Tag: ITQ

VMworld 2018 US Announcements

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VMworld 2018 US - Featured Images

This blog post is dedicated to the VMworld 2018 US announcements. In the post, you will find the articles, links and highlights. VMworld 2018 US is an event that is organized by VMware. The US version is a five-day event that is held in Las Vegas. It takes place from 26 August to 30 August 2018. This page will be updated multiple times to coming days to add additional information and the latest announcements.

Please reply underneath this blog post if you have some additional information. This can also be additional links or blogs posts.

VMworld 2018 US – Product Announcements

In this chapter are all the product announcements. I can tell you there are a lot of announcements made at VMworld 2018.

vRealize Automation (vRA) 7.5

One the first day of VMworld 2018 US vRealize Automation 7.5 was announced.

The key highlights are:

  • Easy to Operate
    • Modernized vRealize Automation/vRealize Orchestrator(vRO) UI
    • Closed Loop Optimization with vRealize Operations
    • Enterprise-ready ServiceNow plugin
    • NSX-T On-premises Support
  • Built to Support Developers
    • Configuration Management with Ansible Tower
    • Kubernetes Cluster Management with VMware Pivotal Container Services (PKS)
  • Helps Embrace Multi-Cloud
    • AWS Enhancements
    • Azure Enhancements
    • Google Cloud Enhancements

Links:

vRealize Operations Manager (vROPS) 7.0

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US vRealize Operations Manager 7.0 was announced.

The key highlight are:

  • Enhanced User Interface
  • Automating Performance Based on Business and Operational Intent
  • Automated Host Based Placement, Driven by Business Intent
  • Capacity Analytics Enhanced with Exponential Decay and Calendar Awareness
  • Plan Capacity across Private Cloud and VMware Cloud on AWS
  • Simplified Dashboard Creation and Sharing
  • vRealize Operations AWS Management Pack Update
  • Other Miscellaneous Enhancements
    • Workload Right-sizing to avoid performance bottlenecks and reclaim over-allocated resources
    • Built-in vSphere config & compliance: PCI, HIPAA, DISA, FISMA, ISO, CIS
    • Ability to extend to the entire data center and cloud with updated management packs for Storage, vRO, Kubernetes, Federation etc.
    • vSAN performance, capacity, and troubleshooting including support for stretched clusters and through vRealize Operations plug-in in vCenter
    • Wavefront integration for application operations

Links:

vRealize Log Insight (vRLI) 4.7

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US vRealize Log Insight 4.7 was announced.

The key highlights are:

  • Security Improvements
    • Detailed verification of certificate when adding it to vRLI both from UI and REST API
    • Ability to retrieve current certificate details both from UI and REST API
    • LIAGENT_SSL_CA_PATH environment variable
  • Usability Enhancements
    • vCenter Integration now relies on user-provided hostname instead of trying to resolve it
    • Ability to choose the content packs, the fields of which should be dynamically extracted in the query result in Interactive Analytics
    • Improvements in the REST API
    • UI/UX improvements and bug fixes

Links:

vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) 3.9

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US vRealize Network Insight 3.9 was announced.

The key highlights are:

  • Plan micro-segmentation and get visibility for NSX Data Center, including NSX-T
  • Enhanced security for service access with Multi-factor Authentication
  • Custom dashboard support for Cisco ASA firewall and enhancements to Checkpoint Firewall support
  • Many customers are now using VMware Network Insight as a service, and customers based in Europe now also have the option of using the VMware Network Insight service hosted out of London, UK.

Links:

vCloud Director (vCD) 9.5

Just a couple of days before VMworld 2018 US vCloud Director 9.5 was announced:

The key highlights are:

  • Cross-site networking improvements powered by deeper integration with NSX
  • Initial integration with NSX-T
  • Full transition to an HTML5 UI for the cloud consumer
  • Improvements to role-based access control
  • Natively integrated data protection capabilities, powered by Dell-EMC Avamar
  • vCD virtual appliance deployment model

Links:

vSphere Platinum

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US, a new vSphere edition was announced. The product is called vSphere Platinum and it has a tight integration with VMware AppDefense.

