Author: Mischa Buijs

Upgrade MDT 2012 Update 2 to MDT 8443

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It was time to start deploying Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016. So an upgrade from MDT 2012 Update 2 to MDT 8443 was required in my Lab environment.

All my virtual machines with a Microsoft Windows Operating System are deployed with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) / Windows Deployment Services (WDS).

After a successful upgrade to MDT 8443 and a Deployment Share upgrade everything looked fine… but when I started deploying Windows Machines an error occurred.

The following error was displayed at the end of the Deployment Wizard (Invalid DeploymentType=“”).

After some searching on the internet, I came across the following Microsoft TechNet post.

To resolve my problems, the following steps were required:

  1. Create a backup from the following file (%DeploymentShare%\Scripts\DeployWiz_ProductKeyVista.vbs).
  2. Open the following configuration file in your favorite code editor (%DeploymentShare%\Scripts\DeployWiz_ProductKeyVista.vbs).
  3. In the configuration file locate line 52.
  4. Change the line from (if oProperties(“DeploymentType”) = “UPGRADE” then) to (if Property(“DeploymentType”) = “UPGRADE” then).
  5. Save configuration file.
  6. Start a new MDT deployment.
  7. Verify if the issue is fixed.

Now everything should be working as expected! Happy deploying :).

NSX LiveFire Training in Sofia

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This week (12-06/15-06), I attended a VMware training (thanks to my employer ITQ). The training is only available for VMware partners and is called “NSX LiveFire”. It was held at the VMware office in Sofia City, Bulgaria. The training is a technical training given by VMware employees. This time by the following three instructors Bal Birdy, Luca Camarda and Nikodim Nikodimov.

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Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th Generation Servers

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At Dell EMC World 2017, the 14th generation of PowerEdge servers was announced.

There is not a lot of information available but some of the key information:
* The new Intel Xeon processors (‘Xeon Scalable Family’)
* iDRAC version 9 will be available with support for SecureBoot, BIOS Recovery capabilities, signed firmware and iDRAC REST API.

Links:
– Dell EMC – Build Bold Appliances on Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th Generation Servers
– Dell EMC – New Dell EMC PowerEdge: Bedrock of the Modern Data Center
– Dell EMC – Servers
– YouTube – The New Generation of PowerEdge Servers

vSphere Integrated Containers (VIC) v1.1

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This week VMware released vSphere Integrated Containers (VIC) version 1.1. Below are the product highlights and a small introduction to the new product.

Information about VMware Integrated Containers

vSphere Integrated Containers comprises three components:

  • VMware vSphere Integrated Containers Engine, a container runtime for vSphere that allows developers who are familiar with Docker to develop in containers and deploy them alongside traditional VM-based workloads on vSphere clusters. vSphere administrators can manage these workloads by using vSphere in a way that is familiar.VMware Integrated Containers (VIC) - Logo
  • VMware vSphere Integrated Containers Registry, an enterprise-class container registry server that stores and distributes container images. vSphere Integrated Containers Registry extends the Docker Distribution open source project by adding the functionalities that an enterprise requires, such as security, identity and management.
  • VMware vSphere Integrated Containers Management Portal, a container management portal that provides a UI for DevOps teams to provision and manage containers, including retrieving stats and info about container instances. Cloud administrators can manage container hosts and apply governance to their usage, including capacity quotas and approval workflows. When integrated with vRealize Automation, more advanced capabilities become available, such as deployment blueprints and enterprise-grade Containers-as-a-Service.

With these capabilities, vSphere Integrated Containers enables VMware customers to deliver a production-ready container solution to their developers and DevOps teams. By leveraging their existing SDDC, customers can run container-based applications alongside existing virtual machine based workloads in production without having to build out a separate, specialized container infrastructure stack. As an added benefit for customers and partners, vSphere Integrated Containers is modular. So, for example, if your organization already has a container registry in production, you can use that registry with vSphere Integrated Containers Engine and vSphere Integrated Containers Management Portal.

New features:

  • A unified OVA installer for all three components
  • Upgrade from version 1.0
  • Official support for vSphere Integrated Containers Management Portal
  • A unified UI for vSphere Integrated Containers Registry and vSphere Integrated Containers Management Portal
  • A plug-in for the HTML5 vSphere Client
  • Support for Docker Client 1.13 and Docker API version 1.25
  • Support for using Notary with vSphere Integrated Containers Registry
  • Support for additional Docker commands. For the list of Docker commands that this release supports, see Supported Docker Commands in Developing Container Applications with vSphere Integrated Containers.

For more information read the links below.

Links:

Photon Platform 1.2 is available

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Photon Platform version 1.2 has been released this week. Keep in mind the support for VMware ESXi 6.0 has been dropped for Photon Platform version 1.2.

What’s new:

  • Support for Kubernetes 1.6
  • Simpler Cluster Management
  • Static and Dynamic Persistent Volumes
  • Master and Worker Node High Availability
  • Pod Networking and Enhancements
  • AD/LDAP and Security
  • Quota Based Dynamic Resource Allocation
  • SDK and API

For more information read the links below.

