Computer Design & Integration LLC (CDI LLC) is a VMware Premier Solution Provider. CDI has a very broad range of service and solution offerings to architect, deploy and manages multi-platform hybrid IT solutions, including traditional IT, public, private and hybrid clouds.

CDI’s latest achievement is the integration of VMware NSX with its proprietary Hybrid Cloud Automation Framework (HCAF).

Using this industry-leading tool from VMware, HCAF helps customers accelerate their journey to hybrid cloud business value.

The HCAF framework is comprised of advisory, technology, and optimization services, solutions, and processes that seamlessly manages workload life-cycles through orchestration and automation - regardless of the cloud endpoint. The result: improved data center efficiency, satisfied business needs and greater ROI.

Through the use of HCAF integrated with NSX, CDI's VCIX and VCDX certified experts have completed deployments across multiple verticals. VMware NSX integration include:

• VMware NSX Multisite VXLAN Active-Active/Passive Cross-VC
• VMware NSX Microsegmentation for Production Applications and Virtual Desktops
• VMware NSX and 3rd Party Palo Alto Service Integration
• VMware NSX over Cisco ACI as a physical underlay fabric

Additional CDI / VMware partnership highlights:

• VMware Cloud Provider Program (formerly VCAN)
• Enterprise Partner in VMware Partner Professional Services Program
• Americas VMware Partner Innovation Award - Software Defined Data Center
• Leadership on VMware Partner Executive Board and Partner Technical Advisory Board
• Full knowledge and execution for VMware SDDC assessment programs
• Certified VMware vExperts and global evangelists
• Formally enrolled in VMware’s Credit Transfer program

The management team at CDI believes at knowledge sharing and help technical community by publishing white-papers, writing blogs and producing video on demand (VoD).

For more information, please visit: http://www.cdillc.com

最新の ESXi を利用したい場合、たいてい ISO イメージ ファイルからインストールした後に

オフライン バンドルとよばれるパッチを適用することになります。

しかし PowerCLI の Image Builder を利用することで、オフライン バンドルの zip ファイルから

そのパッチが適用された ESXi の ISO イメージ ファイルをエクスポートすることができます。

Image Builder のドキュメントは下記のあたりです。

vSphere ESXi Image Builder を使用したインストールのカスタマイズ

Image Builder については、以前に下記のブログでも紹介されていました。

VMware ESXi イメージ管理ベストプラクティス　その1 - Japan Cloud Infrastructure Blog - VMware Blogs

VMware ESXi イメージ管理ベストプラクティス　その2 - Japan Cloud Infrastructure Blog - VMware Blogs

本来であれば Image Builder は、ハードウェア特有のドライバ追加などの場合に利用されますが、

今回はただ、パッチから最新版 ESXi のインストーラを抽出するためだけに利用してみます。

PowerCLI をインストールしておきます。

今回のバージョンは下記です。

PowerCLI> Get-PowerCLIVersion | select User*

 

UserFriendlyVersion

-------------------

VMware PowerCLI 6.5.1 build 5377412

 

ESXi のオフラインバンドル（パッチ）を MyVMware からダウンロードしておきます。

PowerCLI> ls .\ESXi650-201712001.zip | select Name,Length

 

Name                     Length

----                     ------

ESXi650-201712001.zip 478519869

 

ISO イメージ ファイルのエクスポート。

Image Builder で、オフライン バンドルを読み込みます。

PowerCLI> Add-EsxSoftwareDepot .\ESXi650-201712001.zip

 

Depot Url

---------

zip:D:\VMware\ESXi\ESXi650-201712001.zip?index.xml

 

オフラインバンドルには、複数のイメージ プロファイルが含まれています。

今回は、VMware Tools のインストーラと、セキュリティパッチ以外の修正も含んでいる

「ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-standard」というイメージ プロファイルを利用します。

PowerCLI> Get-EsxImageProfile | ft -AutoSize

 

Name                             Vendor       Last Modified       Acceptance Level

----                             ------       -------------       ----------------

ESXi-6.5.0-20171201001s-no-tools VMware, Inc. 2017/12/18 11:40:25 PartnerSupported

ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-standard  VMware, Inc. 2017/12/18 11:40:25 PartnerSupported

ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-no-tools  VMware, Inc. 2017/12/18 11:40:25 PartnerSupported

ESXi-6.5.0-20171201001s-standard VMware, Inc. 2017/12/18 11:40:25 PartnerSupported

 

イメージプロフィアるを指定して、ISO イメージ ファイルをエクスポートします。

PowerCLI> Export-EsxImageProfile ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-standard -ExportToIso -FilePath D:\work\ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-standard.iso

ISO イメージ ファイルがエクスポートされました。

 

PowerCLI> ls D:\work\ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-standard.iso | select Name,Length

 

Name                                   Length

----                                   ------

ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-standard.iso 349245440

 

PowerCLI スクリプト編。

同様のことができる簡易的な PowerCLI スクリプトを作成してみました。

（ただし特にエラー制御とかはしていません。）

export_esxi-offline-bundle_to_iso.ps1

ESXiのオフラインバンドルから、ISO イメージファイルをエクスポート。 · GitHub

下記のように、オフライン バンドルと、スクリプト ファイルを配置して・・・

PowerCLI> ls | select Name,Length

 

Name                                     Length

----                                     ------

ESXi650-201712001.zip                 478519869

export_esxi-offline-bundle_to_iso.ps1       502

 

オフライン バンドルのファイル名とエクスポート先のディレクトリを指定して実行します。

PowerCLI> .\export_esxi-offline-bundle_to_iso.ps1 .\ESXi650-201712001.zip D:\work\

Export ISO File: D:\work\ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-standard.iso

この ISO ファイルからブートして、ESXi をインストールすることができます。

vSAN の動作確認などでは最新の ESXi を利用したかったりするので、

環境構築の効率化として活用できるかもしれないと思います。

以上、Image Builder で ESXi のパッチから ISO イメージ ファイルをエクスポートする話でした。

ESXi 6.5 の「仮想マシン バージョン 13」（vmx-13）では

対応するゲスト OS の種類が増えましたが、

これまで対応していた OS の細分化もされています。

たとえば Oracle Linux や CentOS などは、Red Hat Enterprise Linux 異なり

これまで「Oracle Linux 4/5/6・・・」 のように 1つにまとめられていました。

しかし、vmx-13 の VM では「Oracle Linux 6」「Oracle Linux 7」と、ちゃんと細分化されました。

vCenter 6.5 の vSphere Web Client で見ると、

vmx-11 の VM での Oracle Linux は下記のようになっています。

そして

vmx-13 の VM での Oracle Linux は下記のように分割されています。

API のリファレンスを見ると、

実際に増えた ゲスト OS の GuestId が「Since vSphere API 6.5」でわかりそうです。

Enum - VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier(vim.vm.GuestOsDescriptor.GuestOsIdentifier)

https://vdc-repo.vmware.com/vmwb-repository/dcr-public/6b586ed2-655c-49d9-9029-bc416323cb22/fa0b429a-a695-4c11-b7d2-2cbc284049dc/doc/vim.vm.GuestOsDescriptor.GuestOsIdentifier.html

リファレンスにあるゲスト OS の NAME は VM の GuestId とおなじもので、

PowerCLI などでゲスト OS の種類を指定するときに使用されます。

従来だとバージョン指定がない oracleLinux64Guest だけでしたが

oracleLinux6_64Guest、oracleLinux6_64Guest などが追加されています。

PowerCLI> Get-VM oracle-* | select Name,GuestId | sort Name

 

Name              GuestId

----              -------

oracle-linux-6-vm oracleLinux6_64Guest

oracle-linux-7-vm oracleLinux7_64Guest

oracle-linux-vm   oracleLinux64Guest

 

このように、以前より VM にゲスト OS の指定が明確にできるようになりました。

また、.vmx ファイルの直接編集などで vmx-11 以前の仮想マシンに

vmx-13 以降に追加された GuestId を指定してしまうと、

vSphere Web Client での VM の設定確認・変更ができなくなることがあるので

注意が必要かもしれません。

たとえば、vmx-11 の VM に vmx-13 で追加された「VMware Photon OS (64-bit)」

（vmwarePhoton64Guest）を指定するとこの問題が起きたりします。

※実は Photon OS 2.0 GA の vmx-11 版の ova ファイルがそうなっていたりします。

以上、ESXi 6.5 での GuestId についてでした。

PowerCLI で、vSAN の情報取得や設定、操作などをすることができます。

今回は、vSAN クラスタの概要を取得するスクリプトのサンプルを作成してみました。

以前に VMware Hands-on Labs（HoL）で PowerCLI をためしてみる投稿をしてみましたが、

この時はコピー＆ペーストでためす都合により、ワンライナーっぽい実行例でした。

vSAN の情報を PowerCLI 6.5 R1 で見てみる。

手元に vSAN 環境がある場合は、コマンドラインを1行ずつ実行するよりも

スクリプトにして実行したほうが便利なケースがあると思います。

たとえば以前に HoL でためしたコマンドラインをまとめて、

下記のリンクにあるようなスクリプトで vSAN 環境の概要を確認することができます。

get_vsan_summary.ps1 · GitHub

このスクリプトを実行すると、下記のような感じになります。

• PowerShell / PowerCLI のウインドウ幅は 140 にしてあります。
• Connect-VIServer で vCenter に接続してから実行しています。
• vSAN クラスタは 3つあります。（最初にクラスタ設定だけ表示）
• vSAN Disk のデバイス名（CanonicalName）は長すぎて切れてますが、
  ウインドウ幅を広げて実行すれば全体が表示されます。
• 長いので2クラスタ目の途中までの表示となってますが、
  1クラスタ目の様子で雰囲気を感じてもらえればと思います。

ちなみに PowerCLI のプロンプト「PowerCLI>」は、下記のように工夫しています。

PowerCLI プロンプト文字列に vCenter への接続状態を反映してみる。

そして今回ためした PowerCLI のバージョンは下記です。

PowerCLI> Get-PowerCLIVersion | select UserFriendlyVersion

 

UserFriendlyVersion

-------------------

VMware PowerCLI 6.5.1 build 5377412

 

 

PowerCLI> Get-Module VMware.* | select Version,Name

 

Version       Name

-------       ----

6.5.2.6234650 VMware.VimAutomation.Core

6.5.1.5374001 VMware.VimAutomation.Storage

6.5.1.5374428 VMware.VimAutomation.Vds

 

今回のサンプルスクリプトは、vSAN の情報を網羅的に取得しているわけではなかったり、

スクリプトの書き方が独特だったりしますが、何かのヒントにしていただければと思います。

以上、PowerCLI での vSAN 情報の取得例でした。

PowerCLI に含まれる Image Builder では、標準では含まれない VIB を追加したインストーラの

ISO イメージファイルを作成することができます。

今回は ESXi 6.5 に、RealTek の NIC ドライバを追加してみます。

ちなみに、ドライバを追加した ISO イメージファイルを作成する場合、

最近では Andreas Peetz さんが作成した ESXi-Customizer-PS という

PowerShell / PowerCLI ベースのツールが利用されることが多いです。

このツールについては、下記のブログで紹介されています。

ESXi-Customizer-PS

https://www.v-front.de/p/esxi-customizer-ps.html

しかし今回は、あえて標準的な PowerCLI / Image Builder を使用して

ISO イメージファイルを作成してみます。

今回利用するファイルについて。

ESXi 6.5 は最新のパッチ（ESXi650-201712001.zip）を MyVMware からダウンロードずみです。

RealTek の NIC ドライバの VIB は、おなじく

Andreas Peetz さんの下記の Web サイトで公開されているもの（Net55-r8168）を

利用させていただきます。

今回のイメージに追加するファイルは、

.vib ファイルではなくオフラインバンドルを利用してみます。

これは VIB が含まれた ZIP ファイルで、net55-r8168-8.045-napi-offline_bundle.zip です。

※せっかくオフライン バンドルも提供していただいているので・・・

List of currently available ESXi packages

https://vibsdepot.v-front.de/wiki/index.php/List_of_currently_available_ESXi_packages