The key highlights are:

  • Benefits for vSphere Admins
    • Gain visibility into the intent of each virtual machine, and a detailed inventory of application assets and context.
    • Understand how applications behave and be alerted to potential issues and deviations.
    • Shrink the attack surface and reduce the risk of security compromise.
      Establish a simple and powerful way to collaborate with security, compliance and application teams.
    • Get better visibility and protection with a simple, light-weight and scalable security solution, with no agents to manage, and minimal overhead.
    • Use what you already own, understand, and run in your data center – vSphere – with its unique visibility, automation and isolation qualities.
    • Play a larger and critical role in the security of your entire IT environment – Be the Security Hero!
  • Benefits for Security Teams
    • Better visibility and situational awareness of application behaviours, and virtual machine purpose.
    • Faster detection, analysis, and time to response – quickly understand attacks and make fast decisions using application context and scope.
    • Enhance existing security tools and support compliance efforts through contextual visibility and alerts into application communications and deviations.
    • Lower false positives – integrated behavioural analytics and machine learning offer a more precise method to identify and respond to threats.
    • Big data correlation for better identification and context using cloud SaaS model.
    • Security as an agile business enabler – support DevOps environment through continuous learning and protection.
    • Easily Coordinate with vSphere Admins and Application teams for better security while respecting existing workflows & maintaining separation of duties.
  • Secure Applications
    • VMware AppDefense – Protects the integrity of applications running on vSphere, using machine learning to monitor against threats and automate responses. AppDefense locks down the guest operating system for all applications, the VMware application stack and third-party applications.  To accomplish this, AppDefense gathers inventory data on virtual machines and applications from vCenter Server, development tools, and automation frameworks and applies machine learning to discover the intended state and establish the known good behaviours for the application and machine.  Any deviations from this state are detected and prevented, securing the integrity of the applications, infrastructure, and guest operating system. AppDefense provides detailed visibility for better change management and compliance reporting and also provides a rich set of automated or orchestrated incident response mechanisms to address attacks. Moreover, it leverages machine learning for a simple and automated way to conduct audits and reviews for applications.
  • Secure Data
    • FIPS 140-2 Validated VM Encryption, and cross-vCenter Encrypted vMotion – Secure against unauthorized data access both at rest and in motion, across the hybrid cloud.
      Secure Infrastructure
    • Secure Boot for ESXi – Allows only VMware and Partner signed code to run in your hypervisor.
      Secure Boot for Virtual Machines – Helps prevent images from being tampered with and prevents the loading of unauthorized components.
    • Support for TPM 2.0 for ESXi – Enables hypervisor integrity by validating the Secure Boot for ESXi process and enables remote host attestation.
    • Virtual TPM 2.0 – Provides the necessary support for guest operating system security features while retaining operational features such as vMotion and disaster recovery.
    • Support for Microsoft Virtualization Based Security – Supports Windows 10 and Windows 2016 security features, like Credential Guard, on vSphere.
  • Secure Access
    • Audit Quality Logging – Enables authorized administration and control by providing high fidelity visibility in vSphere operations.

Links:

vSphere 6.7 Update 1

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US vSphere 6.7 Update 1 was announced.

The key highlights are:

  • Fully Featured HTML5-based vSphere Client
  • Enhanced support for NVIDIA Quadro vDWS powered VMs; and Support for Intel FPGA
  • New vCenter Server Convergence Tool
  • Enhancements for HCI and vSAN
  • Enhanced vSphere Content Library

Links:

vSAN 6.7 Update 1

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US vSAN 6.7 Update 1 was announced.

