SSD-Accelerated Storage With vCloud Air

Posted by Rick Vanover on 11/18/20140 comments

How to Configure Automatic Updates in vCenter Server Appliance

If you haven't given a good look at the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) since version 5.5, it's time to do so. The vCSA has a good use case and increased scale compared to previous editions. I've been using it in both production and lab environments, and I wanted to take a look at one feature in particular: Automatic Updates.

Posted by Rick Vanover on 10/31/20140 comments

vSphere Deployment Options

I talk to a lot of vSphere administrators today who use a number of different deployment techniques. Some are sticking with templates, as they have for years, but some also have moved to newer deployment techniques. One of the fashionable approaches right now includes using Windows Deployment Services (WDS), which is a PXE-boot mechanism. And there are also VM clones.

Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/30/20140 comments

The Forgotten Art of vSphere Datastore Permissions

I was recently in a discussion with a group of vSphere administrators about a particular lab environment, and we were upset that some of the Tier-1 storage was being used for workloads that weren't quite appropriate for the use case.

Lab environment or not, many vSphere administrators have extended some permissions to persons outside their group. A good example in my professional experience was assigning permissions to application administrators for key features such as remote console and the power button functions of supported VMs. This saved me work and let them serve their application better, even if I thought it was maybe a bit finicky.

Posted by Rick Vanover on 08/19/20140 comments

5 Tips for Using vSphere Web Client

The recent vSphere releases are placing more emphasis on the vSphere Web Client, yet many vSphere administrators have been dragging their feet on the transition. I'll even admit to that -- I had set a goal that I'd use the vSphere Web Client almost exclusively for all admin tasks, but haven't always achieved that goal. Still, I wanted to share some things that have helped me. Hopefully, they can help aid your transition to the new administrative interface:

Posted by Rick Vanover on 08/05/20140 comments

To Virtualize or Not To Virtualize?

I had a situation recently discussing a configuration with a client where they preferred to not deploy a particular workload as a virtual machine. Their logic was actually quite sound in the process; a few of their points are outlined as follows:

• They were high experts on the application and they can redeploy it easily.
• The application required a lot of CPU and RAM resources, and they wanted to avoid that impact on their cluster.
• The application has a clustering feature.
• The costs were effectively indifferent.

Posted by Rick Vanover on 10/09/20130 comments

10 Steps To Setting Up vCenter Server Appliance The Right Way, The First Time

The appliance model is here to stay and when done correctly, it works well. That's the case with the vCenter Server Appliance, which I've been using for a while in various capacities, including some production-class clusters. And I've learned a few things along the way.

If you are like me and are familiar with using the Windows version of the vCenter Server application, then this is for you! Here's a 10-step program to setting up the vCSA:

Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/25/20130 comments

Security Constructs of vCenter Single Sign On

If you are like me, you may find that it is a little bit more difficult to "self-teach" yourself some of the new things for VMware technologies. This applies to VMware vCloud Director and also some of the underlying components of the VMware Software-Defined Datacenter. One of those components is vCenter Single Sign On.

Before I show my representation of how I am using it in my virtualization practice, I should first explain why it is necessary. I'm sure you (like me) had a bit of learning curve during the upgrade from vCenter 5 to 5.1, where vCenter Single Sign On was introduced. Why was it introduced? Many people would say I already have a unified identity management in Active Directory.

Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/17/20130 comments

vCloud Automation Center: Time For a Closer Look

By no means am I a visionary, but occasionally I'll latch on to something that I keep very close watch on. Way back in 2011 (which seems like forever ago), I wrote a piece outlining my first impressions of vCloud Director. At the time, I focused three key points:

• On-premise is still an option
• The networking will be different
• There is metadata, and it's important

Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/11/20130 comments

Hyper-V Visibility with EasyManage

Even with virtualized infrastructures, we still need to support underlying hardware. That's not going away, and one of my key mentors has said over the years, “The cloud has infrastructure too.” That's such a fundamental point, but in a way not something we may have thought of so far.

When it comes to supporting the underlying hardware of a virtualized infrastructure, we need to have a clear path of visibility to underlying components of the host hardware. While there are solutions that can do that for us, chances are the underlying hardware and its native monitoring solutions can accomplish this best.

Posted by Rick Vanover on 07/17/20131 comments

Logs are Easy To Find in the vSphere Web Client: True or False?

I'm not sure about you, but anytime a new interface comes into play I'm fine for the day to day stuff. It's the tough stuff, like troubleshooting that I'm really weary on switching the "how" I do things. With the vSphere Web Client that came in vSphere 5.1, I'm making a deliberate (and occasionally painful) effort to do things that I find easy in the vSphere Client as a learning opportunity in the vSphere Web Client.

One of those things is gathering logs or diagnostic bundles. It's quite easy in the Windows Client, but are the same tasks easy in the Web Client? The fact is, I was actually surprised how easy they are indeed to view in the vSphere Web Client. The first thing to do is find out where to gather logs in the vSphere Web Client. Easy as it is, it's on the Home tree. You then select an object and refresh the contents (see Fig. 1).

Posted by Rick Vanover on 06/12/20131 comments

Hidden Jewel: vCenter Server Status

I admit that I like the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. It applies to how I do some of my virtualization practice. While I used to be a DBA for a specific SQL Server application, I don't know how every applications' database should look, much less the other components associated with the application.

For vCenter Server, there are plenty of pieces and parts associated with it. One thing I found recently that can help you "spot check" the status of vCenter is the vCenter Service status (Fig. 1). The vCenter Server Service status page is part of the Administration options in the vSphere Web Client.

Posted by Rick Vanover on 05/13/20137 comments