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Category: vSphere 6.5

VCSA Tools – Part 1 – journalctl. Better way for vCSA log revision.

VCSA Tools – Part 1 – journalctl. Better way for vCSA log revision.

There’s a plenty of great CLI tools in VCSA that modern vSphere administrator should know, so I decided to share my knowledge and describe them in the series of articles. The first one is journalctl. A tool that simplifies and quickens the VCSA troubleshooting process. Below I’m presenting how I’m using it, to filter the logs records. Log in to VCSA shell and run the commands below, regarding to the result you want to achive. The logs from the current…

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vCenter Server content library

vCenter Server content library

Content Library was introduced in vSphere 6.0 as a way to centrally store and manage VM templates, ISOs, and even scripts. Content Library operates with a Publisher/Subscriber model where multiple vCenter Servers can subscribe to another vCenter Server’s published Content Library so that the data stored within that Content Library is replicated across for local usage. For example, if there are two data centers each with their own vCenter Server a customer could create a Content Library to store their…

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vCenter Server HA – changes in vSphere 6.5

vCenter Server HA – changes in vSphere 6.5

In vSphere 6.5 vCenter has a new native high availability solution that is available exclusively for the vCenter Server Appliance. This solution consists of Active, Passive, and Witness nodes which are cloned from the existing vCenter Server. The vCenter HA cluster can be enabled, disabled, or destroyed at any time. There is also a maintenance mode so planned maintenance does not cause an unwanted failover. vCenter HA supports both an external PSC as well as an embedded PSC. Note, however,…

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VCSA monitoring and recovery options

VCSA monitoring and recovery options

The new vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface is still accessed via port 5480 for any vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller appliance. This refreshed UI now includes additional resource utilization graphs to provide a simple-to-consume visualization of CPU, Memory, Disk, and Database metrics : Above screenshot to the right shows the new vCenter Database monitoring screen that provides some insight into the PostgreSQL database disk usage to help prevent crashes due to running out of space. There are also new…

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VCSA deployment and migration options

VCSA deployment and migration options

The vCenter Server Appliance deployment experience has been enhanced in the vSphere 6.5 release. Installation workflow is now performed in 2 stages. The first stage deploys an appliance with the basic configuration parameters: IP, hostname, and sizing information including storage, memory, and CPU resources. Stage 2 then completes the configuration by setting up SSO and role-specific settings. Once Stage 1 is complete we can now snapshot the VM and rollback if any mistakes are made in Stage 2. This prevents…

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vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 – new default deployment choice

vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 – new default deployment choice

The vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 is the first VMware Appliance to run on Photon OS, it is a Linux OS optimized for virtualization which will become in near future  standard for all VMware virtual appliances. Photon OS provide many benefits to the performance of the vCenter Server Appliance, which includes about 3x performance gain over its Windows counterpart and significantly reduces boot and restart times. This also means no more dependency on 3rd party for OS patching and should greatly…

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HTML5 Client – the new way of managing vSphere environment?

HTML5 Client – the new way of managing vSphere environment?

Since vSphere 6.5, VMware killed standard Windows vSphere Client. However, it was promised so we should not be suprised (anyway I am still shocked ;)). Fortunatelly, every cloud has a silver lining. I reckon that VMware is aware that the current Web Client is not a perfect solution. That’s why they released completely new HTML5 vSphere Client which seems to be quite useful, intuitive and what’s the most important – it works as it should in therms of response times….

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vSphere 6.5 – What’s new in networking  

vSphere 6.5 – What’s new in networking  

  In this article I will try to review all new network features. 1. vmknic gateway Each VMKERNEL port can have its own Gateway. This will make it easy for vSphere features to function seamlessly. This eliminates the need for adding and maintaining static routes. Before vSphere 6.5 there was only one default gateway allowed for all VMKernel ports in an ESXi host. vSphere features such as DRS , iSCSI, vMotion, etc. leverage  that use VMKERNEL ports are constrained by…

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vSphere 6.5 – vCenter Configuration Backup

vSphere 6.5 – vCenter Configuration Backup

In vSphere 6.5 new feature to backup vCenter Server Appliance is available. You can back up it by using build-in file-based solution which backup the core configuration and inventory into a few files. You can also decide which historical data you want to include in such backup. The backup is available from VAMI interface ( at port 5480). The available locations where you can backup the configuration are: FTP and FTPS SCP HTTP and HTTPS As I mentioned before you…

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vSphere 6.5 – New scale limits for paths & LUNs

vSphere 6.5 – New scale limits for paths & LUNs

In vSphere 6.5 VMware  doubled  the  current limits and continuously work on reaching new scale around this . Current limits (before 6.5) pose challenge as for example in some cases our customers have 8 paths to a LUN, in this configuration one can have max of 128 LUNs in a cluster. Also, many of the customers tend to have smaller size LUNs to segregate important data for easy backup and restore. This approach can also exhaust current LUN and Path…

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