ファイルは下記のように同じディレクトリに配置しています。

PowerCLI> ls .\ESXi650-201712001.zip,net55-r8168-8.045-napi-offline_bundle.zip | select Name,Length

 

Name                                         Length

----                                         ------

ESXi650-201712001.zip                     478519869

net55-r8168-8.045-napi-offline_bundle.zip   1131520

 

なお、PowerCLI も、インストールずみです。

ISO イメージ ファイルの作成。

まず、ESXi のパッチ（オフラインバンドル）を読み込みます。

今回も、不具合修正＆セキュリティ修正の両方と、VMware Tools が含まれるイメージ プロファイルである

ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-standardを利用します。

PowerCLI> Add-EsxSoftwareDepot .\ESXi650-201712001.zip

 

 

PowerCLI> Get-EsxImageProfile | where {$_.Name -notmatch "s-standard|-no-tools"} | ft -AutoSize

 

Name                            Vendor       Last Modified       Acceptance Level

----                            ------       -------------       ----------------

ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-standard VMware, Inc. 2017/12/18 11:40:25 PartnerSupported

 

RealTek ドライバのオフラインバンドルを読み込みつつ、

ついでに含まれている VIB の名前を見ておきます。

VIB の名前は、net55-r8168 です。

PowerCLI> Add-EsxSoftwareDepot .\net55-r8168-8.045-napi-offline_bundle.zip | Get-EsxSoftwarePackage | ft -AutoSize

 

Name        Version    Vendor  Creation Date

----        -------    ------  -------------

net55-r8168 8.045-napi Realtek 2018/02/08 12:46:36

 

ちなみに、VIB のファイル名も確認できたりします。

PowerCLI> Get-EsxSoftwarePackage -AcceptanceLevel CommunitySupported -Name net55-r8168 | select SourceUrls

 

SourceUrls

----------

{zip:D:\work\net55-r8168-8.045-napi-offline_bundle.zip?net55-r8168-8.045-napi.x86_64.vib}

 

今回 読み込んだ VIB パッケージの中で、net55-r8168 だけは

他よりも許容レベル（AcceptanceLevel）が低く、CommunitySupported のパッケージです。

PowerCLI> Get-EsxSoftwarePackage -AcceptanceLevel CommunitySupported | ft -AutoSize

 

Name        Version    Vendor  Creation Date

----        -------    ------  -------------

net55-r8168 8.045-napi Realtek 2018/02/08 12:46:36

 

イメージ プロファイルの 許容レベル については、ドキュメントでは下記のあたりに説明があります。

VIB およびホストの許容レベルについて

そこで新しく作成するイメージ プロファイルも、許容レベルを CommunitySupported にします。

新しいプロファイル名は、わかりやすく ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with-realtek にしました。

Vendor の指定も必須になるので、今回は HomeLab としています。

PowerCLI> New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile $image_profile -Vendor HomeLab -Name ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with-realtek -AcceptanceLevel CommunitySupported | fl Name,Vendor,AcceptanceLevel

 

Name            : ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with-realtek

Vendor          : HomeLab

AcceptanceLevel : CommunitySupported

 

作成したプロファイルに、ドライバを追加します。

PowerCLI> Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with-realtek -SoftwarePackage net55-r8168

 

Name                           Vendor          Last Modified   Acceptance Level

----                           ------          -------------   ----------------

ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with... HomeLab         2018/02/10 1... CommunitySupported

 

ドライバの VIB パッケージが追加されています。

PowerCLI> Get-EsxImageProfile -Name ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with-realtek | select -ExpandProperty VibList | where {$_.Name -eq "net55-r8168"} | ft -AutoSize

 

Name        Version    Vendor  Creation Date

----        -------    ------  -------------

net55-r8168 8.045-napi Realtek 2018/02/08 12:46:36

 

ISO イメージ ファイルとしてエクスポートします。

PowerCLI> Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with-realtek -ExportToIso -FilePath .\ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with-realtek.iso

ついでに、ドライバを追加したイメージ プロファイルの

オフラインバンドルもエクスポートしておきます。

これは、後でこのイメージにさらに VIB を追加したい場合などに利用できます。

PowerCLI> Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with-realtek -ExportToBundle -FilePath .\ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with-realtek.zip

結果として、下記のようなファイルが作成されます。

PowerCLI> ls | select Name,Length

 

Name                                         Length

----                                         ------

ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with-realtek.iso   350390272

ESXi-6.5.0-20171204001-with-realtek.zip   341466626

ESXi650-201712001.zip                     478519869

net55-r8168-8.045-napi-offline_bundle.zip   1131520

 

この ISO イメージファイルで ESXi をインストールすると、

通常のインストーラでは認識できない RealTek の NIC が認識できるようになります。

ちなみに ESX Shell や SSH で直接ログインして確認すると、下記のように認識されています。

[root@localhost:~] vmware -vl

VMware ESXi 6.5.0 build-7388607

VMware ESXi 6.5.0 Update 1

[root@localhost:~] esxcli network nic list

Name    PCI Device    Driver  Admin Status  Link Status  Speed  Duplex  MAC Address         MTU  Description                                                   

------  ------------  ------  ------------  -----------  -----  ------  -----------------  ----  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

vmnic0  0000:01:00.0  r8168   Up            Up            1000  Full    d8:9e:f3:7c:91:c6  1500  Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller

おまけ。

以前に似たようなことをしていましたので、こちらもどうぞ・・・

ESXi のオフライン バンドルから ISO イメージ ファイルを作成してみる。

ESXi 5.5 を Intel NUC にインストールしてみる。

ESXi 5.5 を Intel Haswell NUC にインストールしてみた。

ネステッドESXi 用 VMware Tools 導入済みの ESXi 5.5 を作成してみました。(Image Builder PowerCLI)

以上、ESXi 6.5 でカスタムイメージを作成してみる話でした。

以前に、vSAN のストレージ ポリシーを PowerCLI で変更してみる投稿をしました。

今回は、PowerCLI で vSAN データストアのデフォルト ストレージ ポリシーを確認してみます。

vSAN の仮想マシン ストレージ ポリシー を PowerCLI で変更してみる。

vSAN データストアでは、デフォルト ストレージ ポリシーを設定できます。

PowerCLI でデフォルト ストレージ ポリシーの確認をするのは難しそうです。

vSAN Cluster の設定を確認すると「StoragePolicy」プロパティがあります。

PowerCLI> Get-Cluster vsan-cluster-03 | Get-VsanClusterConfiguration | fl Cluster,VsanEnabled,StoragePolicy

 

Cluster       : vsan-cluster-03

VsanEnabled   : True

StoragePolicy :

 

しかし、これは vSAN のパフォーマンスサービスの

「統計オブジェクトのストレージ ポリシー」が格納されているようです。

このクラスタでは vSAN のパフォーマンス サービスがオフのままなので、

PowerCLI の StoragePolicy は空欄になっていますが、いずれにせよ

Get-VsanClusterConfiguration の StoragePolicy ではデフォルト ストレージ ポリシーはわかりません。

そこで今回はバッド プラクティスですが、

実際に vSAN Cluster に VM を作成することで、デフォルト ストレージ ポリシーを確認してみます。

ここでは「check-vm」という名前の VM を vSAN データストアに作成してみます。

PowerCLI> New-VM -Name check-vm -ResourcePool vsan-cluster-03 -Datastore vsanDatastore-03 -StorageFormat Thin

 

Name                 PowerState Num CPUs MemoryGB

----                 ---------- -------- --------

check-vm             PoweredOff 1        0.250

 

ストレージ ポリシーを指定せずに作成したので、

この VM のストレージ ポリシーを確認することでデフォルト ストレージ ポリシーがわかります。

この vSAN データストアのデフォルト ストレージ ポリシーは「vSAN Default Storage Policy」でした。

PowerCLI> Get-VM check-vm | Get-SpbmEntityConfiguration | fl Entity,StoragePolicy

 

Entity        : check-vm

StoragePolicy : vSAN Default Storage Policy

 

ということで、デフォルト ストレージ ポリシーを確認するスクリプトを作成してみました。

ポリシーのルール確認方法は、以前に投稿した下記と同じです。

vSAN の情報を PowerCLI 6.5 R1 で見てみる。

スクリプトの内容：

get_vsan_default_storage_policy.ps1 · GitHub

下記のように実行できます。

PowerCLI> .\get_vsan_default_storage_policy.ps1 ＜vSAN クラスタ名＞

実行すると下記のように表示されます。

• あらかじめ、PowerCLI のウインドウ幅は広げてあります。（120 くらい）
• vSAN Default Storage Policy はデフォルトで作成されるポリシーですが、
  設定変更することもできるので、ポリシーのルール設定も表示してみました。
• テスト VM を作成して、情報を取得したあとに削除しています。

もっと良い方法に気づいたら、更新するかもしれません・・・

以上、PowerCLI で vSAN のデフォルト ストレージ ポリシーを見てみる話でした。

World Backup Day 2018 Data Protection Readiness Reminder

It's that time of year again, World Backup Day 2018 Data Protection Readiness Reminder.

In case you have forgotten, or were not aware, this coming Saturday March 31 is World Backup (and recovery day). The annual day is a to remember to make sure you are protecting your applications, data, information, configuration settings as well as data infrastructures. While the emphasis is on Backup, that also means recovery as well as testing to make sure everything is working properly.

Its time that the  focus of world backup day should expand from just a focus on backup to also broader data protection and things that start with R. Some data protection (and backup) related things, tools, tradecraft techniques, technologies and trends that start with R include  readiness, recovery, reconstruct, restore, restart, resume, replication, rollback, roll forward, RAID and erasure codes, resiliency, recovery time objective (RTO), recovery point objective (RPO), replication among others.

Keep in mind that Data Protection  is a broader focus than just backup and recovery. Data protection includes  disaster recovery DR, business continuance BC, business resiliency BR, security (logical and physical), standard and high availability HA, as well as durability, archiving, data footprint reduction, copy data management CDM along with various technologies, tradecraft techniques, tools.

Quick Data Protection, Backup and Recovery Checklist

• Keep the 4 3 2 1 or shorter older 3 2 1 data protection rules in mind
• Do you know what data, applications, configuration settings, meta data, keys, certificates are being protected?
• Do you know how many versions, copies, where stored and what is on or off-site, on or off-line?
• Implement data protection at different intervals and coverage of various layers (application, transaction, database, file system, operating system, hypervisors, device or volume among others)

• Have you protected your data protection environment including software, configuration, catalogs, indexes, databases along with management tools?
• Verify that data protection point in time copies (backups, snapshots, consistency points, checkpoints, version, replicas) are working as intended
• Make sure that not only are the point in time protection copies running when scheduled, also that they are protected what's intended

• Test to see if the protection copies can actually be used, this means restoring as well as accessing the data via applications
• Watch out to prevent a disaster in the course of testing, plan, prepare, practice, learn, refine, improve
• In addition to verifying your data protection (backup, bc, dr) for work, also take time to see how your home or personal data is protected
• View additional tips, techniques, checklist items in this Data Protection fundamentals series of posts here.

Where To Learn More

View additional Data InfrastructureData Protection and related tools, trends, technology and tradecraft skills topics  via the following links.

