Create an alert in vRLI for missing vSAN 7 File Shares

April 7, 2020 Kim Bottu 0

vSAN File services, they are finally here. However in my nested lab, after rebooting the vSAN cluster, often the file services do start but the shares remain unavailable. A good state of the File Services look like this: When all goes well, your File Services Shares should have been created at about the same time. In my test example, I have setup 2 different File Shares. So far so good. However, when I shutdown my vSAN cluster, going through the motions of putting my nested hosts into Maintenance Mode and shutting down the hosts, and then boot the hosts up again and get them out of maintenance mode, the File Services do come back up, but somehow the File Shares […]

VCDX-NV – Defence Scenario

March 20, 2020 Chris Noon 2

Due to the virus outbreak, my VCDX defence has been postponed until the next window, which is June. The VCDX board decided, understandably, to keep their panellists and applicants as safe as possible. That said, I thought I’d continue the blogging trend and discuss another area of preparation. Still excited as 3 months will fly by! I’ve discussed the document and design defence. Now let’s look at the defence scenario. What is the Defence Scenario? The defence scenario is 1 of 2 defences I will have to complete to successfully become a VCDX. The first task is the design defence, which I’ve spoken about here. The second is the defence scenario. This is a 45-minute window where my 3 panellists […]

HCX Migrations using L2 Ext Legacy Complexities #L2VPN #HCX #VCF

March 16, 2020 Bilal Ahmed 5

Lay of the land I have been working with a customer and came across something interesting. Most people when configuring 2 vCenters don’t share VLANs between the 2, with management networks being the exception. But here we had a VLAN in 2 vCenters which needed to be migrated to our new VCF site. This new site would utilise NSX-v to terminate the default gateway. I think this is best shown in a diagram: For some unknown reason, a decision was made to separate out the Windows and Linux workloads into 2 vCenters but use the same VLAN. Sometimes you can come back and visit a decision you made previously with fresh eyes and new info and realise it wasn’t the […]

Using the API to add a new certificate to a vRLI cluster

March 13, 2020 Kim Bottu 0

When you have to replace certificates on multiple vRLI clusters, using the API might be a better way to change them on all your cluster nodes. Prerequisites You will need to prepare a certificate with a subject alternative name (SAN) for each of the cluster members and the Internal Load Balancer (ILB).You can use this article as a guide. How to Take note that I do not know if this is officially supported, but in my tests it works. Use a REST API client and connect to the ILB IP and request a session token. Make sure to add the credentials to the body of your request. When you post the command, a session token will be generated. You need […]

VCF4, vSphere 7, vSAN7, vROps 8.1 and everything else!

March 10, 2020 Kim Bottu 0

Introduction The days where all applications ran from a couple of servers managed by a couple of administrators hidden away in the basement of an office building are coming to an end. Although a big chuck of traditional applications will continue to need traditional servers to run from, it cannot be ignored that containers have been changing the application landscape. More and more applications are running from containers in a distributed architecture. Because the business expects applications to be delivered when they are needed, not in 3 months from now. Agility drives business and this is no different for the applications that the business relies on, no one wants to wait for an extended provisioning time for setting up new […]

How to export and import vRLI alerts which make use of vROps fallback objects, into another datacentre, by using Postman

February 25, 2020 Kim Bottu 0

In case you are managing a multitude of datacentres and are relying on vROps and vRLI to monitor your environments, by now you have found out that some alerts are present in vROps and other alerts are present in vRLI. You can configure alerts in both products, but while you can export and import vROps alert definitions and symptom definitions created in environment A into environment B, this does not go as easily for vRLI when you are using vROps fallback objects . If you are not using fallback objects, you can disregard this post. Requirements vRLI vROps Postman or any other REST API client. I use Postman myself. Notepad ++ Create some alerts in vRLI Create some alerts in […]

VCDX-NV – Design Defence

February 20, 2020 Chris Noon 3

I am waiting to hear back on my defence invite, but am preparing like I’ve been invited.  Solid advice any VCDX will give you. The design defence is an invitation to Palo Alto, Staines or Sydney to defend your design and run through a scenario.  In today’s blog, I am going to talk about my experience when preparing for the design defence. The design defence is you defending your submitted design.  This is a 75-minute window for you to present your submitted project and defend your design choices.  While it’s a 75-minute window, its recommended you prepare a c15-minute presentation.  The other 60 minutes will be used by the panellists to ask questions about anything relating to the submitted design. […]

HCX Service Mesh Considerations #HCX @VMwareHCX #vExpert

January 20, 2020 Bilal Ahmed 0

So let us have a quick overview of HCX Service Meshes before we continue: Service Meshes can contain all 3 appliances or just an Interconnect appliance or just a Layer 2 Ext appliance, depending on your needs. The WAN Optimiser is optional. Features are always being added to HCX, but these are the key services/appliances. The Interconnect (IX) appliance holds most of the services, I tell people to think of it as a vSphere Replication Manager, as that is one of the main services it holds. HCX uses vSphere Replication for all its replication bits, so the same pros and cons that apply to vSphere Replication apply here as well! How the Mesh is configured and deployed is dependant on […]