The 1:st of August VMware released the vCenter Server 5.1 U1b. This release does not bring any new features or functions, it focuses on bug fixes. I just wanted to point out one specific bug fix that will justify an upgrade to the newest vCenter Server version for at least one of my customers. vCenter …
Category Archive: vSphere
vSphere Distributed Port Group Teaming and Failover – Failback option
Last week i had a discussion with a customer regarding the vSphere Distributed Port Group Teaming and Failover configuration Failback (Failback) when using the Teaming and Failover: Load balancing configuration “Route based on physical NIC load” aka LBT. All available dvUplinks configured as Active uplinks. We discussed if the Failback configuration makes a difference regarding virtual …
ESXi host advanced settings
During every vSphere design and Health Check the vSphere advanced settings are being discussed and every once in a while i receive an email asking me what vSphere advanced settings i normally use and recommends. I know Duncan Epping wrote a blog post about when to use the vSphere advanced settings a while ago. In general i agree …
Update vSphere DRS rules using PowerCLI
I was asked by one customer last week to create a script that adds virtual machines to a vSphere DRS group, “VM DRS Group”, based on virtual machine guest operating. My customer runs vSphere 5.1 and a licensing issue was the underlying cause of the request. My customer have two vSphere clusters running 16 ESXi …
Read vSphere Data Protection backup email reports carefully!
A few weeks ago i received an email from a customer using VMware Data Protection (VDP) version 5.1.0.56.179 for their vSphere 5.1 (vCenter Server version 5.1.0 880146) environment. I thought this was a one time issue but a few days ago i received one more email from a another customer with the same issue so …
Virtual machine disk consolidation needed.
This blog post applies to the vCenter Server version 5.1.0.880146 and ESXi version 5.1.0.799733. Today i ran into an issue with the Snapshot Consolidate feature. The vSphere Web Client informed me that a “Virtual machine disk consolidation needed” was required for my VM. The virtual machine is backed up by vSphere Data Protection 5.1.0.56.179 and …
Configure and report the ESXi host TSM-SSH service using PowerCLI
A customer contacted me the other day asking for a way to verify if the ESXi host TSM-SSH (SSH) service is running, and if so: Turn off the TSM-SSH service. Send an e-mail report including all ESXi hosts where the TSM-SSH service was stopped. The customer’s vSphere administrators sometimes enable the ESXi host TSM-SSH service …
SMB vCloud Director design challenge – number of licenses
I have previously written about a vCloud Director (vCD) implementation where the vCD based VMs must coexists with traditional vSphere based VMs in the same vSphere cluster, post available here. A few days ago one customer added an even more interesting parameter to such a solution. The customer has an existing vSphere environment, running both …
vCenter Update Manager installation fails – error 25085
For the first time i have had a hard time installing vCenter Update Manager (VUM) version 5.1 (not U1 or U1a). The vCenter Server upgrade, from version 5.0, did complete without any errors. VUM was not used before meaning no upgrade was available. The installation failed in the end, when register VUM to vCenter Server, …
Cannot power on virtual machine, CID mismatch
Last week i was contacted by two customers facing the same problem. Both customers running vSphere 5.1 U1 and ESXi 5.1 U1 and they couldn’t start one or more virtual machines and received the following error in the vSphere Web Client: The useful option to submit an error report in the vSphere Web Client adds …
vSphere and vCloud Director database creation script
A customer called me yesterday asking for a script to create the necessary databases to run: vCenter Server vCenter Single Sign On vCenter Update Manager vCloud Director The customer was about to perform a clean install in their test environment and will be using vCenter Server 5.1 U1, ESXi 5.1 U1 and vCloud Director (vCD) …
vCloud Director vApp VM stop action
I have been asked by a couple of customers lately why the vCloud Director (vCD) based VMs by default are being Power Off when you Stop a vApp using the vCD UI. This behavior applies to all existing vCD versions including the latest 5.1.2 release. The Power Off action does not perform a VM guest …
ESXi host advanced configuration using PowerCLI – parameter Net.BlockGuestBPDU
I was recently asked by one customer to verify the existing Bridge Protocol Data Unit (BPDU) Filter configuration for their 75+ ESXi hosts and if needed (not activated) change the default configuration from the value “0” to the value “1” to activate the feature. This blog post will focus on the PowerCLI configuration and not explaining …
VMware certification preparation
Lately i have received a couple of questions regarding how to prepare (what to study and for how long) before taking VMware certification exams. Basically, it all comes down to your current knowledge meaning it is not that easy to make recommendations. In this blog post i’ll include what i personally do (practice & study) …