• Data Protection Diaries series
• Part 1– Data InfrastructureData Protection Fundamentals
• Part 2– Reliability, Availability, Serviceability ( RAS) Data Protection Fundamentals
• Part 3– Data Protection Fundamental Access Availability RAIDErasure Codes ( EC) including LRC
• Part 4– Data Protection Recovery Points (Archive, Backup, Snapshots, Versions)
• Part 5– Point In Time Data Protection Granularity Points of Interest
• Part 6– Data Protection Security Logical Physical Software Defined
• Part 7– Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends
• Part 8– Data Protection Diaries Walking Data Protection Talk
• Part 9– who’s Doing What ( Toolbox Technology Tools)
• Part 10– Data Protection Resources Where to Learn More
• Revisiting RAID storage remains relevant and resources
• Time to restore from backup: Do you know where your data is?

• February 2017 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter
• AWS Announces New S3 Cloud Storage Security Encryption Features
• Data Infrastructure Server Storage I/O Tradecraft Trends
• Data Infrastructure Server Storage I/O related Tradecraft Overview
• What’s a data infrastructure?
• Data Infrastructure Overview, Its Whats Inside of Data Centers
• Ensure your data infrastructure remains available and resilient
• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) Resources Are You Ready?
• GDPR goes into effect May 25 2018 Are You Ready?
• Until the focus expands to data protection – Taking action
• Backup, Big data, Big Data Protection, CMG & More with Tom Becchetti Podcast
• Six plus data center software defined management dashboards
• Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
• Zombie Technology Life after Death Tape Is Still Alive
• Data Infrastructure server storage I/O network Recommended Reading List Book Shelf
• Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC 2017) Book
• All You Need To Know about Remote Office/Branch Office Data Protection Backup (free webinar with registration)
• Software Defined, Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) resources
• The SSD Place (SSD, NVM, PM, SCM, Flash, NVMe, 3D XPoint, MRAM and related topics)
• The NVMe Place (NVMe related topics, trends, tools, technologies, tip resources)
• Various Data Infrastructure related events, webinars and other activities
• www.objectstoragecenter.com and Software Defined, Cloud, Bulk and Object Storage Fundamentals

Additional  learning experiences along with  common questions (and answers), as well as  tips can be found in  Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

What This All Means

You can not go forward if you can not go back to a particular point in time (e.g. recovery point objective or RPO). Likewise, if you can not go back to a given RPO, how can you go forward with your business as well as meet your recovery time objective (RTO)?

Backup is as important as restore, without a good backup or data protection point in time copy, how can you restore? Some will say backup is more important than recovery, however its the enablement that matters, in other words being able to provide data protection and recover, restart, resume or other things that start with R. World backup day should be a reminder to think about broader data protection which also means recovery, restore and realizing if your copies and versions are good. Keep the above in mind and this is your World Backup Day 2018 Data Protection Readiness Reminder.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Use NVMe U.2 SFF 8639 disk drive form factor SSD in PCIe slot

Need to install or use an Intel Optane NVMe 900P or other Nonvolatile Memory (NVM) Express  NVMe based U.2 SFF 8639 disk drive form factor Solid State Device (SSD) into PCIe a slot?

For example, I needed to connect an Intel Optane NVMe 900P U.2 SFF 8639 drive form factor SSD into one of my servers using an available PCIe slot.

The solution I used was an carrier adapter card such as those from Ableconn (PEXU2-132 NVMe 2.5-inch U.2 [SFF-8639] via Amazon.com among other global venues.

Top Intel 750 NVMe PCIe AiC SSD, bottom Intel Optane NVMe 900P U.2 SSD with Ableconn carrier

The above image shows top an Intel 750 NVMe PCIe Add in Card (AiC) SSD and on the bottom an Intel Optane NVMe 900P 280GB U.2 (SFF 8639) drive form factor SSD mounted on an Ableconn carrier adapter.

NVMe Tradecraft Refresher

NVMe is the protocol that is implemented with different topologies including local via PCIe using U.2 aka SFF-8639 (aka disk drive form factor), M.2 aka Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF) also known as "gum stick", along with PCIe Add in Card (AiC). NVMe accessed devices can be installed in laptops, ultra books, workstations, servers and storage systems using the various form factors. U.2 drives are also refereed to by some as PCIe drives in that the NVMe command set protocol is implemented using PCIe x4 physical connection to the devices. Jump ahead if you want to skip over the NVMe primer refresh material to learn more about U.2 8639 devices.

Various SSD device form factors and interfaces

In addition to form factor, NVMe devices can be direct attached and dedicated, rack and shared, as well as accessed via networks also known as fabrics such as NVMe over Fabrics.

The many facets of NVMe as a front-end, back-end, direct attach and fabric

Context is important with NVMe in that fabric can mean NVMe over Fibre Channel (FC-NVMe) where the NVMe command set protocol is used in place of SCSI Fibre Channel Protocol (e.g. SCSI_FCP) aka FCP or what many simply know and refer to as Fibre Channel. NVMe over Fabric can also mean NVMe command set implemented over an RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) based network.

Another point of context is not to confuse Nonvolatile Memory (NVM) which are the storage or memory media and NVMe which is the interface for accessing storage (e.g. similar to SAS,

SATA and others). As a refresher, NVM or the media  are the various persistent memories (PM) including NVRAM, NAND Flash, 3D XPoint along with other storage class memories (SCM) used in SSD (in various packaging).

Learn more about 3D XPoint with the following resources:

• Intel and Micron unveil new 3D XPoint Non Volatile Memory (NVM) for servers and storage
• Part II – Intel and Micron new 3D XPoint server and storage NVM
• Part III – 3D XPoint new server storage memory from Intel and Micron

Learn more (or refresh) your  NVMe server storage I/O knowledge, experience tradecraft skill set with  this post here. View this piece here looking at NVM vs. NVMe and how one is the media where data is stored, while the other is an access protocol (e.g. NVMe). Also  visit www.thenvmeplace.com to view additional NVMe tips, tools, technologies, and related resources.

NVMe U.2 SFF-8639 aka 8639 SSD

On quick glance, an NVMe U.2 SFF-8639 SSD may look like a SAS small form factor (SFF) 2.5" HDD or SSD. Also, keep in mind that HDD and SSD with SAS interface have a small tab to prevent inserting them into a SATA port. As a reminder, SATA devices can plug into SAS ports, however not the other way around which is what the key tab function does (prevents accidental insertion of SAS into SATA). Looking at the left-hand side of the following image you will see an NVMe SFF 8639 aka U.2 backplane connector which looks similar to a SAS port.

Note that depending on how implemented including its internal controller, flash translation layer (FTL), firmware and other considerations, an NVMe U.2 or 8639 x4 SSD should have similar performance to a comparable NVMe x4 PCIe AiC (e.g. card) device. By comparable device, I mean the same type of NVM media (e.g. flash or 3D XPoint), FTL and controller. Likewise generally an PCIe x8 should be faster than an x4, however more PCIe lanes does not mean more performance, its what's inside and how those lanes are actually used that matter.

NVMe U.2 SFF 8639 Drive (Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials CRC Press)

With U.2 devices the key tab that prevents SAS drives from inserting into a SATA port is where four pins that support PCIe x4 are located. What this all means is that a U.2 8639 port or socket can accept an NVMe, SAS or SATA device depending on how the port is configured. Note that the U.2 8639 port is either connected to a SAS controller for SAS and SATA devices or a PCIe port, riser or adapter.

On the left of the above figure is a view towards the backplane of a storage enclosure in a server that supports SAS, SATA, and NVMe (e.g. 8639). On the right of the above figure is the connector end of an 8639 NVM SSD showing addition pin connectors compared to a SAS or SATA device. Those extra pins give PCIe x4 connectivity to the NVMe devices. The 8639 drive connectors enable a device such as an NVM, or NAND flash SSD to share a common physical storage enclosure with SAS and SATA devices, including optional dual-pathing.

More PCIe lanes may not mean faster performance, verify if those lanes (e.g. x4 x8 x16 etc) are present just for mechanical (e.g. physical) as well as electrical (they are also usable) and actually being used. Also, note that some PCIe storage devices or adapters might be for example an x8 for supporting two channels or devices each at x4. Likewise, some devices might be x16 yet only support four x4 devices.

NVMe U.2 SFF 8639 PCIe Drive SSD FAQ

Some common questions pertaining NVMe U.2 aka SFF 8639 interface and form factor based SSD include:

Why use U.2 type devices?

Compatibility with what's available for server storage I/O slots in a server, appliance, storage enclosure. Ability to mix and match SAS, SATA and NVMe with some caveats in the same enclosure. Support higher density storage configurations maximizing available PCIe slots and enclosure density.

Is PCIe x4 with NVMe U.2 devices fast enough?

While not as fast as a PCIe AiC that fully supports x8 or x16 or higher, an x4 U.2 NVMe accessed SSD should be plenty fast for many applications. If you need more performance, then go with a faster AiC card.

Why not go with all PCIe AiC?

If you need the speed, simplicity, have available PCIe card slots, then put as many of those in your systems or appliances as possible. Otoh, some servers or appliances are PCIe slot constrained so U.2 devices can be used to increase the number of devices attached to a PCIe backplane while also supporting SAS, SATA based SSD or HDDs.

Why not use M.2 devices?

If your system or appliances supports NVMe M.2 those are good options. Some systems even support a combination of M.2 for local boot, staging, logs, work and other storage space while PCIe AiC are for performance along with U.2 devices.

Why not use NVMeoF?

Good question, why not, that is, if your shared storage system supports NVMeoF or FC-NVMe go ahead and use that, however, you might also need some local NVMe devices. Likewise, if yours is a software-defined storage platform that needs local storage, then NVMe U.2, M.2 and AiC or custom cards are an option. On the other hand, a shared fabric NVMe based solution may support a mixed pool of SAS, SATA along with NVMe U.2, M.2, AiC or custom cards as its back-end storage resources.

When not to use U.2?

If your system, appliance or enclosure does not support U.2 and you do not have a need for it. Or, if you need more performance such as from an x8 or x16 based AiC, or you need shared storage. Granted a shared storage system may have U.2 based SSD drives as back-end storage among other options.

How does the U.2 backplane connector attach to PCIe?

Via enclosures backplane, there is either a direct hardwire connection to the PCIe backplane, or, via a connector cable to a riser card or similar mechanism.

Does NVMe replace SAS, SATA or Fibre Channel as an interface?

The NVMe command set is an alternative to the traditional SCSI command set used in SAS and Fibre Channel. That means it can replace, or co-exist depending on your needs and preferences for access various storage devices.

Who supports U.2 devices?

Dell has supported U.2 aka PCIe drives in some of their servers for many years, as has Intel and many others. Likewise, U.2 8639 SSD drives including 3D Xpoint and NAND flash-based are available from Intel among others.

Can you have AiC, U.2 and M.2 devices in the same system?

If your server or appliance or storage system support them then yes. Likewise, there are M.2 to PCIe AiC, M.2 to SATA along with other adapters available for your servers, workstations or software-defined storage system platform.

NVMe U.2 carrier to PCIe adapter

The following images show examples of mounting an Intel Optane NVMe 900P accessed U.2 8639 SSD on an Ableconn PCIe AiC carrier. Once U.2 SSD is mounted, the Ableconn adapter inserts into an available PCIe slot similar to other AiC devices. From a server or storage appliances software perspective, the Ableconn is a pass-through device so your normal device drivers are used, for example VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5 recognizes the Intel Optane device, similar with Windows and other operating systems.

  Intel Optane NVMe 900P U.2 SSD and Ableconn PCIe AiC carrier

The above image shows the Ableconn adapter carrier card along with NVMe U.2 8639 pins on the Intel Optane NVMe 900P.

