

Here's the info and disclaimer from the above site. Thanks VMware.

This Configuration Maximums tool provides the recommended configuration limits for VMware products. When you configure, deploy and operate your virtual and physical equipment, it is highly recommended you stay at or below the maximums supported by your product. The limits presented in the tool are tested, recommended limits, and are fully supported by VMware.

Disclaimer: The limits can be affected by other factors, such as hardware dependencies. For more information about the supported hardware, see the appropriate hardware compatibility guide. It might not be possible to maximise all configuration settings and expect your desired outcome. To ensure that you do not exceed supported configurations for your environment, consult individual solution limits. The recommended configuration maximums do not represent the theoretical possibilities of your product.

As I also mention, this is a configuration maximum guide, and not a target to try to hit, think about your system, your SLAs, your Business, Function and Technology requirements, and then design your system appropriately.

VMware vSphere 6.7 ESXi Quick Boot

In our world of ever diminishing patience, I know that waiting many minutes for things to reboot is a pain. Being in my 40s, yes I can remember the world of dial up and DOS, but I want my stuff to reboot quickly.

Thankfully with VMware vSphere 6.7 we now have  ESXi Quick Boot, and as it's name suggests, it allows ESXi hosts to boot quickly.

Quick Boot is a vSphere feature that speeds up the upgrade process of an ESXi server.

Let's start with the the features.

• ESXi Quick Boot allows ESXi to reboot without re-initialising physical server BIOS
• Reboots can now be performed in 1 through 2 minutes
• ESXi Quick Boot dramatically speeds up patch and maintenance operations that require ESXi reboot.
• ESXi Quick Boot is integrated in the VMware Update Manager workflow during remediation operations.

There are however some requirements.

• Requires compatible hardware and device drivers. Check the VMware Compatibility Guide 
• The instalation of ESXi 6.7 must run native drivers only, this means that no VMKLinux drivers can be in use.
• ESXi Secure Boot must not be enabled.

If you wish to check your hosts compatibility from the command line (ESXi Shell) type the following:

/usr/lib/vmware/loadesx/bin/loadESXCheckCompat.py

As a heads up, attempting to force ESXi Quick Boot on an unsupported system or unsupported configuration will fail back to a normal reboot, and a PSOD (purple diagnostic screen) can occur.

To enable Quick Boot:

1) In the Home view of the vSphere Web Client, select the Update Manager icon.

2) From the Objects tab, select an Update Manager instance. The Objects tab also displays all the vCenter Server system to which an Update Manager instance is connected.

3) Click the Manage tab.

4) Click Settings, and select Host/Cluster Settings.

5) Click Edit. The Edit Host/Cluster Settings dialog box opens.

6) Select Enable Quick Boot check box to allow Update Manager to reduce the host reboot time during remediation.

7) Click OK.

Here's a nice little demo from VMware.

With that, I can't use, "Yep, I'm going for a coffee, the Hosts rebooting"