The key highlights are:

  • Simplified Operations
    • Cluster Quickstart
    • Driver & Firmware Updates using Update Manager
    • Decommissioning and Maintenance Mode Safeguards in vSAN 6.7 U1
    • More vRealize Operations Intelligence
    • Improved Capacity Reporting
  • Efficient Infrastructure
    • TRIM/UNMAP Support
    • Mixed MTU Support for 2 Node and Stretched Clusters
    • Updated Sizing Tools
  • Rapid Support Resolution
    • Improved Health Check Guidance
    • Enhanced Support Diagnostics

Links:

VMware Validated Design 4.3

Also, the VMware Validated Design (VVD) received some new features and changes to the documentation. Personally, the greatest value in this release is the Visio stencils that are available for everyone.

The key highlights are:

  • Official NSX-T Support
  • Documentation Updates
    • IT Automating IT Scenarios
    • Intelligent Operations Scenarios
    • Introduction to Security and Compliance
    • Operational Verification
    • Certificate Replacement for 2-pod
    • Certificate Replacement for 1-pod
  • Architecture and Design of VMware PKS for Workload Domains
  • Design and Deployment of VMware Skyline
  • Architecture and Design Guidance for NIST 800-53
  • VVD Diagrams and Stencils

Links:

VMworld 2018 US – Technical Previews & Projects

There were also a lot of announcements surrounding some new developments/projects.

Project list:

  • Project Concord – Project Concord uses Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus protocols to deliver a functioning distributed trust system: one that is both “safe” and “alive.” Concord is a generic state machine replication library that can handle malicious (Byzantine) replicas.
  • Project Dimension – Project Dimension will extend VMware Cloud to deliver SDDC infrastructure and hardware as-a-service to on-premises locations.
  • Project Magna – Project Magna will make possible a self-driving data center based on machine learning.
  • RDS on VMware – VMware demonstrated how Amazon Web Service’s RDS service will run on VMware in a private data center, thus offering developers a familiar RDS Functionality available on VMware in a private data center or at the Edge.
  • Virtualization on 64-bit ARM for Edge – VMware demonstrated ESXi on 64-bit ARM running on a windmill farm at the Edge.

Links:

VMworld 2018 US – ITQ Blogs 

Here is a list of ITQ blogs with additional VMworld 2018 US content:

VMworld 2018 US – Keynotes

There are already some recordings available of the keynotes. These can be found on YouTube with the following links:

VMworld 2018 US – Recordings

Just like every year, William Lam from the website virtuallyGhetto creates a GIT repository with all the VMworld sessions. For each session, a recording and presentation are provided. It will probably be a couple of days till weeks until all sessions become available.

vRealize Automation enabling the VMware Identity Manager GUI

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In this blog post, I am going to show you how to enable the VMware Identity Manager GUI when it is located inside vRealize Automation. I am going to explain why you sometimes should and how the procedure is performed.

For some who don’t know, VMware vRealize Automation (vRA) is using under the covers VMware Identity Manager (vIDM). By default is the VMware Identity Manager GUI disabled after the vRealize Automation installation process. If you want to configure parts of vIDM you are configuring it through the vRealize Automation GUI.

Let’s get everybody on the same page: So you are talking about two GUIs the vRealize Automation GUI and the VMware Identity Manager GUI? Who is who, explain it to me!

vRealize Automation GUI - Displaying Active Directory Users
Here is the vRealize Automation (vRA) GUI – Displaying multiple Active Directory users

VMware Identity Manager GUI - Displaying Active Directory User
Here is the VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) GUI – Displaying an Active Directory user (by the way: the name Dick is a common name in The Netherlands)

Keep in mind: I’m not completely sure what will happen if you would configure items with the vIDM GUI. Because you are bypassing the default vRealize Automation GUI. I have done some tests and no problems were caused in my Lab environment but it might cause issues later on… So why do you enable it then? Because of the large amount of information provided throughout the vIDM GUI. The vRealize Automation GUI is only showing a small peace and not the big picture.