Views of Intel Optane NVMe 900P U.2 8639 and Ableconn carrier connectors

The above image shows an edge view of the NVMe U.2 SFF 8639 Intel Optane NVMe 900P SSD along with those on the Ableconn adapter carrier. The following images show an Intel Optane NVMe 900P SSD installed in a PCIe AiC slot using an Ableconn carrier, along with how VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5 sees the device using plug and play NVMe device drivers.

Intel Optane NVMe 900P U.2 SSD installed in PCIe AiC Slot

How VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5 sees NVMe U.2 device

Intel NVMe Optane NVMe 3D XPoint based and other SSDs

Here are some Amazon.com links to various Intel Optane NVMe 3D XPoint based SSDs in different packaging form factors:

• Intel SSDPED1D280GASX Optane SSD 900P 280GB AiC form factor
• Intel SSDPE21D280GASM Optane SSD 900P 280GB U.2 8639 form factor
• Intel Optane SSD P4800X Series (375GB, 1/2 Height PCIe x4, 20nm, 3D XPoint) AiC form factor

Here are some Amazon.com links to various Intel and other vendor NAND flash based NVMe accessed SSDs including U.2, M.2 and AiC form factors:

• Intel 750 NVMe 400GB PCIe AiC SSD
• Intel 750 NVMe 1.2TB SSD
• Intel 750 NVMe 800GB U.2 SSD
• Samsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 SSD
• Samsung 960 PRO Series - 512GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 SSD
• Samsung 960 EVO Series - 1TB PCIe NVMe - M.2
  

Note in addition to carriers to adapt U.2 8639 devices to PCIe AiC form factor and interfaces, there are also M.2 NGFF to PCIe AiC among others. An example is the Ableconn M.2 NGFF PCIe SSD to PCI Express 3.0 x4 Host Adapter Card.

In addition to Amazon.com, Newegg.com, Ebay and many other venues carry NVMe related technologies. The Intel Optane NVMe 900P are newer, however the Intel 750 Series along with other Intel NAND Flash based SSDs are still good price performers and as well as provide value. I have accumulated several Intel 750 NVMe devices over past few years as they are great price performers. Check out this related post Get in the NVMe SSD game (if you are not already).

Where To Learn More

View additional NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM,Data Infrastructure and related topics via the following links.

• NVMe overview and primer – Part I
• Part II – NVMe overview and primer (Different Configurations)
• Part III – NVMe overview and primer (Need for Performance Speed)
• Part IV – NVMe overview and primer (Where and How to use NVMe)
• Part V – NVMe overview and primer (Where to learn more, what this all means)
• New family of Intel Xeon Scalable Processors enable software defined data infrastructures and SDDC
• PCIe Server I/O Fundamentals
• Get in the NVMe SSD game (if you are not already) with Intel 750 among others
• If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?
• NVMe Wont Replace Flash By Itself
• Via Computerweekly – NVMe discussion: PCIe card vs U.2 and M.2
• Intel and Micron unveil new 3D XPoint Non Volatile Memory (NVM) for servers and storage
• Part II – Intel and Micron new 3D XPoint server and storage NVM
• Part III – 3D XPoint new server storage memory from Intel and Micron
• Server storage I/O benchmark tools, workload scripts and examples (Part I) and (Part II)
• Data Infrastructure Overview, Its What's Inside of Data Centers
• Data Infrastructure Resource Links cloud data protection tradecraft trends
• Software Defined, Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) resources
• The SSD Place (SSD, NVM, PM, SCM, Flash, NVMe, 3D XPoint, MRAM and related topics)
• The NVMe Place (NVMe related topics, trends, tools, technologies, tip resources)

Additional  learning experiences along with  common questions (and answers), as well as  tips can be found in  Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

What This All Means

NVMe accessed storage is in your future, however there are various questions to address including exploring your options for type of devices, form factors, configurations among other topics. Some NVMe accessed storage is direct attached and dedicated in laptops, ultrabooks, workstations and servers including PCIe AiC, M.2 and U.2 SSDs, while others are shared networked aka fabric based. NVMe over fabric (e.g. NVMeoF) includes RDMA over converged Ethernet (RoCE) as well as NVMe over Fibre Channel (e.g. FC-NVMe). Networked fabric accessed NVMe access of pooled shared storage systems and appliances can also include internal NVMe attached devices (e.g. as part of back-end storage) as well as other SSDs (e.g. SAS, SATA).

General wrap-up (for now) NVMe U.2 8639 and related tips include:

• Verify the performance of the device vs. how many PCIe lanes exist
• Update any applicable BIOS/UEFI, device drivers and other software
• Check the form factor and interface needed (e.g. U.2, M.2 / NGFF, AiC) for a given scenario
• Look carefully at the NVMe devices being ordered for proper form factor and interface
• With M.2 verify that it is an NVMe enabled device vs. SATA

Learn more about NVMe at www.thenvmeplace.com including how to use Intel Optane NVMe 900P U.2 SFF 8639 disk drive form factor SSDs in PCIe slots as well as for fabric among other scenarios.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Have you ever needed or wanted to dynamically get the users within an Active Directory group through vRA? The process I hoped would already exist but, unfortunately as I found out, the existing vRO Active Directory plug-in does not contain a pre-built workflow or action to handle this. As I typically do, I find my own way, but my trials and tribulations can easily be to your benefit as you’ll see. The use case for getting users within a group can vary. In my case, there is a customer for whom I’m building a CMP and they wish to dynamically pull in all the users within one specific AD group to which they can assign provisioned machines for metadata purposes. This metadata would then be sent in a custom notification to a recipient which tells them of the new machine(s) that has/have been built and this user chosen at request time. So this group membership needs to be displayed in a request form in a drop-down and the requestor able to pick a member. With a little bit of vRO work and a cool trick in vRA I learned, this is pretty easy and others may find it useful.

              In my test environment here, I’m on vRA 7.3 with an external vRO 7.3. None of that should matter as all these steps should be applicable to earlier versions as well. That said, I updated my vRO Active Directory plug-in to the latest available here. The newest version is v3.0.7 as of this writing. Once the plug-in is updated, run the “Add an Active Directory server” workflow found in Library -> Microsoft -> Active Directory -> Configuration.

Step 1a is fairly self-explanatory. Host in my case is just a single AD server. Base is the root object of your AD in DN format.

Since this is for use in vRA, we want to use a shared session with a service account and avoid per-user sessions.

What’s nice in step 1c is you can provide multiple AD servers that can be attempted. The algorithms are Single Server, Round Robin, or Fail-Over.

And, finally, add a timeout value to wait before failing. I chose 5 seconds but, depending on your AD size, this may need to be longer.

Once the workflow successfully completes, verify you have it in your inventory explorer.

The tree here shows it is indeed working.

Once you’re good there, import the action I’ve pre-built. The JavaScript required in order for it to function is fairly rudimentary:

userArray = new Array();

var usersInGroup = userGroup.userMembers

for each (user in usersInGroup) {

     //System.log(user.Name)

     userArray.push(user.Name);

     }

//System.log(userArray);

return userArray;

I’ve commented out a couple lines that allow logging the user names to System just for development and troubleshooting purposes to ensure the results are returned and in the correct format.

With this action imported, flip over to vRA. Go create a new Custom Property definition. In the one below, I’m calling it CZAD.Users and choosing to get external values from the new action.

Click on the userGroup input parameter and edit it. The value is going to be the identifier in vRO’s AD inventory that corresponds to the user group which we want to list the users.

#_v2_#,#UserGroup#,#04452c1c-2a57-4bbb-bf1d-ada37c2edea0#,#CN=Middleware,OU=vCAC,DC=zoller,DC=com#

Flip back over to vRO and browse in your AD inventory tree to find the group whose members you wish to list. Click the user group in the tree and check the General tab.

You see VSO ID as shown above? This is the value we’ll copy and paste into the input parameter definition back in vRA. This is a unique ID which essentially is an API “shortcut” to reference this one specific group and no other. With this, we can avoid having to hardcode the name of this group into our action or pull it from some other place in vRO. Since userGroup is the input object, we can simply supply this value with vRA and be done with it—so one place to go if you wish to change that group later.

With this VSO ID copied and pasted into the input parameter, save the custom property. Let’s add it to a blueprint and see if it works.

Go to the request form now.

And boom, there are the users in that AD group! Don’t believe me? Go check the membership for yourself in AD to compare.

And there you have it! With this simple action, you can pick a user from an AD user group and consume it as a string-based custom property anywhere you like in vRA.

Very simple little action that does a simple thing, but it solves a small use case and others may find it useful as well.

Download getADGroupMembership from VMware {code}

Financially I'm unable to afford a $5,000 certification class at New Horizon's. I'm working using self study resources to stay sharp on VMware solutions. Recently from some training i'm taking I found out about VMware Foundations which is $125.00 I plan to study up and take that exam to get it under my belt. The training that I found references 6.0 however I found 6.5 available so I'm going to take 6.5.

https://www.ivandemes.com/export-import-file-type-associations-fta-successfully-using-uem/

More information to come.............Stay tuned.

In this days more and more customers start using hardware VTEP instead of VMK on esxi. Stories about why customer use HWVTEP varies between performance , capacity or already existing hardware in place. To hones in my experience I didn;t see much of benefit choosing HWVTEP against esxi VTEP ones. But what is definitely happens is introducing complexity in the network and troubleshooting issues. In this post can be found useful steps to troubleshoot this kind of environments.

First before we start with any kind of troubleshooting examples lest follow a normal process of identifying how packect a travel between Physical PC and VM in vSphere/ NSX environment

As we can see from the example we have a flow

1 PC sends and ARP request which is broadcast to find VM 1

2 HW VTEP sends PC MAC learn on port to NSX Controller

3 HW VTEP learns VM mac from Controller (Controller should know mac address of the VM via a <JOIN> message send to controller when VM is attached to VNI)

4 vDS prepared for NSX shares VM MAC with Controller

5 NSX vDS request remote MAC of PC from controllers which should be shared between HW VTEP and Controller.

6 VM sends ARP back to PC via tunnel between ESXI and HW VTEP

7 HW VTEP forwards ARP response to PC

with this steps should be communication happens.

As can be seen there is a lot communication handshakes between HW VTEP and NSX components, and here most of the issues happens and we need to focus on this.

Main troubleshooting area for HW VTEP is the HW VTEp it self.

From NSX side we just need to ensure that environment is ready like host preparation.

Most common configuration are

• Bind to non-existing physical ports
• ToR certificate is not configured properly
• Not connecting ToR to anyone of controllers nodes. HWVTEP need to be connected to one of the controllers and the controller push OVSDB transaction to make ToR connected to all controllers.
• Forget to prepare host which is necessary, meaning install vibs.

If we are sure that all this look OK and no alerts or strange messages in NSX , then we can go to ToR and check <show bfd neighbors>

When we add replication hosts and bindings to Logical Switch need to check BFD is up or not BFD will not be up until we not specify any replication host and binding to Logical Switch

Please refer to documentation for specific vendor as an example is Juniper

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/release-independent/solutions/information-products/pathway-pages/solutions/q…

Summary : most of trouble shooting in HWVTEP  need to be done on ToR not in NSX environment.  To confirm what where and where is the packet (as my Colleague Jose say's) we need to capture

vSphere SSO Domains Name

1. Each Platform Services Controller is associated with a vCenter Single Sign-On domain

2. The domain name is used by the VMware Directory Service (vmdir) for all Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) internal structuring

2. Default domain name - vsphere.local for all vSphere versions

    Condition I -

               a. Your vSphere domain name is (vsphere.local) till vSphere 5.5 and you don't have option to change it.
               b. If you are upgrading from vSphere 5.5 to 6.x then your vSphere domain name would remains same (vsphere.local) and you don't have option to change it.

