Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

vSAN File Services fails to create file share with error Failed to create the VDFS File System.

· ·

Last week on our internal slack channel one of the field folks had a question. He was hitting a situation where vSAN File Services failed when creating a file share with the error “Failed to create the VDFS File System”. We went back and forth a bit and after a while I jumped on Zoom to look at the issue, and troubleshoot the environment. After testing various combinations of policies I noticed that a particular policy worked, whole another policy did not. At first it looked like that stretched cluster policies would not work but after creating a new policy with a different name it did work. One thing left, the name of the policy. It appears that the use of special characters in the VM Storage Policy name results in the error “Failed to create the VDFS File System”. In this particular case the VM Storage Policy that was used was “stretched – mirrored FTT=1 RAID-1”. The character that was causing the issue was the “=” character.

How do you resolve it? Simply change the name of the policy. For instance, the following would work: “stretched – mirrored FTT1 RAID-1”.

Cleaning up old vSAN File Services OVF files on vCenter Server

· ·

There was a question last week about the vSAN File Services OVF Files, the question was about the location where they were stored. I did some digging in the past, but I don’t think I ever shared this. The vSAN File Services OVF is stored on vCenter Server (VCSA) in a folder, for each version. The folder structure looks as show below, basically each version of an OVF has a directory with required OVF files.

root@vcsa-duncan [ ~ ]# ls -lha /storage/updatemgr/vsan/fileService/

total 24K

vsan-health users 4.0K Sep 16 16:09 .

vsan-health root  4.0K Nov 11  2020 ..

vsan-health users 4.0K Nov 11  2020 ovf-7.0.1.1000

vsan-health users 4.0K Mar 12  2021 ovf-7.0.2.1000-17692909

vsan-health users 4.0K Nov 24  2021 ovf-7.0.3.1000-18502520

vsan-health users 4.0K Sep 16 16:09 ovf-7.0.3.1000-20036589

root@vcsa-duncan [ ~ ]# ls -lha /storage/updatemgr/vsan/fileService/ovf-7.0.1.1000/

total 1.2G

vsan-health users 4.0K Nov 11  2020 .

vsan-health users 4.0K Sep 16 16:09 ..

vsan-health users 179M Nov 11  2020 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-7.0.1.1000-16695758-cloud-components.vmdk

vsan-health users 5.9M Nov 11  2020 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-7.0.1.1000-16695758-log.vmdk

vsan-health users  573 Nov 11  2020 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-7.0.1.1000-16695758_OVF10.mf

vsan-health users  60K Nov 11  2020 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-7.0.1.1000-16695758_OVF10.ovf

vsan-health users 998M Nov 11  2020 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-7.0.1.1000-16695758-system.vmdk

I’ve asked the engineering team, and yes, you can simply delete obsolete versions if you need the disk capacity.

How to convert a standard cluster to a stretched cluster while expanding it!

· ·

On VMTN a question was asked about how you could convert a 5-node standard cluster to a stretched cluster. It is not documented in our regular documentation, probably as the process is pretty straightforward, so I figured I would write it down. When you create a stretched cluster you will need a Witness Appliance in a third location first. I would recommend deploying that Witness Appliance before doing anything else.

After you deployed the Witness Appliance add the additional hosts to vCenter Server. DO NOT yet add them to the cluster yet though! First, configure each host separately. After you have configured each host, place the host into maintenance mode. After the host is placed into maintenance mode, move it into the cluster and do not take it out of maintenance mode!

Now, when all hosts are part of the cluster you can create the Stretched Cluster. This process is simple, you pick the hosts that belong to each location, and then you select the witness. After the cluster has been created you simply take the hosts out of maintenance mode and you should be good! Note, you take the host out of maintenance after the Stretched Cluster has been created to ensure that you don’t have any rebalancing happening while you are creating the stretched cluster. Simply avoiding unneeded resyncs from occuring.

Do note, all VMs will have the same storage policy assigned still, so you will need to change that policy to ensure that the vSAN objects are placed and replicated according to your requirements! (RAID1 across locations and RAID-1/5/6 within a location for instance.)

Running with power, using a Stryd footpod

· ·

A month ago or so I posted a thread on twitter that discusses my experience of using the Stryd footpod. I figured I would dump it in a blog post so that it doesn’t get lost. I’ve noticed various questions on twitter and facebook groups lately about the Stryd footpod and running with power. Questions that can easily be answered in my opinion, I will add some of those basic questions to the end of this blog.

So what is Stryd and what does it provide? Stryd is a hardware device, that contains many sensors, combined with an ML/analytics platform. The hardware device is a footpod, and it measures your output and running capabilities. That data is then analyzed and your specific training zones are calculated and race results can be estimated. These training zones can then be used to improve your endurance and pace using a single metric!

Stryd displays watts as their key metric, very similar to what a cyclist sees when using a power meter. The benefit of this is that you can use this “watt” metric to for instance pace a race, run intervals, or run a full workout at a particular effort. Of course, you could use pace ranges as well or heart rate, and people have been doing that for many years. However, heart rate typically takes time to ramp up, so during an interval the delay of the heart rate could mean you run in the wrong zone (too slow, or too fast). Pace ranges avoid that problem, but you’ll need to understand your capabilities extremely well to determine those ranges in combination with effort. This can be challenging for advanced runners, let alone beginning runners. [Read more…] about Running with power, using a Stryd footpod

VMware Converter is back!

· ·

William already reported on it a few days ago, and I just noticed it on VMTN that VMware vCenter Converter Standalone is back, or better said in beta! If you are a customer who already has access to the beta community, simply go to this link: vCenter Convert Beta Community to get access to the community and the download/releasenotes. If you don’t have access to the beta community, register for it via the following registration page: https://www.vmware.com/learn/1645300_REG.html, and download vCenter Converter!

<update>Available now: https://www.vmware.com/products/converter.html

I just went to the community and looked at the release notes and wanted to share some details with you:

  • VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.3.0 (GA) | 11 October 2022
  • You cannot upgrade to VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.3.0 from previous versions. If you have a previous version of Converter Standalone installed, uninstall it and then install Converter Standalone 6.3.0
  • You can install Converter on:
    • Windows Server 2012 (64-bit
    • Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)
    • Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • Windows Server 2016 (64-bit)
    • Windows Server 2019 (64-bit)
    • Windows 11 (64-bit)
    • Windows Server 2022 (64-bit)
  • VMware Converter Standalone can convert offline virtual machines from the following Hyper-V servers:
    • Windows Server 2012 (64-bit)
    • Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)
    • Windows 10 (64-bit)
    • Windows Server 2016 (64-bit)
    • Windows Server 2019 (64-bit)
    • Windows 11 (64-bit)
    • Windows Server 2022 (64-bit)
  • VMware Converter Standalone can convert offline virtual machines from the following VMware products and versions:
    • VMware vSphere 6.5 (Update 3)
    • VMware vSphere 6.7 (Update 3)
    • VMware vSphere 7.0 + Update 1 + Update 2 + Update 3
    • VMware Workstation 16.x
    • VMware Fusion 12.x

Of course I downloaded the build and installed it on my Windows host, and it is up and running. Time to convert some machines!

As mentioned by William, the focus was very much on getting a new version out which was fully supported and developed using the latest frameworks. Next, the focus will be on adding new functionality and support for other platforms. I can’t wait for the next version!