Product support: I have tested this procedure on vRealize Automation version 7.3 and vRealize Automation 7.3.1. I would expect it to work on newer and older vRealize Automation 7.X releases.

Enable the vIDM Interface

This procedure is for enabling the interface:

  • Step 01: Connect with an SSH session to the vRealize Automation Appliance. Use for example Putty.
  • Step 02: Login with the root credentials.
  • Step 03: Run the following command to start the VMware Identity Manager Interface: (vcac–vami horizon ui enable).
  • Step 04: Open a web browser and navigate to the following URL:(https://%FQDN%/SAAS/admin/).
VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) interface enable
VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) interface enable

Disable the vIDM Interface

This procedure is for disabling the interface:

  • Step 01: Connect with an SSH session to the vRealize Automation Appliance. Use for example Putty.
  • Step 02: Login with the root credentials.
  • Step 03: Run the following command to stop the VMware Identity Manager Interface: (vcac–vami horizon ui disable).
  • Step 04: When you navigate to the following URL no page should appear: (https://%FQDN%/SAAS/admin/).
VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) Interface/GUI disable
VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) interface disable

Status of the vIDM Interface

This procedure is for viewing the vIDM Interface status:

  • Step 01: Connect with an SSH session to the vRealize Automation Appliance. Use for example Putty.
  • Step 02: Login with the root credentials.
  • Step 03: Run the following command to view the current status of the VMware Identity Manager Interface: (vcac–vami horizon ui status).
  • Step 04: When you navigate to the following URL no page should appear: (https://%FQDN%/SAAS/admin/).
VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) interface status
VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) interface status

VMware Identity Manager URLs

The following URLs are available when the GUI is enabled (there are probably more URLs available than listed below):

  • Main page: https://%vRA-Appliance-FQDN%:8443
  • Tenant-specific page (Tenant vSphere.local): https://%vRA-Appliance-FQDN%/SAAS/t/vsphere.local
  • Tenant-specific page (Tenant Production): https://%vRA-Appliance-FQDN%/SAAS/t/production
  • Tenant-specific page (Tenant Development): https://%vRA-Appliance-FQDN%/SAAS/t/development

vRealize Automation Internal Proxy Explained

To explain what happens under the covers is the following: When you run the command to start or stop vIDM interface the reverse proxy configuration located in vRealize Automation Appliance (vRA) is changed. The command adds or removes some configuration files. Then the proxy daemon is reloaded to pick up the changes. At that point, the vIDM webpage becomes available or unavailable depending on the given command. Under the covers, vRealize Automation uses HAProxy for IT guys working in container or web hosting environments that might be a very familiar product. Here is a quote from the HAProxy website to explain what HAProxy is capable of:

HAProxy is a free, very fast and reliable solution offering high availability, load balancing, and proxying for TCP and HTTP-based applications. It is particularly suited for very high traffic websites and powers quite a number of the world’s most visited ones. Over the years it has become the de-facto standard opensource load balancer, is now shipped with most mainstream Linux distributions, and is often deployed by default in cloud platforms. Since it does not advertise itself, we only know it’s used when the admins report it.

https://www.haproxy.org/#desc

VMware Identity Manager GUI Advantages

The main advantages of enabling the GUI:

  • You can view the currently logged in users in vRealize Automation.
  • When logging into the default tenant in the vIDM GUI you can view the total amount of users and groups that are identified by vIDM (counters are from all tenants combined).
  • You can view the health status of VMware Identity Manager (vIDM).
  • You can view the user login history based on the last days and you have reporting functionality.

Final word

In this blog post, I explained how to enable and disable the VMware Identity Manager interface on a vRealize Automation Appliance. As noted before be careful! I personally only use this method for troubleshooting Identity Manager related problems with authentication and viewing user activity.

Content Update

The following items have been verified:

  • 2020-09-24: This is still working on vRealize Automation 7.6.