Links:

NLVMUG 2017

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VMware NLVMUG 2017On March 16 2017, I attended the NLVMUG 2017 in the Netherlands. Frank Denneman from VMware presented the opening keynote about “VMware Cloud on AWS”. The NLVMUG is a one-day event and displayed 65 sessions, a remarkably high number. The NLVMUG is one of the largest/is the largest VMUG in the world.

This week the NLVMUG organization published the presentations and recorded sessions online. The information is for everyone available and free of charge.

Links:
– NLVMUG website
– NLVMUG YouTube channel

VMware Product Vulnerability (CVE-2017-5638)

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A security vulnerability has been discovered in some VMware products (CVE-2017-5638). It’s a critical vulnerability which allows remote code execution (RCE) on Apache Struts 2.

The vulnerability affects the following VMware products:
– DaaS 6.X / 7.X
– Hyperic 5.X
– vCenter 5.5 / 6.0 / 6.5
– vROPS 6.X

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Changing Guest Time Synchronization Setting From Within-Guest OS

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I recently got a question about enabling and disabling the quest time synchronization for virtual machines. The customer asked about a solution to change the settings from within the operating system instead of the VMware vSphere Client or vSphere Web Client. Normally you would change the virtual machine time synchronization settings by hand with the vSphere Client/Web Client/HTML5 or with a PowerCLI script, but after some searching, it appears, there is a solution provided by VMware.
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PowerCLI Datastore Selection without Storage DRS (SDRS)

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When deploying some virtual machines in a test environment I ran into the following problem. In most cases, I make use of a VMware vCenter Storage DRS cluster, in this case when deploying a virtual machine the best-suited datastore is selected for the virtual machines. The only problem is not all customers are entitled to use Storage DRS, because Storage DRS requires a vSphere Enterprise Plus license.

So I needed to create a workaround to select a datastore with enough space. The default PowerCLI behavior is selecting the first datastore detected on a alphabetic order.

So when you are deploying let’s say twenty virtual machines all those virtual machines will be put on the first datastore, so that isn’t going to work well in most cases.

PowerCLI Code

To solve the problem I created the following PowerCLI code. The code selects a cluster and lists all the datastore available. The datastore with the most space available is selected for the virtual machine that is being deployed.

In the PowerCLI code, I just create a very simple virtual machine but you probably get the point. The magic is the $DS line that selects the datastore.

Requirements:

The PowerShell code is tested with the following VMware software components on Microsoft Windows:

  • PowerCLI 6.5 Update 1
  • VMware vCenter Server 6.0
### Variables
$CLUSTER = "Production"       # A Cluster Name
$FOLDER = "Deployed VMs"      # A Virtual Machine folder name located in the vCenter inventory

### Select datastores available and sort them on free space (select the one with most space free)
$DS = Get-Cluster -Name $CLUSTER | Get-Datastore | Select Name, FreeSpaceGB | Sort-Object FreeSpaceGB -Descending | Select -first 1

### Create a virtual machine called VM01
New-VM -Name VM01 -ResourcePool $CLUSTER -Datastore $DS.Name -Location $FOLDER -MemoryGB 1 -CD -DiskGB 5

Article update:

  • 2018-07-30 – Added feature image.
  • 2018-11-17 – Updated article to support the new standards of the website.

VMware VCAP6-DCV Deployment Certification

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On 1 February 2017, I passed the VMware VCAP6-DCV Deployment exam (3V0-623). This was my first VMware VCAP exam that I ever did. I prepped for about two months in my Home Lab environment and a couple of times I used the VMware Hands-on Labs. The main goal wat to exercise all the objectives listed in the exam blueprint.

So what exactly is the VCAP6-DCV Deployment exam? VMware describes it as following:

This exam tests your skills and abilities in implementation of a vSphere 6.x solution, including deployment, administration, optimization and troubleshooting.

Lab environment:

In my home lab environment I deployed the following components to complete all the exam blueprint objectives:

  • 2x – VMware vCenter 6.0 (Windows and VCSA)
  • 1x – Windows Machine with Update Manager (VUM)
  • 6x – VMware ESXi 6.0 (for vSAN and traditional storage testing)
  • 2x – Site Recovery Manager (SRM)
  • 2x – vSphere Replication
  • 1x – VMware vSphere Data Protection (VDP)
  • 1x – Dell Unity VSA for iSCSI, NFS and Virtual Volumes.

The hardware I used can be found on the following page Home Lab. The environment was using nested ESXi hosts to accommodate the required amount of ESXi hosts.

Personal experience:

The exam is a Lab based exam, so this is completely different than a VMware VCP exam. The exam itself is not the most difficult one out their… at least for someone who is working on a day-to-day base with VMware vSphere. The most difficult part is the time management. You have got twenty-seven objectives to complete and you have 205 minutes to complete them, of course, you just need to score 300 points. That can be a bit tricky because if you get stuck you need to go to the following objective.

There are two unofficial study guides available on the internet. These are based on the VMware Blueprint and they helped me a lot. Both guides are detailed and full of information.

Links: