Month: April 2018

Exploring vSphere 6.7-Part-3: VUM What’s New And Feature Walkthrough Using HTML5 Client

Manish Jha

With the release of vSphere 6.5, vSphere Update Manager (VUM) was inegrated with VCSA which made customers very happy as we no longer needed an additional windows server for installing VUM.  

With vSphere 6.7, VMware integraded few of the VUM funtionality in the new HTML5 client. Not all the features are available in HTML5 client and few features like VUM configuration changes, VMware tools upgrade etc can only be performed via vSphere Web Client (flash).

VMware is working hard on incorporating all the VUM features in the new HTML5 client as soon as possible and we might see them in upcoming updates of vSphere 6.7. Isn’t it exciting to get rid of flash based Web Client (yeah screw that VMware !!!)

I have written few posts on vSphere 6.7 earlier. You can read those posts from below links:

Installing and Configuring Esxi 6.7

Installing and Configuring VCSA 6.7

So whats enhancements vSphere 6.7 brought for VUM?… Read More

Exploring vSphere 6.7-Part-2-Installing and Configuring VCSA

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we installed Esxi host and navigated around the HTML client to explor various options. In this post we will deploy VCSA host and will explore the new vSphere Client (HTML based).

Like Esxi host, installation of VCSA 6.7 has not much changed from previous version. Only the UI has become a slight better. I have outlined the steps in below slideshow.

Deploying VCSA

Once the Stage 1 of VCSA deployment completes, hit Continue to trigger the second stage of deployment to configure NTP settings and SSO domain configuration.

vc67-14.PNG

 

Once second stage of deployment is finished,  launch the HTML5 client (https://VCSA-FQDN/ui/) and login with administrator@SSO-domain and the password set during deployment.

vc67-23

vc67-24

Assign License

As soon as you login to VCSA UI, you will observe a warning about VCSA running in evaluation mode. Click on “Manage Your Licenses” to assign a new challange. 

vc67-25

Click on + button to add vcenter license key.… Read More

Exploring vSphere 6.7-Part-1-Installing and Configuring Esxi

Manish Jha

vSphere 6.7 was announced by VMware just a day before their 20th foundaton day i.e yesterday. Although this release isn’t as feature-packed as the previous release, but still a lot of enhancements are introduced such as:

  • Instant clone API
  • Quick Boot of Esxi 
  • Per-VM EVC
  • VM Hardware version 14 introduced

I have not tested these features yet so I am not writing in detail about these. The best way to learn and test the new features introduced is to deploy stuffs in lab and start playing around and hence the first post of this series is dedicated to installing Esxi host.

This post will be covered in 2 parts where in first part I will demonstrate installation of Esxi host and in second part we will explore the vSphere Client (HTML based) to configure basic stuffs. 

All download links related to vSphere 6.7 can be found here

Although the installation has been pretty much straight forward over the years and nothing is changed as such, but if you are newbie to VMware it wouldn’t hurt to check out the installation steps from below slideshow.… Read More

Getting Started With Zerto-Part 10: Configuring Advance Site Settings

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we had a look at various dashboards from where we can monitor zerto. Also we learned how to create custom dashboards as per requirement to view very specific details.

In this post we will learn about some advance configuration settings that we can do with zerto. These advance settings are skipped while performing an express install.

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Zerto Architecture and Components

2: Installing Zerto Virtual Manager

3: Installing Zerto Virtual Replication Appliance

4: Creating Virtual Protection Group

5: Performing Test Failover

6: Move VPG from Protection Site to Recovery Site

7: Performing Live Failover

8: Checkpoint Tagging

9: Monitoring VPG

Lets get started.

1: To configure advance settings, login to ZVM interface and from top right corner select “Site Settings”

Advs-1.PNG

2: Cloud Settings: If you have a vCloud Director based cloud in your on-prem or if you have a vcloud based cloud subscription, then you can configure the settings here so that you can use zerto to replicate your workloads on a vCD based cloud.… Read More

Getting Started With Zerto-Part 9: Monitoring VPG

Manish Jha

In last post of this series, we learnt how to use tags for manually created checkpoint. In this post we will explore zerto dashboards to see ow a VPG can be monitored.

