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Showing posts from October, 2017

NSX Install Guide Part 1 – Mgmt and Control Planes

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Part 1 provides details of the deployment and official documentation, we’ll build the management and control planes by deploying NSX Manager and an NSX Controller cluster. Part 2 will walk through the data plane components; host preparation, VTEP / VXLAN configuration, transport zone, and logical switches. Finally in Part 3 we’ll create and configure NSX Edge and Distributed Logical Routers. In order to get NSX up and running we’ll need: An underlying network with IP connectivity and an MTU size of 1600 or above. FQDN resolution, connectivity, and time synchronisation between NSX and vSphere components – a full list of network port requirements can be viewed in this KB. ESXi and vCenter versions 5.5 – 6.0 U2 for NSX 6.2.x. Update – NSX 6.3.0 is compatible with vSphere 6.5a, download NSX 6.3 here , NSX 6.3 release notes here , NSX 6.3 what’s new here . An FTP/SFTP server is required for NSX backups; VMware NSX Backup and Restore . It’s also good practise to have a syslog

ESXsi Virtualisation Journey VMware vSAN 6.5 Install

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VMware vSAN is an enterprise class, high performance, shared storage solution for Hyper-Converged Infrastructure . vSAN utilises server attached flash devices and local hard disk drives to create a highly resilient shared datastore across hosts in a vSphere cluster. To achieve high availability VMware administrators previously needed to connect to a SAN, NAS or DAS device, vSAN removes the need for dedicated external shared storage by adding a software layer that can leverage local server hardware to provide the same resiliency and feature set. Virtual SAN is uniquely embedded within the hypervisor kernel, directly in the I/O path allowing it to make rapid data placement decisions. This means that vSAN can produce the highest levels of performance without taking compute resources, as opposed to other storage virtual appliances that run separately on top of the hypervisor. This is by no means a comprehensive guide to VSA, but an overview of what it does and how to enabl

Migrating Windows vCenter Server to VCSA 6.5

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his post gives a walkthrough on migrating from a Windows based vCenter Server (VCS) to the Photon OS based vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA). This guide is specific to migrating and upgrading from vCenter Server 5.5 or 6.0 to VCSA 6.5. If you are looking to migrate from vCenter Server 5.5 to VCSA 6.0 then see Migrating Windows vCenter Server to VCSA 6.0 , or to deploy a new VCSA review the vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 Install Guide. About VCSA The VCSA is a pre-configured virtual appliance; as of v6.5 the operating environment is built on Project Photon OS 1.0. Since the OS has been developed by VMware it benefits from enhanced performance and boot times over the previous Linux based appliance. Furthermore the embedded Postgre database means VMware have full control of the software stack, resulting in significant optimisation for vSphere environments and quicker release of security patches and bug fixes. The VCSA scales up to 2000 hosts and 35,000 virtual machines.

vRealize Log Insight 4.x Install Guide

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vRealize Log Insight is a powerful log management and analytics tool, natively integrating with VMware products such as vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations, and vSphere, as well as providing a heterogeneous platform for third party products. By collecting logs at operating system, virtual machine, host, and vCenter level, as well as for third party products, Log Insight is able to compile dashboards, and perform data analysis to help administrators troubleshoot quickly and effectively. To read more see the product page here . In this post we will install a new Log Insight appliance, additional appliances can also be added to scale out the solution. If you are using vRA and/or NSX see also the NSX with Log Insight Integration  and  vRealize Automation with Log Insight Integration  guides. Requirements vRealize Log Insight can be licensed in packs of operating system instances, per CPU, or as part of vRealize and vCloud suites. A 60 day free trial can be obtained