Tag Archives: VMware

What’s new for vSAN 6.6?

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What’s new for vSAN 6.6? [www.yellow-bricks.com]

What’s new for vSAN 6.6?

Yes this may confuse you a bit, a new vSAN release namely vSAN 6.6 but it doesn’t coincide with a vSphere release. That is right, this is a “patch” release for vSphere but a major version for vSAN! It seems like yesterday that we announced 6.2 with Stretched Clustering and 6.5 with iSCSI and 2-Node Direct Connect. vSAN 6.6 brings some exciting new functionality and a whole bunch of improvements. Note that there were already various performance enhancements introduced in vSphere 6.0 Update 3 for vSAN 6.2. Anyway, what’s new for vSAN 6.6?

VMware Social Media Advocacy

VM Delta Migration Procedure

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A while back we were charged with moving VMs to a new data center while also keeping downtime to a minimum.  My team and I came up with a VM Delta Migration process to move a delta of the VM (basically the snapshot) so that we could keep the downtime short.  The basic process was to take a snapshot, copy the VM to external media, and power it on.  Then that media was shipped to the new DC to import.  Once imported and ready, we shut down the VM again, SFTP the snapshot files, imported those into the new VM folder and powered on the VM.  Once the VM was powered on and verified working, we were able to remove the snapshot.  I’ve documented the process below for anyone that may be wanting to do something similar.

This article details the steps taken to perform the migration of a large VM in multiple parts – Part 1 is a bulk data copy, sent via physical media for large files. Part 2 is an incremental copy, to allow us to keep the VM available during this window. When the VM is imported at its new home, both parts should be combined.

Step 1:

Power off the VM, and create a snapshot.

Create Snapshot

Step 2:

Browse to the datastore that the VM is located in, and copy all files in the folder to the bulk storage destination. – Delete the VMWare.log files from the destination.

Browse Datastore

Step 3:

Power the VM back on, and ship the physical media over to the new location.

Step 4:

Once the media has been received, power the VM off again, and copy the following files over to the SFTP server:

  • The VMX file
  • The NVRAM file
  • The 000001.vmdk – Snapshot file
  • The –delta.vmdk – Snapshot deltas

Step 5:

At the new data center, copy the files from step 4 to the physical media from step 2. Overwrite any files that are duplicates.

Step 6:

Add all files from the physical media to a datastore, and import the VM using “Add to Inventory” on the .VMX file.

Step 7:

Power the VM online, and once everything is confirmed working, delete the snapshot.

 

I hope this helps anyone else needing a process to perform a migration of VMs between data centers while keeping downtime to a minimum.

What It Means to Be a VMware vExpert

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What It Means to Be a VMware vExpert [rubrik.com]

What It Means to Be a VMware vExpert

Being a technical professional often results in no one knowing about the work being done–if things go according to plan. Our focus is on being invisible. We set up complicated servers, hook them all together, and offer up resources for virtual machines and data repositories. And in the end, an application is given a home, where visibility of the world is often abstracted from view.

VMware Social Media Advocacy

Released: vCenter and ESXi 6.0 Update 3 –…

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Released: vCenter and ESXi 6.0 Update 3 – What’s in It for Service Providers — via VIRTUALIZATION IS LIFE!

Released: vCenter and ESXi 6.0 Update 3 –…

Last month I wrote a blog post on upgrading vCenter 5.5 to 6.0 Update 2 and during the course of writing that blog post I conducted a survey on which version of vSphere most people where seeing out in the wild…overwhelmingly vSphere 6.0 was the most popular version with 5.5 second and 6.5 lagging in adoption for the moment.

VMware Social Media Advocacy

VCP6-DCV Delta Exam Experience

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VCP6-DCVI recently took and passed the VCP6-DCV Delta Exam (2V0-621D), so I thought I’d share my test and study experience.  I also hold a VCP5-DCV but this test was different.  The VCP5 test had a lot more situational knowledge questions where I felt the VCP6 exam was more book knowledge questions.

