Deprecated VMFS volume(s) found on the host. Please consider upgrading volume(s) to the latest version

Manish Jha

Today while working in my Lab I was seeing following warning message on my Esxi host:
Deprecated VMFS volume(s) found on the host. Please consider upgrading volume(s) to the latest version

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This error occurred just after I added a new shared LUN from my openfiler appliance.

If you SSH to Esxi host you will see error similar to as shown below in the /var/log/hostd.log file

… Read the rest

How To Configure NTP Server for vSphere Lab

Manish Jha

Today while working in my lab I was facing an issue where my vSphere Replication appliance was not getting registered to my vCenter server and while troubleshooting I came to find out this is happening because of time difference on my vCenter Server and Replication appliance.

We all know how critical is NTP in vSphere infrastructure as it keep time on all pieces of infrastructure in sync with each other and saves us from common problems that can occur due to time difference on servers.

So I decided to setup NTP server in my home lab. I have read a blog somewhere in past that primary domain controller (PDC) can be configured as NTP server. I have a domain controller in my lab so I followed the following steps to force my PDC to sync its time from internet and later point all my infrastructure servers (vCenter, esxi, replication appliance) to sync its time from my PDC.… Read the rest

vSphere Replication-Part 4: Deploying vSphere replication Appliance

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we saw the prerequisites that needs to be configured in vCenter Server before start deploying the replication appliance. In this post we will see how to deploy vSphere Replication appliance.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1:Introduction to vSphere Replication

2: Lab Setup

3: Preparing vCenter for Replication

Let’s dive into the installation process of replication appliance.

The vSphere Replication appliance is available in  ovf format. Download the ovf file from here.

1: Login to vCenter Web Client and select the Esxi host where you want to deploy the replication appliance and right click on it and choose Deploy OVF template.

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2: Browse to the directory where you have downloaded the ovf file and hit Next.

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3: Review the ovf details and hit Next.

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4: Accept the EULA and hit Next to continue.… Read the rest

vSphere Replication-Part 3: Preparing vCenter for Replication

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we had a look on pieces of infrastructure that needs to be made ready before starting and using vSphere Replication. In this post we will see what are the vCenter server requirements before start deploying vSphere Replication appliances and start configuring it.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1:Introduction to vSphere Replication

2: Lab Setup

Following settings are required to be configured in vCenter Server prior to deploying and configuring vSphere replication Appliances.

1: vCenter Server managed IP Address

The managed address settings corresponds to vCenter server name, so basically its the IP address of the management network. By default this managed address field is left blank. The vSphere Replication appliance require this to exist, so you need to punch the management IP address of your vCenter server here and then reboot the vCenter server.… Read the rest

vSphere Replication-Part 2: Lab Setup

Manish Jha

In first part of this series vSphere Replication Introduction we have discussed what is vSphere Replication and how it works. We also discussed the architecture and components involved and saw the possible use cases where vSphere Replication can be used.

In this post we will look on how to setup lab for deployment of vSphere Replication and what pieces of infrastructure should be ready before we start using vSphere Replication.

I am going to use cross site replication in my lab so here is my lab components:

Hardware Component

I have a Dell M4800 Mobile workstation laptop with 32 GB of RAM and i7 Quad Core processor. I am running all the lab components inside VMware Workstation.

My Lab Components

  1. I installed Server 2012 R2 Datacenter edition as my base OS. This machine will act as my Domain Controller as well as DNS Server (AD Integrated DNS).
  2. I have another Server 2012 R2 Datacenter edition installed in VMware Workstation.
… Read the rest

vSphere Replication-Part 1: Introduction

Manish Jha

I am quite a new candidate to vSphere Replication and have seen quite a few appliances deployed in our production environment as we are offering Disaster Recovery to Cloud (DR2C) services to our customers in vCloud Air and often have to troubleshoot issues related to replication.

So to understand how disaster recovery works and what should be the area we should be looking for while troubleshooting replication issues, I decided to try my hand on learning and deploying vSphere Replication in my lab.

So let’s begin with understanding what is vSphere Replication and its architecture and what components are involved in setting up disaster recovery environment.

What is vSphere Replication?

Earlier vSphere Replication was a feature of Site Recovery Manager (SRM) that automates the failover of virtual machines to a recovery site. vSphere Replication enables the replication of virtual machines (VMs) at the virtual layer instead of at the storage layer, as was required with earlier versions of vSphere and SRM.… Read the rest

vSphere-6:Part 10-Configuring vSphere Update Manager

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we learnt how to install VUM and discussed why we need VUM and how it can simplify the update and upgrades in a large infrastructure and thus make life of a VMware admin easy.

In this post we will see how to configure various settings in VUM and how to create baselines and attach the baselines to host/cluster and then how to remediate hosts.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

8: Configuring Esxi host

9: Installing vSphere Update Manager

Configuring VUM is fairly easy task and there are not much settings involved in it.… Read the rest

vSphere-6:Part 9-Installing vSphere Update Manager

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we have seen how to add Esxi hosts to domain and how to configure Esxi host to reach iSCSI storage.

In this post we will learn how to install and configure vSphere Update Manager.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

8: Configuring Esxi host

Why you need VUM?

You can ask this question to yourself that do you really need VUM in your environment especially while working in Lab environment. I would say yes. May be you are not looking for any upgrade related tasks in your lab but it is always a good idea to have hands on how VUM operates.… Read the rest

vSphere-6:Part 8-Configuring Esxi Hosts Settings

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we have seen how to create and configure  dvswitch and portgroups on dvswitch and how to migrate networking from Standard switch to dvSwitch.

In this post we will see how to configure basic esxi host settings.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

Let’s get started with some basic configuration tasks on the Esxi host.

Adding Esxi hosts to Domain

It’s always a good idea to add Esxi hosts to your corporate domain. Adding Esxi hosts to domain allow you to push specific configurations and security settings from your Domain Controller. Also it can help you track which user has done what activity on esxi hosts (in case Esxi host is disconnected from vCenter and user needs to connect to host directly)

Connect to vCenter server Web-Client and select the Esxi host.  … Read the rest

Performance Charts service returned an invalid response

Manish Jha

Today while working in my lab I was facing performance issues with one of my Esxi host and decided to analyze the performance chart of the host to find out the root cause.

When I select the host and clicked on Performance tab, there was nothing in there and instead it returned an error “Performance Charts service returned an invalid response“

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However when I switched to advance view I was able to see the charts.

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This was strange. I started googling with the error message and came to a discussion thread on VMTN where someone has suggested to enable IPv6 on host.

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I followed the same thing and enabled IPv6 on my Esxi host and rebooted it for changes to take affect. Once host was rebooted I again selected the performance charts and still I was seeing the same error.

I continued with googling and came to a cool Blog-Post by MATT BRADFORD and followed the steps.… Read the rest