VMware vExpert NSX 2018

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VMware vExpert NSX 2018 - Badge

I am happy to announce that as of today I entered the VMware vExpert NSX sub-program. Thanks, VMware for the award and congratulations to everyone else who also made it! Also an extraordinary achievement for our team at ITQ, we managed to get seven consultants in the vExpert NSX 2018 sub-program! This year VMware awarded 169 people worldwide for the vExpert NSX sub-program.

vExpert NSX:

  • Since when does the vExpert NSX sub-program exist?
    • The VMware vExpert NSX sub-program was introduced in the year 2016 and announcements are made every year.
  • So what is the difference between the vExpert NSX sub-program and vExpert program?
    • The program is built upon the vExpert program. To apply you must be a current vExpert as well as evangelizing VMware NSX.
  • What is VMware expecting of a vExpert NSX?
    • Each of these vExperts has 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, scriptwriters, VMUG leaders, VMTN community moderators and internal champions among this group.

Related links

vRealize Orchestrator Client and High-Resolution Screens

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The vRealize Orchestrator Client is the required tool for vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) server. The vRealize Orchestrator client is used for designing, administering, setting permissions and running workflows. The vRealize Orchestrator client is Java 8 based and should be running locally on your Windows desktop or management server. 

The last couple of years a lot of new displays are released that are supporting resolutions above full high definition (HD) (1920 x 1080). As a result of these large displays with high resolutions (for example 3840 × 2160), the vRealize Orchestrator Client is not scaling correctly. The fonts are too small and some boxes are not readable anymore, this is mainly caused because of the scaling that is zoomed out like 300%. This is quite irritating when developing a workflow and you are just not sure if you typed “Input_Username”, “Input Username” or “Input__Username” for example. You are just guessing or copy and pasting between an application to view the text that is written.

So it was time to investigate the problem and look for a solution.

Option 01: Lowering your screen resolution

The easiest option is to lower your screen resolution to 1920 x 1080. This is not always the most prefered option but it is the fastest.

Option 02: Modifying the vRO Client File

This option modifies the file that is used to launch the vRealize Orchestrator Client.

Procedure:

1. Navigate to the vRealize Orchestrator webpage (https://%FQDN%:8281/vco/).
2. Click on the link “START THE ORCHESTRATOR CLIENT“.
3. Save the “client.jnlp” on your desktop or other location on your workstation.
4. Open the “client.jnlp” file with a code/text editor for example Notepad++.
5. Add the following line of code to the resources block at the end (see screenshot below).

<property name=“sun.java2d.dpiaware” value=“false”/>

6. Save the file and close the editor.
7. Now launch the “client.jnlp“. This will start-up the vRealize Orchestrator Client without the screen resolution problems.

Gallery

vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – Start the Orchestrator Client

vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – Client.jnlp

vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – Without DPI aware setting

vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – With DPI aware setting

Final Word

In this blog post, I described two methods to deal with large screen resolutions in combination with the vRealize Orchestrator Client. Personally, I prefer option two because it is more permanent and I don’t have to change my resolution which effects other applications. Keep in mind: I only tested this on Microsoft Windows and not on Apple OS X or Linux.

@VMware: It might be handy to add such information to the vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – Using the VMware vRealize Orchestrator Client user manual.

Thanks for reading and if you have other solutions and/or tips? Please respond below :).

VMware VCAP6.5-DCV Design Exam Experience

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VMware VCIX6.5-DCV Badge At VMware EMPOWER 2018 in Vienna, I passed the VMware Certified Advanced professional 6.5 Data center Virtualization Design exam or in sort VCAP6.5-DCV. This exam was already for a very long on my certification list, to be more precise for about four years. Because of the large number of new products VMware released the last couple of years, my priorities shifted many times because Data center Virtualization was not really too interesting to study anymore… (sorry Data center Virtualization for calling you not interesting). My experience with VMware vSphere started more than ten years ago and over the years I have been responsible for designing multiple infrastructures for customers.