    Condition II -
               a. When you install a Platform Services Controller, you are prompted to create a vCenter Single Sign-On domain or join an existing domain

               b. With vSphere 6.0 and later, you can give your vSphere domain a unique name ( you can change domain name now in fresh/new installation)
                   

              Note :- To prevent authentication conflicts, use a name that is not used by OpenLDAP, Microsoft Active Directory, and other directory services.

                           You cannot change the vSphere domain to which a Platform Services Controller or vCenter Server instance already belong
 

SSO Site

1. You can organize SSO domains into logical sites.
2. A site in the VMware Directory Service is a logical container for grouping PSC instances within a vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

3. it’s time to name the site where this SSO server is going to live. This is Site A or you could give name of the city/environment where the server lives ( vSphere 5.5, 6.x)

CMDs to get info...

To find your SSO Domain Name:

/usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vmafd-cli get-domain-name --server-name localhost

To find your SSO Site Name:

/usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vmafd-cli get-site-name --server-name localhost

To find you which PSC your vCSA is pointing to:

/usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vmafd-cli get-ls-location --server-name localhost

/usr/lib/vmware-vmdir/bin/vdcrepadmin -f showservers -h localhost -u administrator

Regards,

SARIK (+91-8826484694)

VCP6-DCV | VCP5.5-DCV | VCP5-DCV | VCA5-DCV | VCA5-Cloud | RHCSA & RHCE 6 | A+

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Please Mark "Helpful" or "Correct" if It'll help U!!

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最近、PowerCLI 10.0 がリリースされました。

New Release: VMware PowerCLI 10.0.0 - VMware PowerCLI Blog - VMware Blogs

とうとう macOS や Linux でも PowerCLI がサポートされるようです。

そこで Linux OS で PowerCLI をためしてみました。

今回は、Oracle Linux 7 を利用しています。

[root@vm01 ~]# cat /etc/oracle-release

Oracle Linux Server release 7.4

PowerShell のインストール。

まず、PowerShell をインストールします。

Oracle Linux では、ORACLE の Public Yum サーバから PowerShell をインスト―ルできます。

まず、Yum リポジトリの参照先が記載されている .repo ファイルを最新化します。

[root@vm01 ~]# curl http://yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol7.repo -o /etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol7.repo

Oracle Linux の PowerShell は、ol7_developer リポジトリにあります。

http://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL7/developer/x86_64/

「--enablerepo」でリポジトリを有効にしつつインストールします。

[root@vm01 ~]# yum install -y --enablerepo=ol7_developer powershell

PowerCLI のインストール。

PowerShell を起動します。Linux では「pwsh」です。

[root@vm01 ~]# pwsh

PowerShell v6.0.1

Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

 

https://aka.ms/pscore6-docs

Type 'help' to get help.

 

PS /root>

PowerCLI をインストールします。

インストール元になる PowerShell Gallery がまだ信頼されていないと確認されるので

「Y」と入力して Enter キーをおすと、ひたすらモジュールがインストールされます。

PS /root> Install-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI -Scope CurrentUser

 

Untrusted repository

You are installing the modules from an untrusted repository. If you trust this repository, change its InstallationPolicy

value by running the Set-PSRepository cmdlet. Are you sure you want to install the modules from 'PSGallery'?

[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "N"): Y

PS /root>

警告抑止のため、VMware の Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) の

参加についての設定をしておきます。

ここでは $false にしておきます。（自宅ラボでは基本的に CEIP に参加していますが・・・）

PS /root> Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -Scope User -ParticipateInCEIP $false -Confirm:$false

PowerCLI 10.0.0 がインストールできています。

PS /root> Get-PowerCLIVersion

WARNING: The cmdlet "Get-PowerCLIVersion" is deprecated. Please use the 'Get-Module' cmdlet instead.

 

PowerCLI Version

----------------

   VMware PowerCLI 10.0.0 build 7895300

---------------

Component Versions

---------------

   VMware Cis Core PowerCLI Component PowerCLI Component 10.0 build 7893915

   VMware VimAutomation VICore Commands PowerCLI Component PowerCLI Component 10.0 build 7893909

 

 

 

PS /root>

WARNING にあるように、最近は Get-Module でバージョン確認するほうが

良いようなので、ついでに確認しておきます。

PS /root> Get-Module -ListAvailable -Name VMware.* | select Version,Name

 

Version        Name

-------        ----

6.5.2.7812840  VMware.DeployAutomation

6.5.2.7812840  VMware.ImageBuilder

10.0.0.7895300 VMware.PowerCLI

10.0.0.7893915 VMware.VimAutomation.Cis.Core

10.0.0.7893901 VMware.VimAutomation.Cloud

10.0.0.7893906 VMware.VimAutomation.Common

10.0.0.7893909 VMware.VimAutomation.Core

6.5.4.7567193  VMware.VimAutomation.HA

7.1.0.7547311  VMware.VimAutomation.HorizonView

10.0.0.7893904 VMware.VimAutomation.License

10.0.0.7893913 VMware.VimAutomation.Nsxt

10.0.0.7893924 VMware.VimAutomation.PCloud

10.0.0.7893910 VMware.VimAutomation.Sdk

10.0.0.7893900 VMware.VimAutomation.Srm

10.0.0.7894167 VMware.VimAutomation.Storage

1.2.0.0        VMware.VimAutomation.StorageUtility

10.0.0.7893903 VMware.VimAutomation.Vds

10.0.0.7893902 VMware.VimAutomation.Vmc

10.0.0.7893921 VMware.VimAutomation.vROps

6.5.1.7862888  VMware.VumAutomation

 

 

PS /root>

PowerCLI を使用してみる。

vCenter に接続してみます。

• 今回の vCenter のアドレスは vc-sv01.go-lab.jp です。
• 証明書エラー回避のため「 -Force」をつけています。

PS /root> Connect-VIServer vc-sv01.go-lab.jp -Force

 

 

Specify Credential

Please specify server credential

User: gowatana

Password for user gowatana: **************

 

 

Name                           Port  User

----                           ----  ----

vc-sv01.go-lab.jp              443   GO-LAB\gowatana

 

 

PS /root> $global:DefaultVIServer | Format-List Name,Version,Build,ProductLIne

 

 

Name        : vc-sv01.go-lab.jp

Version     : 6.5.0

Build       : 7515524

ProductLine : vpx

 

 

PS /root>

まだ Windows 版ほどの完成度ではないようですが、

基本的に Windows 版と同様のコマンドレットがあるようで vSAN 系のものも含まれています。

PS /root> Get-Cluster vsan-cluster-* | Get-VsanClusterConfiguration | Sort-Object Cluster

 

Cluster              VsanEnabled  IsStretchedCluster   Last HCL Updated

-------              -----------  ------------------   ----------------

vsan-cluster-01      True

vsan-cluster-02      True

vsan-cluster-03      True         True                 2018/01/28 12:01:23

 

 

PS /root> Get-Cluster vsan-cluster-01 | Get-VsanRuntimeInfo | Sort-Object VMHost | ft -AutoSize

 

Cluster         VMHost           ResyncTrafficMbps

-------         ------           -----------------

vsan-cluster-01 hv-i21.go-lab.jp                 0

vsan-cluster-01 hv-i22.go-lab.jp                 0

vsan-cluster-01 hv-i23.go-lab.jp                11

vsan-cluster-01 hv-i24.go-lab.jp                 4

vsan-cluster-01 hv-i25.go-lab.jp                 5

vsan-cluster-01 hv-i26.go-lab.jp                 5

 

 

PS /root>

また、PowerCLI の Linux 対応以前に

Linux 環境での PowerShell の使い方にも注意が必要そうです。

たとえば以前の投稿で使用したスクリプト「get_vsan_summary.ps1」を実行してみると、

「sort」でエラーになってしまいました。

PowerCLI で vSAN クラスタの概要を見てみる。

下記のような感じになったりします。

Linux の sort コマンドを実行しようとしてしまったりするようです。

PS /root> Get-Cluster | sort name

/usr/bin/sort: cannot read: name: そのようなファイルやディレクトリはありません

これについては、エイリアスの「sort」ではなく

ちゃんと Sort-Object とするとこの問題は回避できます。

PS /root> Get-Cluster | Sort-Object Name

 

 

Name                           HAEnabled  HAFailover DrsEnabled DrsAutomationLevel

                                          Level

----                           ---------  ---------- ---------- ------------------

ha-cluster-01                  False      1          False      FullyAutomated

ha-cluster-02                  True       1          True       FullyAutomated

ha-cluster-03                  False      1          False      FullyAutomated

vsan-cluster-01                True       1          True       FullyAutomated

vsan-cluster-02                True       1          True       PartiallyAutomated

vsan-cluster-03                False      1          False      FullyAutomated

work-cluster-01                False      1          False      FullyAutomated

 

以前の投稿の get_vsan_summary.ps1 スクリプトだと

下記のような感じの置換ですみましたが・・・

これまでの PowerShell / PowerCLI のバージョンアップよりも

修正箇所が多くなりそうな予感がします。

PS /root> sed -i "s/sort/Sort-Object/g" ./get_vsan_summary.ps1

私の場合、PowerShell のエイリアスを利用していたり、

ちょっと癖のあるスクリプトを作成したりすることがあるので

シンプルなコマンドライン / スクリプト作成を心掛けつつ

Linux 版 PowerCLI も徐々に利用していこうと思います。

以上、PowerCLI 10.0 を Linux で使用してみる話でした。

In vcenter server 6.0 U3b , from vpxd logs.

--> Panic: Win32 exception: Access Violation (0xc0000005)

--> Read (0) at address 0000000000000058

--> rip: 00007ffde6a18cc0 rsp: 0000000018ede918 rbp: 00000000113f4a40

This issue occurs due to Microsoft SQL databases not supporting shared connections.

Solution:- Upgrade vcenter server/PSC by 6.0 U3c/d

For more information refer

VMware Knowledge Base

vCenter Server Appliance（VCSA） 6.0 から、仮想アプライアンスを

vSphere Client / vSphere Web Clinet 経由ではなく専用のインストーラでデプロイするようになりました。

そして CLI ベースのインストーラも提供されています。

VCSA 6.5 でも、引き続き CLI デプロイができます。

vCenter Server Appliance および Platform Services Controller アプライアンスの CLI デプロイ

以前に VCSA 6.0 で、vCenter と Platform Services Controller（PSC） を

別サーバとして CLI デプロイする投稿をしましたが・・・

VCSA 6.0 を CLI Install してみる。（External PSC + vCenter）

同一サーバに配置することのほうが多いかなと思い今回は embedded PSC 構成です。

今回の構成。

今回は、VCSA 6.5 を CLI デプロイしてみました。

• VCSA 6.5 U1e を使用します。
• PSCは、vCenter と同じ VM に配置します。（embedded PSC）
• パスワードはデプロイ時に手入力するようにしてみました。
  （しかし JSON に記載して、デプロイ後に変更したほうが楽かもしれません。）
• デプロイは Windows 10 の PowerShell のウインドウから実行しています。

CLI デプロイの環境準備。

今回は MyVMware からダウンロードした下記のファイルを使用しました。

VMware-VCSA-all-6.5.0-7515524.iso

デプロイを実行する Windows にインストーラの ISO イメージファイルを

E: ドライブとしてマウントしています。

インストーラに含まれる下記のあたりのファイルをコピー＆編集して、

実際にデプロイで使用する JSON ファイルを作成します。

PS C:\> ls E:\vcsa-cli-installer\templates\install | select Name

 