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Zerto Architecture and Components

2: Installing Zerto Virtual Manager

3: Installing Zerto Virtual Replication Appliance

4: Creating Virtual Protection Group

5: Performing Test Failover

6: Move VPG from Protection Site to Recovery Site

7: Performing Live Failover

8: Checkpoint Tagging

Being a zerto administrator, we should be familiar with various screens/dashboards that are available in zerto for monitoring stuffs perioidically or when something went wrong. Lets explore the various screens of zerto and checkout what info is available where.

1: Home dashboard: This is the very first screen which comes up when you login to ZVM interface.… Read More

Enabling Zerto Plugin in vSphere 6 WebClient

Manish Jha

While working with Zerto in my lab, I noticed one weird thing that Zrto plugin was not automatically integrated with vSphere Web Client. Same plugin was visible in vSphere thick client though. That’s why I said its a bit weird as VMware wants to get rid of C# client and not much development is being done for it.

All new features of VMware is not only available in Web Client and now I am used of it. So I was looking for if there is any way to enable the plugin in Web Client and then I came across this article by virtubytes. Although the article is written for vSphere 6.5, but the solution worked in vSphere 6.0 as well.

Here are the steps for enabling zerto plugin in Web Client.

1: SSH to vCenter in question and enable bash shell.

… Read More

Getting Started With Zerto-Part 8: Checkpoint Tagging

Manish Jha

In last post of this series, we discussed about scenarios where we can perform live failover and then we actually tested the same in lab. In this post we will learn about tagging checkpoints.

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Zerto Architecture and Components

2: Installing Zerto Virtual Manager

3: Installing Zerto Virtual Replication Appliance

4: Creating Virtual Protection Group

5: Performing Test Failover

6: Move VPG from Protection Site to Recovery Site

7: Performing Live Failover

We discussed a little bit about checkpoints in previous posts of this series and we saw zerto automatically creates checkpoints based on your RPO settings. Checkpoints allows a VM to be restored/recovered to a specific time. Any changes beyond the selected checkpoint will not be included in the recovered VM’s. These checkpoints are crash consistent and written to the journals by ZVM.… Read More

Getting Started With Zerto-Part 7: Performing Live Failover

Manish Jha

In last post of this series, we learnt how to move VPG from protected site to recovery site in the event of when some maintenance activity needs to be prformed on protected site. In this post we will learn to live failover VM’s to recovery site. 

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Zerto Architecture and Components

2: Installing Zerto Virtual Manager

3: Installing Zerto Virtual Replication Appliance

4: Creating Virtual Protection Group

5: Performing Test Failover

6: Move VPG from Protection Site to Recovery Site

Before performing live failover in lab, lets understand some of the basics first.

Live failover is performed in the event of either disaster has occurred on your protected site or you want to simulate the disaster so that you can test the reliability of the DR solution you are using.… Read More

Getting Started With Zerto-Part 6: Move VPG from Protection Site to Recovery Site

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we learnt how to test failover a VM from protected site to recovery site. We also had a look on series of events that are triggered when a test failover is initiated. At last we learnt how to stop (test cleanup) a failover.

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Zerto Architecture and Components

2: Installing Zerto Virtual Manager

3: Installing Zerto Virtual Replication Appliance

4: Creating Virtual Protection Group

5: Performing Test Failover

In this post we will learn about how to move a VPG from one site to another. But before doing this lets understands what happens when a move VPG operation is performed. The series of events which takes place can be summarized as:

1: VMs contained in a VPG are moved from protection site to recovery site.… Read More

Getting Started With Zerto-Part 5: Performing Test Failover

Manish Jha

In last post of this series, we learned about role of VPG.  Also we created a test VPG and saw initial data synch happening between the protected and recovery site. In this post we will learn how to perform test failover.

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Zerto Architecture and Components

2: Installing Zerto Virtual Manager

3: Installing Zerto Virtual Replication Appliance

4: Creating Virtual Protection Group

In a DR environment its always considered as a best practice to periodically perform test failovers to ensure that VM’s are replicating fine and are recoverable at the recovery site. 

Failover Test is completely non-disruptive and there is no impact on production workloads as part of testing. When test failover is performed, VMDK are provisioned using journal history. 

Typically this is the workflow for test failover.… Read More