The VMware way of describing the VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6.5 – Data Center Virtualization Design certification:

“The VCAP6.5-DCV Design certification validates advanced knowledge of simplifying data center operations through virtualization with vSphere 6.5 and its related components, and is able to recommend and design VMware solutions to meet specific goals and requirements. This industry-recognized certification improves your credibility among your peers and proves that you have a deep understanding of data center virtualization design principles and methodologies.”

 

So where is the exam about: The exam is about the VMware Design Methodology used for designing a VMware vSphere infrastructure the right way. To pass the exam you need to know everything about the following items and make sure you can apply them in real-life examples/use cases:
– AMPRS (Availability, Manageability, Performance, Recoverability and Security).
– RCAR (Requirement, Constraint, Assumption and Risk)
– Non-functional and functional requirements
– RPO (Recovery Point Objective)
– RTO (Recovery Time Objective)
– Conceptual, Logical and Physical Designs
– vSphere 6.5 features, what did the release of vSphere 6.5 provide to each feature and what are the requirements and constraints for implementation.
– vSAN 6.5 features, design and architecture
– Site Recovery Manager features, design and architecture
– vSphere Replication features, design and architecture

Preparation

For me, the preparation of the exam started with a couple of sessions about the vSphere Design Methodology. Jeffrey Kusters was so kind to host a couple of sessions in his spare time about the subject for all the ITQ colleges. Jeffrey Kusters is one of our VMware VCDXs that works at our firm and has a lot of years of experience designing vSphere Infrastructure as an IT architect.

Study Materials

I have used many different material/sources to prepare myself for the exam but watch out. There is so much information available that you can study until 2020 and then you are still not able to read all the information. Focus on the items listed above and you will have a good chance of passing. Important note, sometimes information on a blog or book is a couple of years old and you might expect it to be not relevant. This is not the case the VMware Design Mythology has not changed over the years.

Material list:
– Blog – Jeffrey Kusters – Breaking down the conceptual design, RCARs and AMPRS …. VCDX style
– Blog – Jeffrey Kusters – Passed VCAP6.5-DCV Design … Yes! Finally VCDX6
– Course – VMware – VMware vSphere: Design Workshop [V6.5]
– Documentation – VMware – vSphere 6.5 Availability Guide
– Documentation – VMware – vSphere 6.5 Installation Setup Guide
– Documentation – VMware – vSphere 6.5 Platform Services Controller Administration Guide
– Documentation – VMware – vSphere 6.5 Security Guide
– Documentation – VMware – vSphere 6.5 Upgrade Guide
– Ebook – VMware vSphere Design Second Edition by Scott Lowe, Forbes Guthrie and Kendrick Coleman
– Ebook – VMware vSphere 6.X Datacenter Design Cookbook SE by Hersey Cartwright
– Ebook – vSphere Design Pocketbook 2.0 Blog Edition
– Exam Guide – VMware – Link
– Video – Pluralsight – What’s New in vSphere 6.5
– Video – Youtube – vBrownbag – VCAP-DCV Design
– White Paper – VMware – Storage Protocol Comparison

Conclusion

I passed the exam on the first attempt with a good score. The questions are decent around 12 drag en drop and 48 multiple choices. The questions are decent and require you to have deep knowledge of the products. So basically you know the answer or you just don’t. For me passing the VCAP6.5-DCV Design made me a VCIX6.5-DCV, so I was extra pleased with the result.

Special thanks to Jeffrey Kusters! You have been an absolute help!

vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager Internet Proxy URLs

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Recently I was deploying the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) at a customer. One of their requirement was that the appliance only could reach the internet with their internet proxy configured. The deployment was based on the latest version of the vRSLCM appliance version 1.2. The main use case for deploying this appliance at the customer was to reduce the time spend on their Lifecycle Management proces. The vRLCM appliance is able to maintain vRealize Automation (vRA), vRealize Business (vRB), vRealize Log Insight (vRLI), and vRealize Operations Manager (vROPS).