Name

----

PSC_first_instance_on_ESXi.json

PSC_first_instance_on_VC.json

PSC_replication_on_ESXi.json

PSC_replication_on_VC.json

embedded_vCSA_on_ESXi.json

embedded_vCSA_on_VC.json

vCSA_on_ESXi.json

vCSA_on_VC.json

 

JSON ファイルの作成では下記に注意します。

CLI デプロイ用の JSON 構成ファイルの準備

特に下記のあたりが要注意かなと思います。

• UTF-8 で保存する。
• JSON ファイルのパスは、ASCII 文字だけにする。（日本語や記号を使わないようにする）

JSON ファイルの内容。

今回は、下記のような JSON ファイル「C:\work\vc-sv02.json」を作成しました。

• vCenter 経由ではなく、ESXi に直接デプロイします。最初の 1台として ESXi にデプロイすることが多いかなと思ったため。
• デプロイ先として指定しているオブジェクトは構築ずみです。
  • デプロイ先の ESXi「hv-d01.go-lab.jp」
  • 標準ポートグループ「VM Network」
  • データストア「ds_ssd-nvme_hv-d01_01」
• ESXi と vCenter の FQDN （～.go-lab.jp）は、DNS サーバに登録して、vCenter やデプロイ先のホストから名前解決できるようにしてあります。
• vCenter「vc-sv02」は、最小スペック（tiny）で、Thin プロビジョニングにしています。
• SSH のアクセスは有効化。
• CEIP は無効化。

vc-sv02.json · GitHub

{

    "__version": "2.3.0",

    "__comments": "vCSA65 with an Embedded-PSC on an ESXi host.",

    "new.vcsa": {

        "esxi": {

            "hostname": "hv-d01.go-lab.jp",

            "username": "root",

            "password": "",

            "deployment.network": "VM Network",

            "datastore": "ds_ssd-nvme_hv-d01_01"

        },

        "appliance": {

            "thin.disk.mode": true,

            "deployment.option": "tiny",

            "name": "vc-sv02"

        },

        "network": {

            "ip.family": "ipv4",

            "mode": "static",

            "ip": "192.168.1.96",

            "dns.servers": [

                "192.168.1.254",

                "192.168.1.253"

            ],

            "prefix": "24",

            "gateway": "192.168.1.1",

            "system.name": "vc-sv02.go-lab.jp"

        },

        "os": {

            "password": "",

            "ssh.enable": true

        },

        "sso": {

            "password": "",

            "domain-name": "vsphere.local",

            "site-name": "site-vc-sv02"

        }

    },

    "ceip": {

        "settings": {

            "ceip.enabled": false

        }

    }

}

パラメータについては、下記に説明があります。

デプロイ構成パラメータ

デプロイ。

vcsa-deploy.exe が配置されているフォルダに移動しておきます。

PS C:\> cd E:\vcsa-cli-installer\win32

PS E:\vcsa-cli-installer\win32>

まず、JSON ファイルの内容を確認しておきます。

タイムスタンプが表示されていますが、これは JST ではなく UTC になるようです。

PS E:\vcsa-cli-installer\win32> .\vcsa-deploy.exe install --verify-only C:\work\vc-sv02.json

Run the installer with "-v" or "--verbose" to log detailed information

Execution Details:

[1] Result and Log File Information

[2] Template Syntax Validation

[3] Template Verification

[4] Gather Requirements

[5] Prechecks

[6] OVF Tool Parameter Verification

=========== [1] Result and Log File Information started at 15:50:41 ===========

Following result and log files will be generated...

The vCenter Server Appliance installer result file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-50-eqkbbz\vcsa-cli-installer.json

The vCenter Server Appliance installer log file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-50-eqkbbz\vcsa-cli-installer.log

The vCenter Server Appliance installer metadata file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-50-eqkbbz\vcsa-cli-installer-metadata.json

The vCenter Server Appliance installer status file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-50-eqkbbz\vcsa-cli-installer-status.json

The generated template file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-50-eqkbbz\generated_install.json

============== [2] Template Syntax Validation started at 15:50:41 ==============

Validating json template syntax...

 

To escape the password prompt, keep pressing <Enter>.

Enter the value for 'new.vcsa', 'esxi', 'password': ★デプロイ先 ESXi のパスワードを入力。

 

To escape the password prompt, keep pressing <Enter>.

Enter the value for 'new.vcsa', 'os', 'password': ★VCSA の root ユーザに設定するパスワードを入力。

Confirm password: ★再入力。

 

To escape the password prompt, keep pressing <Enter>.

Enter the value for 'new.vcsa', 'sso', 'password': ★SSO（PSC）の Administrator ユーザに設定するパスワードを入力。

Confirm password:★再入力。

CEIP is not enabled because the template key 'ceip.enabled' in section 'ceip',

subsection 'settings' was set to 'false'.

Template syntax validation completed successfully.

================ [3] Template Verification started at 15:50:56 ================

Verifying template...

If an untrusted SSL certificate is installed on 'hv-d01.go-lab.jp', secure

communication cannot be guaranteed. Depending on your security policy, this

issue might not represent a security concern.

The SHA1 thumbprint of the certificate is

'9A:10:B0:B5:43:F6:A8:9D:CD:0E:95:AC:E0:A0:AB:8D:19:C2:76:B6'

Do you accept the thumbprint?

1: Accept and continue.

2: Do not accept and exit.

1 ★1を入力。

Template verification completed successfully.

=================================== 15:50:59 ===================================

Starting vCenter Server Appliance installer to deploy "vc-sv02"...

This appliance is a vCenter Server instance with an embedded Platform Services

Controller.

================= [4] Gather Requirements started at 15:50:59 =================

Gathering Requirements...

Gathering requirements completed successfully.

=================================== 15:50:59 ===================================

Generating template...

====================== [5] Prechecks started at 15:50:59 ======================

Performing prechecks...

Check target thumbprint: PASS

Check target credentials: PASS

Check Target vCenter Server appliance name: PASS

Check system type: PASS

Check target ESXi host or vCenter version: PASS

Check for OVA property availability: PASS

Check the host's configurations against the vCSA's CPU, memory and datastore

size requirements: PASS

Check VC management status of ESXi containers: PASS

Check target datastore free space: PASS

Check Single Sign-On Server identity: PASS

Check Single Sign-On Server credentials: PASS

Check whether the Platform Services Controller (PSC) is external: PASS

 

 

The following warnings were returned from the prechecks:

DRS Warning:

 

The target ESXi host 'hv-d01.go-lab.jp' is managed by vCenter Server

'192.168.1.95'.

 

If any of these hosts are in a cluster, and DRS is enabled, vMotion can take

effect and adversely impact the installation, upgrade, or migration processes.

It is recommended that you use the *_on_VC.json template file for the target

ESXi host if it is managed by a vCenter Server, and ensure the ESXi hosts you

have specified are not members of clusters with DRS set to Fully Automated

during the installation, upgrade, or migration processes.

 

Basic verification completed successfully.

=========== [6] OVF Tool Parameter Verification started at 15:51:04 ===========

Running OVF Tool parameter verification...

OVF Tool: Opening OVA source:

E:\vcsa-cli-installer\win32\..\..\vcsa\VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.5.0.14000-7515524_OVF10.ova

OVF Tool:  The manifest does not validate

OVF Tool:  Opening VI target: vi://root@hv-d01.go-lab.jp:443/

OVF Tool:  Supported disk provisioning:

OVF Tool:    monolithicSparse

OVF Tool:    monolithicFlat

OVF Tool:    thin

OVF Tool:    thick

OVF Tool:    flat

OVF Tool:    seSparse

OVF Tool:    eagerZeroedThick

OVF Tool:  Connected networks:

OVF Tool:    VM Network

OVF Tool:  Deploying to VI: vi://root@hv-d01.go-lab.jp:443/

OVF Tool: Transfer Completed

OVF Tool:  Completed successfully

OVF Tool verification completed successfully.

Verification completed successfully.

=================================== 15:51:07 ===================================

Result and Log File Information...

The vCenter Server Appliance installer result file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-50-eqkbbz\vcsa-cli-installer.json

The vCenter Server Appliance installer log file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-50-eqkbbz\vcsa-cli-installer.log

The vCenter Server Appliance installer metadata file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-50-eqkbbz\vcsa-cli-installer-metadata.json

The vCenter Server Appliance installer status file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-50-eqkbbz\vcsa-cli-installer-status.json

The generated template file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-50-eqkbbz\generated_install.json

PS E:\vcsa-cli-installer\win32>

特にエラーがなければ、デプロイを実行します。

実際にデプロイする場合は「--accept-eula」が必要です。

PS E:\vcsa-cli-installer\win32> .\vcsa-deploy.exe install --accept-eula C:\work\vc-sv02.json

Run the installer with "-v" or "--verbose" to log detailed information

Execution Details:

[1] Result and Log File Information

[2] Template Syntax Validation

[3] Template Verification

[4] Gather Requirements

[5] Prechecks

[6] OVF Tool Execution

[7] Service Installation

[8] vCenter Service Configuration

[9] vCenter Server Deployment Summary

=========== [1] Result and Log File Information started at 15:52:57 ===========

Following result and log files will be generated...

The vCenter Server Appliance installer result file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-52-o6hfv0\vcsa-cli-installer.json

The vCenter Server Appliance installer log file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-52-o6hfv0\vcsa-cli-installer.log

The vCenter Server Appliance installer metadata file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-52-o6hfv0\vcsa-cli-installer-metadata.json

The vCenter Server Appliance installer status file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-52-o6hfv0\vcsa-cli-installer-status.json

The generated template file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-52-o6hfv0\generated_install.json

============== [2] Template Syntax Validation started at 15:52:57 ==============

Validating json template syntax...

 

To escape the password prompt, keep pressing <Enter>.

Enter the value for 'new.vcsa', 'esxi', 'password': ★デプロイ先 ESXi のパスワードを入力。

 

To escape the password prompt, keep pressing <Enter>.

Enter the value for 'new.vcsa', 'os', 'password': ★VCSA の root ユーザに設定するパスワードを入力。

Confirm password: ★再入力。

 

To escape the password prompt, keep pressing <Enter>.

Enter the value for 'new.vcsa', 'sso', 'password': ★SSO（PSC）の Administrator ユーザに設定するパスワードを入力。

Confirm password: ★再入力。

CEIP is not enabled because the template key 'ceip.enabled' in section 'ceip',

subsection 'settings' was set to 'false'.

Template syntax validation completed successfully.

================ [3] Template Verification started at 15:53:12 ================

Verifying template...

If an untrusted SSL certificate is installed on 'hv-d01.go-lab.jp', secure

communication cannot be guaranteed. Depending on your security policy, this

issue might not represent a security concern.

The SHA1 thumbprint of the certificate is

'9A:10:B0:B5:43:F6:A8:9D:CD:0E:95:AC:E0:A0:AB:8D:19:C2:76:B6'

Do you accept the thumbprint?

1: Accept and continue.

2: Do not accept and exit.

1 ★1を入力。

Template verification completed successfully.

=================================== 15:53:15 ===================================

Starting vCenter Server Appliance installer to deploy "vc-sv02"...

This appliance is a vCenter Server instance with an embedded Platform Services

Controller.

================= [4] Gather Requirements started at 15:53:15 =================

Gathering Requirements...

Gathering requirements completed successfully.

=================================== 15:53:15 ===================================

Generating template...

====================== [5] Prechecks started at 15:53:15 ======================

Performing prechecks...