Questions

A good portion of the questions on the exam are around permissions.  Things like how they are applied, what permissions allow what as well as how permissions flow by level (global, local).  There are also questions regarding limits and reservations on VMs.  An image was shown with VMs given a set memory allocation but some had a high share value and others a normal value.  You are asked which VM is given priority.

Study

My study suggestion would be to make sure you’re comfortable with permissions, new features in 6 and limits in 6, as well as shares.  As always, the VCP is best taken after you’ve worked in an environment previously.  If you are unable to play in an environment at work, build up a quick lab at home.  There are dozens of articles out there that show you how to create a small lab with very minimal hardware. Finally, make sure to go over the blueprint that VMware has for the exam.  Make sure you are comfortable with everything in it and if you’re not, then you know what you need to study.  Blueprint can be found here.

VMware also provides a practice test for you to take.  You can take it up to 100 times.  I found that several of the questions on the practice test were very close to questions on the actual test.  The wording may have been different but the format and complexity of the question were very similar.  The practice test can be found here.

Best of luck on your exam!

vExpert 2017 Award Announcement

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Honored to be selected for my 3rd year in the vExpert program.

vExpert 2017 Award Announcement

First we would like to say thank you to everyone who applied for the 2017 vExpert program. I’m pleased to announce the list 2017 vExperts. Each of these vExperts have demonstrated significant contributions to the community and a willingness to share their expertise with others. Contributing is not always blogging or Twitter as there are many public speakers, book authors, CloudCred task writing, script writers, VMUG leaders, VMTN community moderators and internal champions among this group.

VMware Social Media Advocacy

VMware Security Advisory for ESXi 6.0 and 5.5

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Vmware released a new security advisory today advising that ESXi versions 6.0 and 5.5 are vulnerable to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS).  The details of the advisory can be found below as well as the current solution.

Advisory ID: VMSA-2016-0023

Severity:    Important

Synopsis:    VMware ESXi updates address a cross-site

scripting issue

Issue date:  2016-12-20

Updated on:  2016-12-20 (Initial Advisory)

CVE number:  CVE-2016-7463

  1. Summary

VMware ESXi updates address a cross-site scripting issue.

 

  1. Relevant Releases

VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi)

 

  1. Problem Description
  1. Host Client stored cross-site scripting issue

 

The ESXi Host Client contains a vulnerability that may allow for

stored cross-site scripting (XSS). The issue can be introduced by

an attacker that has permission to manage virtual machines through

ESXi Host Client or by tricking the vSphere administrator to import

a specially crafted VM. The issue may be triggered on the system

from where ESXi Host Client is used to manage the specially crafted

VM.

VMware advises not to import VMs from untrusted sources.

VMware would like to thank Caleb Watt (@calebwatt15) for reporting

this issue to us.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has

assigned the identifier CVE-2016-7463 to this issue.

 

Column 4 of the following table lists the action required to

remediate the vulnerability in each release, if a solution is

available.

VMware  Product Running             Replace with/

Product Version on       Severity    Apply Patch*        Workaround

======= ======= =======  ========   =============        ==========

ESXi     6.5    ESXi

N/A        not affected           N/A

ESXi     6.0    ESXi

Important  ESXi600-201611102-SG   None

ESXi     5.5    ESXi

Important  ESXi550-201612102-SG   None

*The fling version which resolves this issue is 1.13.0.

 

  1. Solution

Please review the patch/release notes for your product and

version and verify the checksum of your downloaded file.

 

ESXi 6.0

————-

Downloads:

https://www.vmware.com/patchmgr/findPatch.portal

Documentation:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2145815

 

ESXi 5.5

————

Downloads:

https://www.vmware.com/patchmgr/findPatch.portal

Documentation:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2148194

 

  1. References

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2016-7463

Source: http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2016-0023.html