Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

web client

How to register a Storage Provider using the vSphere Web Client

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I needed to register a Storage Provider for vSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) today. I force myself to use the vSphere Web Client and it had me looking for this option for a couple of minutes. It actually was the second time this week I had to do this, so I figured if I need to search for it there will probably be more people hitting the same issue. So where can you register those VASA Storage Provider’s in the Web Client?

  • In your vSphere Web Client “home screen” click “vCenter”
  • Now in the “Inventory Lists” click “vCenter Servers”
  • Select your “vCenter Server” in the left pane
  • Click the “Manage” tab in the right pane
  • Click “Storage Provider” in the right pane
  • Click on the “green plus”
  • Fill out your details and hit “OK” just like the example below (VNX, block storage)
    registering a Storage Provider

I personally find this not very intuitive and would prefer to have it in the Rules and Profiles section of the Web Client, and when I do configure it… I should be able to configure it for all vCenter Server instances just by select all or individual vCenter Servers. Do you agree? I am going to push for this within VMware, so if you don’t agree, please speak up and let me know why :-).

A host has failed, which VMs were impacted and restarted by HA?

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Someone asked me a question a while back and I figured it was time to write it down… Or in this case to record a video. The vSphere Web Client is a powerful tool when it comes to finding events and problems. This video shows how you can use the vSphere Web Client to figure out which virtual machines were impacted by a host failure and restarted by HA. On top of that I also show you how you can use PowerCLI to list all virtual machines that were restarted recently by HA. No I didn’t write that PowerCLI blurb myself, I elegantly stole it from the infamous PowerCLI guru Jonathan Medd. So if you need the blurb, hit his article and check the “update 2” section as it contains the code for vSphere 5.0 and up. (I tested it on 5.1 and it works as you can see in the video.)

My vCenter Server 5.1 appliance crashed and I was using VDP… now what?

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I had this question this week, what if I am using vSphere Data Protection (VDP) and my vCenter Server appliance (VCVA) crashes… well lets just test it.

I just killed my vCenter Server appliance and deleted if from disk. Next step is to get a brand new vCenter Server appliance up and running. So I deploy a brand new VCVA first. As I have pointed my vSphere Client directly to a host I will need to login to the commandline to configure my networking, you can use vami_config_net but also Yast.

/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net

Next I go through the regular setup and configuration steps. Create a Datacenter and a Cluster and add some hosts. Now I see my VDP appliance again in my inventory… but I don’t see those nice shiny VDP icons. So how do I get those back? Well that is simple, just register the appliance to the new vCenter Server:

  • Point your browser to the VDP configuration web page
    https://<ip address or name of vdp appliance>:8543/vdp-configure/
  • Click on the “configuration” tab
  • Click on the lock to unlock the config
  • Now enter your appliance password
  • Provide the new vCenter Server details (in my case they are the same as the old so I just provide the password of the vCenter Server appliance)
  • Reboot the VDP appliance
  • Reboot the vCenter Server appliance

Now open up the Web Client and …

  • Click the “vSphere Data Protection” option in the left pane of your Web Client
  • If you see the “Not Connected” status, click “Connect”
  • That is it… now you can restore VMs again

 

Back to Basics: Install, configure and use vSphere Data Protection

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Installing vSphere Data Protection is just a couple of steps. I downloaded the vSphere Replication virtual appliance. Note there are three different versions available and depending on how large your environment is you will need to select a version. I selected the 0.5TB version as I have a limited amount of virtual machines. This is how you import it and configure it, but before you begin I recommend ensuring DNS records are created before deploying the appliance!

  • Open the Web Client
  • Go to your cluster under “vCenter” —> “Hosts and Clusters”.
  • Right click the cluster object and click “All vCenter Actions” —> “Deploy OVF Template”
  • As a source I select the ova file I downloaded, now click “Next”
  • Validate the details and click “Next”
  • If you agree “Accept” the EULA and click “Next”
  • Enter the “Name” of the virtual machine and select the “Folder” this virtual machine will needs to be placed in and click “Next”
  • Select the “Datastore” it needs to be provisioned to and click “Next”
  • Select the “Network” it needs to be connected to and click “Next”
  • [Read more…] about Back to Basics: Install, configure and use vSphere Data Protection

Back to Basics: Install, configure and use vSphere Replication

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One of the coolest features that has been included with vSphere 5.1 in my opinion is vSphere Replication. (Make sure to read the what’s new paper) The reason for it being is that it now brings “advanced” technology to everyone (Essentials Plus and upwards). I have used vSphere Replication in 5.0 and it was nice, but with 5.1 the installation and configuration process has been improved. For instance the database is now included in the appliance and it isn’t as DNS sensitive as it was with 5.0. This makes installing and configuring it a matter of minutes.

I am going to assume you have “vSphere Replication” traffic enabled on a VMkernel NIC, if you do not know how to create a VMkernel NIC check this article

Lets get started. I downloaded the vSphere Replication virtual appliance and imported and configured it in just a couple of steps using the vSphere 5.1 Web Client: [Read more…] about Back to Basics: Install, configure and use vSphere Replication