Check target thumbprint: PASS

Check target credentials: PASS

Check Target vCenter Server appliance name: PASS

Check system type: PASS

Check target ESXi host or vCenter version: PASS

Check for OVA property availability: PASS

Check the host's configurations against the vCSA's CPU, memory and datastore

size requirements: PASS

Check VC management status of ESXi containers: PASS

Check target datastore free space: PASS

Check Single Sign-On Server identity: PASS

Check Single Sign-On Server credentials: PASS

Check whether the Platform Services Controller (PSC) is external: PASS

 

 

The following warnings were returned from the prechecks:

DRS Warning:

 

The target ESXi host 'hv-d01.go-lab.jp' is managed by vCenter Server

'192.168.1.95'.

 

If any of these hosts are in a cluster, and DRS is enabled, vMotion can take

effect and adversely impact the installation, upgrade, or migration processes.

It is recommended that you use the *_on_VC.json template file for the target

ESXi host if it is managed by a vCenter Server, and ensure the ESXi hosts you

have specified are not members of clusters with DRS set to Fully Automated

during the installation, upgrade, or migration processes.

 

Basic verification completed successfully.

================== [6] OVF Tool Execution started at 15:53:19 ==================

Running OVF Tool to deploy the OVF...

OVF Tool: Opening OVA source:

E:\vcsa-cli-installer\win32\..\..\vcsa\VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.5.0.14000-7515524_OVF10.ova

OVF Tool:  The manifest does not validate

OVF Tool:  Opening VI target: vi://root@hv-d01.go-lab.jp:443/

OVF Tool:  Deploying to VI: vi://root@hv-d01.go-lab.jp:443/

OVF Tool: Disk progress: 99%

OVF Tool: Transfer Completed

OVF Tool:  Powering on VM: vc-sv02

OVF Tool: Task progress: 0%

OVF Tool: Task Completed

OVF Tool:  Completed successfully

================= [7] Service Installation started at 15:57:28 =================

Installing services...

Service Installation: Progress: 5% Setting up storage

Service Installation: Progress: 50% Installing RPMs

Service Installation: Progress: 54% Installed

VMware-unixODBC-2.3.2.vmw.2-6.5.0.x86_64.rpm

Service Installation: Progress: 56% Installed

vmware-afd-6.5.0.2570-7130183.x86_64.rpm

Service Installation: Progress: 61% Installed

vmware-dns-server-1.0.0-7130192.x86_64.rpm

Service Installation: Progress: 78% Installed

VMware-mbcs-6.5.0-7515524.x86_64.rpm

Service Installation: Progress: 80% Installed

vmware-virgo-6.5.0-7515524.x86_64.rpm

Service Installation: Progress: 84% Installed

vmware-imagebuilder-6.5.0-7515524.x86_64.rpm

Service Installation: Progress: 90% Installed

vmware-vsm-6.5.0-7515524.x86_64.rpm

Service Installation: Progress: 95% Configuring the machine

vCenter Server Service installations succeeded.

============ [8] vCenter Service Configuration started at 16:08:02 ============

Configuring services for first time use...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 2% Starting VMware Authentication

Framework...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 5% Starting VMware Identity Management

Service...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 8% Starting VMware Single Sign-On User

Creation...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 17% Starting VMware Component

Manager...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 20% Starting VMware License Service...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 22% Starting VMware Platform Services

Controller Client...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 25% Starting VMware Service Control

Agent...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 28% Starting VMware vAPI Endpoint...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 31% Starting VMware Service Lifecycle

Manager API...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 34% Starting VMware Appliance

Management Service...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 45% Starting VMware Postgres...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 51% Starting VMware vCenter-Services...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 54% Starting VMware Message Bus

Configuration Service...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 58% Starting VMware vSphere Web

Client...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 59% Starting VMware vSphere Web

Client...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 61% Starting VMware vSphere Client...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 62% Starting VMware vCenter Server...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 65% Starting VMware Content Library

Service...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 68% Starting VMware ESX Agent

Manager...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 71% Starting VMware vSphere Auto Deploy

Waiter...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 74% Starting VMware vSphere

Profile-Driven Storage Service...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 77% Starting VMware Update Manager...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 82% Starting VMware vSphere

Authentication Proxy...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 85% Starting VMware VSAN Health

Service...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 88% Starting VMware vService Manager...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 91% Starting VMware Image Builder

Manager...

vCenter Service Configuration: Progress: 97% Starting VMware Performance

Charts...

First time configuration succeeded.

========== [9] vCenter Server Deployment Summary started at 16:16:27 ==========

Deployment Summary

=================================== 16:16:28 ===================================

vCenter Server Appliance installer finished deploying "vc-sv02".

This appliance is a vCenter Server instance with an embedded Platform Services

Controller.

    System Name: vc-sv02.go-lab.jp

    Log in as: Administrator@vsphere.local

Finished successfully.

=================================== 16:16:28 ===================================

Result and Log File Information...

The vCenter Server Appliance installer result file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-52-o6hfv0\vcsa-cli-installer.json

The vCenter Server Appliance installer log file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-52-o6hfv0\vcsa-cli-installer.log

The vCenter Server Appliance installer metadata file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-52-o6hfv0\vcsa-cli-installer-metadata.json

The vCenter Server Appliance installer status file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-52-o6hfv0\vcsa-cli-installer-status.json

The generated template file:

c:\users\gowatana\appdata\local\temp\vcsaCliInstaller-2018-03-06-15-52-o6hfv0\generated_install.json

PS E:\vcsa-cli-installer\win32>

ESXi に、VCSA の仮想アプライアンスがデプロイされました。

Web ブラウザで vCenter にアクセスできるようになります。

※URL は「https：//vCenter のアドレス/ui」もしくは「https：//vCenter のアドレス/vsphere-client」です。

沢山 vCenter をデプロイするようなときには便利ではないかなと思います。

ちなみに、何度も同じ名前で vCenter をデプロイしていると Chrome / Microsoft Edge で

証明書のエラーになり HTML5 Client / vSphere Web Client にアクセスできなくなることがありますが、

その場合はデプロイした VCSA の CA 証明書を（Firefox などアクセスできるブラウザで何とかダウンロードして）

インストールするとアクセス可能になります。

※その場合、証明書は「https：//vCenterのアドレス/certs/download.zip」からダウンロードできます。

以上、VCSA 6.5 を CLI でデプロイしてみる話でした。

Introduction

Many customers are leveraging configuration management tools like Ansible to do automated configuration management as well as application deployment in their infrastructure. vRealize Automation is perfectly suited to manage the underlying infrastructure layer and leverage Ansible on top for the application deployment and control.

There’s many good articles and blogs which explain in-depth how Ansible can be integrated with vRA like this one here http://www.vmtocloud.com/vra-ansible-integration-3-ways/

When I read these blogs I however had a more dynamic way in my mind for this type of integration. In a nutshell the idea has come up to place Ansible playbooks in a github repository, read them out through vRA and present them in a dropdown. Now the user should be able to select the proper playbook and deployment is automatically taking care about the actual installation through vRA and Ansible.

How does this sound?

Disclaimer

I need to mention at this point that I am not an Ansible expert nor somebody who has in-depth experience in writing best practice orchestrator workflows. This document is all about creating a demo case which works and shows the potential, it’s not intended to provide full guidance for a productive deployment.

Ansible

Ansible installation

To do a proper Ansible deployment an Ansible server is required. In my case I used a simple CentOS VM where I installed Ansible. There’s a lot of documentation on how to setup an Ansible server in the web, so I’ll only explain the relevant bullet points here

• Install Ansible with “yum install ansible”
• Modify /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
  • uncomment “disable host_key_checking”
  • This is to make sure that a new host does not need to be added to the known_hosts file for proper SSH communication

The Orchestrator workflow used for this demo will download playbooks to /root/ansible-playbook-downloads. It will then create a temporary inventory file with “ansible-<IP>” notation and execute “ansible-playbook -i /root/ansible-<IP> /root/ansible-playbook-downloads/<playbookfilename>” going forward.

I am aware that Ansible is leveraging /etc/ansible/hosts inventory in most of the productive cases. To ease deployment for this demo case I decided to use the “-i" option which allows to specify an inventory file containing the target server IPs. With some effort the scripts obviously can be changed to modify hosts file properly.

Ansible playbooks

In my demo the ansible playbooks are stored on my github respository. There’s rather simple playbooks used for the initial use cases:

ansible-httpd-playbook.yml

- hosts: all

  remote_user: root

tasks:

  - name: httpd is installed

yum: name=httpd state=installed

  - name: httpd is running and enabled

service: name=httpd state=started enabled=yes

ansible-mariadb-playbook.yml

- hosts: all

remote_user: root

tasks:

  - name: mariadb is installed

yum: name=mariadb-server state=installed

  - name: mariadb is running and enabled

service: name=mariadb state=started enabled=yes

SSH Key handling

Ansible is communicating through SSH protocol with its target hosts. For this it’s helpful having certificate-based authentication in place. For this demo I created an ssh-key on the Ansible server:

ssh-keygen -t rsa

After that the public key file /root/.ssh/authorized_keys file must be copied to the vRA/vRO server. If you don't want to change the defaults in the vRO workflow you should use the path mentioned here. Otherwise feel free to adapt it.

scp /root/.ssh/authorized_keys <vRO-host>:/etc/vco/app-server/data/authorized_keys

Login to the vRO server and set proper ownership:

chown vco:vco /etc/vco/app-server/data/authorized_keys

There’s an Orchestrator workflow in the package you are about to import below which includes a workflow that copies the above-mentioned file from Orchestrator server to the deployed target VM prior to executing the Ansible workflows.

Preparation in vRealize Orchestrator

Import Orchestrator Workflows

The Orchestrator workflows developed for this use case do leverage the guest script manager package for Orchestrator. Therefore, you have to download it in advance and import it into Orchestrator from this link:

https://code.vmware.com/samples/1317/guest-script-manager-package

Afterwards import the Orchestrator workflow package attached to this article. The package includes a high number of dependent workflows and actions which have to be imported or present before, but the most important one’s for this use case are:

• Workflow “Copy SSH Key”
  Makes sure that the public SSH key is copied to the target VM enabling Ansible to start communication.
• Workflow “Run Ansible Script on VM”
  Downloads the Ansible playbook from GIT and runs the proper Ansible commands on the server to execute a playbook on the target VM. It leverages a script configuration resource also provided with this Orchestrator package.
• Action “getGITFilenamesbyREST”
  Reads filenames which includes yml in name from GIT repository.
• Action “getGITDownloadURLbyREST”
  Retrieves GIT Download URL for filename provided.

Registration of GIT REST Host

The workflows and actions issue REST calls to the github server. As these processes use a HTTPS connection, the related certificates must be imported to vRealize Orchestrator. To do this you have to run the “Add a REST host” workflow once pointing it to the github server:

Modification of Workflow Parameters

After successful import of the Orchestrator package you will find 2 new workflows in this directory.

The attributes of both workflows must be tailored to the target environment.

Most important values to change for “Copy SSH Key”:

• password: root password of target VM (to copy SSH key)

Most important values to change for “Run Ansible Script on VM”

• vm: Select VM where ansible has been installed
• vmPassword: insert root password for Ansible VM
• queryString: Modify repository URL if a different repository should be used

Preparation in vRA

Add Subscriptions in vRA

Actually there’s 2 subscriptions required in vRA to execute the imported vRO workflows, see screenshots below. It’s important to specify subscription priority to make sure that the workflows are executed in the correct order. Make sure that the subscriptions are published after creation.

Add Custom properties in vRA

There’s custom properties required to control the deployment process and add the playbook selection in the blueprint request form.

Adding playbook selection in request form

Create a new property definition as per screenshot below. Make sure you reference the Action “getGITFilenamesbyREST” as external script action and add the properties as needed:

• baseURL: https://api.github.com
• httpMethod: GET
• queryString: /repos/cferber/ansible-playbooks/contents (You can change this if different repository should be used. However you have to make sure it's changed accordingly in the attributes of the Orchestrator workflow above)

Adding property group for running SSH Key workflow

Adding property group for providing payload by EBS

Adding property group for running Ansible workflow

Prepare Linux Template in vRA

In this demo I did use a CentOS 7 template. A default installation of CentOS 7 should work straight away. I won’t explain how to create a CentOS 7 blueprint and publish it properly in this document, but this obviously will be required.

In addition it’s important to enable the property groups created above on the blueprint which makes sure that the workflows are executed at the right time in the provisioning process.

Final test and caveats

Now as you have configured everything properly you should be able to request a CentOS VM. The field “Select Ansible Playbook” should appear in the request form and your yml ansible playbook files available on github repository will be listed for selection.

If the playbook has been selected and request has been issued, deployment of VM should start and finish with application installed as per playbook selection.

If anything goes wrong, you have to leverage your vRA and vRO troubleshooting skills :-) I won’t go into detail on how to do this here.

One caveat I found was that there might be a race condition when multiple deployments run at the same time where one workflow might fail at the point where guest manager tries to modify files simultaneously. Manual re-run would work then however.

This is something that certainly could be solved. For the demo I would recommend only starting one deployment at a time.

Have fun!

VMware continues cloud construction with March announcements

VMware continues cloud  construction with March announcements of new features and other enhancements.

VMware Cloud Provides Consistent Operations and Infrastructure Via: VMware.com

With its recent announcements, VMware continues cloud construction adding new features, enhancements, partnerships along with services.

VMware continues cloud construction, like other vendors and service providers who tried and test the waters of having their own public cloud, VMware has moved beyond its vCloud Air initiative selling that to OVH. VMware which while being a public traded company (VMW) is by way of majority ownership part of the Dell Technologies family of company via the 2016 acquisition of EMC by Dell. What this means is that like Dell Technologies, VMware is focused on providing solutions and services to its cloud provider partners instead of building, deploying and running its own cloud in competition with partners.

VMware Cloud Data Infrastructure and SDDC layers Via: VMware.com

The VMware Cloud message and strategy is focused around providing software solutions to cloud and other data infrastructure partners (and customers) instead of competing with them (e.g. divesting of vCloud Air, partnering with AWS, IBM Softlayer). Part of the VMware cloud message and strategy is to provide consistent  operations and management across clouds, containers, virtual machines (VM) as well as other  software  defined data center (SDDC) and software defined data infrastructures.

In other words, what this means is VMware providing consistent management to  leverage common experiences of data infrastructure staff along with resources in a  hybrid, cross cloud and software defined environment in support of existing as  well as cloud native applications.

VMware Cloud on AWS Image via: AWS.com

Note that VMware  Cloud services run on top of AWS EC2 bare metal (BM) server instances, as  well as on BM instances at IBM softlayer as well as OVH. Learn more about AWS  EC2 BM compute instances aka Metal as a Service (MaaS) here.  In addition to AWS, IBM and OVH, VMware claims over 4,000 regional cloud and  managed service providers who have built their data infrastructures out using  VMware based technologies.

VMware continues cloud construction updates

Building off of previous  announcements, VMware continues cloud construction with enhancements to  their Amazon  Web Services (AWS) partnership along with services for IBM Softlayer cloud  as well as OVH. As a refresher,  OVH is what formerly was known as VMware vCloud air before it was sold off.

Besides expanding on existing cloud partner solution  offerings, VMware also announced additional cloud, software defined data center  (SDDC) and other software  defined data infrastructure environment management capabilities. SDDC and  Data infrastructure management tools include leveraging VMwares  acquisition of Wavefront among others.

VMware Cloud Updates and New Features

• VMware Cloud on AWS European regions (now in  London, adding Frankfurt German)
• Stretch Clusters with synchronous replication for  cross geography location resiliency
• Support for data intensive workloads including  data footprint reduction (DFR) with vSAN based compression and data  de duplication
• Fujitsu services offering relationships
• Expanded VMware Cloud Services enhancements

VMware Cloud Services enhancements include:

• Hybrid Cloud Extension
• Log intelligence
• Cost insight
• Wavefront

VMware Cloud in additional AWS Regions

As part of service expansion, VMware Cloud on AWS has been  extended into European region (London) with plans to expand into Frankfurt and an Asian Pacific location.  Previously VMware Cloud on AWS has been available in US West Oregon and US East  Northern Virginia regions. Learn more about AWS Regions and availability zones (AZ) here.

VMware Cloud on AWS Stretch Clusters Source: VMware.com

VMware Cloud on AWS Stretch Clusters

In addition to expanding into additional regions, VMware  Cloud on AWS is also being extended with stretch clusters for geography  dispersed protection. Stretched clusters provide protection against an AZ  failure (e.g. data center site) for mission critical applications. Build on  vSphere HA and DRS  automated host  failure technology, stretched clusters provide recovery point objective zero (RPO 0) for continuous protection, high availability across AZs at the data infrastructure layer.

The benefit of  data infrastructure layer based HA and resiliency is not having to re architect or  modify upper level, higher up layered applications or software. Synchronous  replication between AZs enables RPO 0, if one AZ goes down, it is treated as a  vSphere HA event with VMs restarted in another AZ.

vSAN based Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) aka Compression  and De duplication

To support applications that leverage large amounts of data, aka data intensive applications in marketing speak, VMware is leveraging vSAN based data footprint reduction (DFR) techniques including compression as well as de duplication (dedupe). Leveraging DFR technologies like compression and dedupe integrated into vSAN, VMware Clouds have the ability to store more data in a given cubic density. Storing more data in a given cubic density  storage efficiency (e.g. space saving utilization) as well as with performance acceleration, also facilitate storage effectiveness along with productivity.

With VMware vSAN technology as one of the core underlying technologies for enabling VMware Cloud on AWS (among other deployments), applications with large data needs can store more data at a lower cost point. Note that VMware Cloud can support 10 clusters per SDDC deployment, with each cluster having 32 nodes, with cluster wide and aware dedupe. Also note that for performance, VMware Cloud on AWS leverages NVMe attached Solid State Devices (SSD) to boost effectiveness and productivity.

Extending VMware vSphere any to any migration across clouds  Source: VMware.com

VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension

VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension enables common management of common underlying data infrastructure as well as software defined environments including across public, private as well as hybrid clouds. Some of the capabilities include enabling warm VM migration across various software defined environments from local on-premise and private cloud to public clouds.

New enhancements leverages previously available technology now as a service for enterprises besides service providers to support data center to data center, or cloud centric AZ to AZ, as well as region to region migrations. Some of the use cases include small to large bulk migrations of hundreds to thousands of VM move and migrations, both scheduling as well as the actual move. Move and migrations can span hybrid deployments with mix of on-premise as well as various cloud services.

VMware Cloud Cost Insight

VMware Cost Insight enables analysis, compare cloud costs across public AWS, Azure and private VMware clouds) to avoid flying blind in and among clouds. VMware Cloud cost insight enables awareness of how resources are used, their cost and benefit to applications as well as IT budget impacts. Integrates vSAN sizer tool along with AWS metrics for improved situational awareness, cost modeling, analysis and what if comparisons.

With integration to Network insight, VMware Cloud Cost Insight also provides awareness into networking costs in support of migrations. What this means is that using VMware Cloud Cost insight you can take the guess-work out of what your expenses will be for public, private on-premises or hybrid cloud will be having deeper insight awareness into your SDDC environment. Learn more about VVMware Cost Insight here.

VMware Log Intelligence

Log Intelligence is a new VMware cloud service that provides real-time data infrastructure insight along with application visibility from private, on-premise, to public along with hybrid clouds. As its name implies, Log Intelligence provides syslog and other log insight, analysis and intelligence with real-time visibility into VMware as well as AWS among other resources for faster troubleshooting, diagnostics, event correlation and other data infrastructure management tasks.

Log and telemetry input sources for VMware Log Intelligence include data infrastructure resources such as operating systems, servers, system statistics, security, applications among other syslog events. For those familiar with VMware Log Insight, this capability is an extension of that known experience expanding it to be a cloud based service.

Wavefront by VMware Source: VMware.com

VMware Wavefront

VMware Wavefront enables monitoring of cloud native high scale environments with custom metrics and analytics. As a reminder Wavefront was acquired by VMware to enable deep metrics and analytics for developers, DevOps, data infrastructure operations as well as SaaS application developers among others. Wavefront integrates with VMware vRealize along with enabling monitoring of AWS data infrastructure resources and services. With the ability to ingest, process, analyze various data feeds, the Wavefront engine enables the predictive understanding of mixed application, cloud native data and data infrastructure platforms including big data based.

Where to learn more

Learn more about VMware, vSphere, vRealize, VMware Cloud, AWS (and other clouds), along with data protection, software defined data center (SDDC), software defined data infrastructures (SDDI)  and related topics via the following links:

• VMware Cloud Briefing site
• VMware vRealize Cloud Management Platform (Application delivery and operations automation across clouds)
• VMware Cost Insight (Analyze and compare cloud costs across public AWS, Azure and private VMware clouds)
• VMware Network Insight (Accelerate application security and networking across public, private, hybrid clouds)
• VMware Wavefront (Monitor cloud native high scale environments with custom metrics and analytics
• VMware Cloud Community resources
• VMware Cloud Partner resources
• VMware vSAN V6.6 Part V (vSAN evolution and summary)
• Dell EMC World 2017 Day One news announcement summary
• September 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter
• Getting Caught Up What Happened In September 2017
• Travel Fun Crossword Puzzle For VMworld 2017 Las Vegas
• Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch
• Dell EMC VMware September 2017 Software Defined Data Infrastructure Updates
• Amazon Web Service AWS September 2017 Software Defined Data Infrastructure Updates
• Data Infrastructure server storage I/O network Recommended Reading
• EMC is now Dell EMC, part of Dell Technologies and other server storage Updates
• World Backup Day 2018 Data Protection Readiness Reminder
• Data Infrastructure Server Storage I/O related Tradecraft Overview
• Data Infrastructure Overview, Its What's Inside of Data Centers
• 4 3 2 1 and 3 2 1 data protection best practices
• Software Defined, Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) resources
• The SSD Place (SSD, NVM, PM, SCM, Flash, NVMe, 3D XPoint, MRAM and related topics)
• The NVMe Place (NVMe related topics, trends, tools, technologies, tip resources)
• Data Protection Diaries (Archive, Backup/Restore, BC, BR, DR, HA, RAID/EC/LRC, Replication, Security)
• Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) including SDDC, Cloud, Container and more

Additional  learning experiences along with  common questions (and answers), as well as  tips can be found in  Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

What this all means and wrap-up

VMware continues cloud construction. For now, it appears that VMware like Dell Technologies is content on being a technology provider partner to large as well as small public, private and hybrid cloud environments instead of building their own and competing. With these series of announcements, VMware continues cloud  construction enabling its partners and customers on their various software defined data center (SDDC) and related data infrastructure journeys. Overall, this is a good set of enhancements, updates, new and evolving features for their partners as well as customers who leverage VMware based technologies. Meanwhile VMware continues cloud construction.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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Thursday, March 29 - 9am - 3pm CST

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Goose Island Beer Brewing Starter Kit

Don’t miss this virtual event opportunity to find out how the Cloud impacts your job at all levels and technologies.

Topics included are as follows:

VMware Cloud on AWS; Virtual Desktops in the Cloud; Extending your infrastructure into the Cloud; Security and the Cloud; Community Sessions, and more!

Keynote Speaker:Frank Denneman