So for the proxy configuration, we need to identify which proxy URLs are required. Luckily in the VMware Documentation, there is a list of URLs and ports which the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager uses. So I configured the URLs but it appeared to be not working. The vRSLCM was complaining about the URL (https://my.vmware.com). So after analyzing the proxy logging, I could conclude that the URL list was not complete. Below this section, I display the difference between the official statement and what was required to get it working.

Proxy URLs – Official List:

This is the official URL list from the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) v1.2 documentation:

PortsPort numberBase URLs
My VMware443https://apigw.vmware.com
Solutions Exchange443https://marketplace.vmware.com
Updates443https://vapp-updates.vmware.com
Compatibility443https://vapp-updates.vmware.com

Proxy URLs – Unofficial List:

This is the list that was required to get vRSLCM working through the proxy, keep in mind there are a lot of different functionalities in the vRSLCM appliance and I was not using the entire set of functionalities. There might be even more URLs required…

PortsPort numberBase URLs
My VMware443https://apigw.vmware.com
Solutions Exchange443https://marketplace.vmware.com
Updates443https://vapp-updates.vmware.com
Compatibility443https://simservice.vmware.com
My VMware443https://my.vmware.com
vConnect443https://vconnect.vmware.com
Download location443https://download2.vmware.com
Download location443https://download3.vmware.com
Icons for marketplace443https://marketplace-download.vmware.com

Proxy Configuration:

In the steps below I explain the proxy configuration in the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager web interface:

  1. Open the web browser.
  2. Navigate to the vRSLCM URL (https://%FQDN%).
  3. Log in with an administrator account (admin@localhost).
  4. Navigate to the following page (Settings > My VMware).
  5. Toggle the Configure Proxy to enabled.
  6. Enter the following proxy information:
    1. Proxy Server: %FQDN% or %IP%
    2. Proxy Port: %Port Number%
    3. Proxy Username: %Username%
    4. Proxy Password: %Password%
  7. Click on the Submit button.
  8. Verify if the My VMware communication is working and the appliance is able to download the media.

Note:

  • vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) requires ICMP communication with the internet proxy. When configuring a proxy in vRSLCM version 1.3 the configuration validation fails without allowing ICMP.

Documentation:

Article Update:

Over time the article has been updated a couple of times:

  • 2018-07-16:
    • Added additional proxy URLs for the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager version 1.3.
    • Added link for the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager manual version 1.3.
    • Added additional note about ICMP.
  • 2021-03-05:
    • Fixed the proxy URL table layout.

Cannot Remove Content Library in VCSA 6.5 Update 1

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Problem

At a customer I came across the following problem, the customer was not able to remove a Content Library from vCenter Server. They just created a Content Library and after that, they wanted to remove the item. When they tried to remove the content library it failed. We started troubleshooting the log files and tried to remove the Content Library in different ways with the vSphere Web Client, PowerShell and REST API but all ended with the same error. The error messages are listed below.

To add some more background information: the customer was running the environment with an external platform services controller and a vCenter Server (VCSA). The version that was being used was VCSA 6.5 Update 1e.

Content Library – Error messages

Cannot Remove Content Libary – 01

Cannot Remove Content Libary – 02

Cannot Remove Content Libary – 03

Solution

We ended up calling VMware Global Support Services (GSS) to resolve the issues. They were very helpful and fixed it within a couple of minutes. The knowledge base article listed below is only available for internal VMware personal.

The internal knowledge base article related to the issue:
– https://ikb.vmware.com/s/article/50121825 – Unable to delete the stale entry for the content library from the web client

Opening vSphere Web Client (Flash) on Windows Server 2016

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Recently somebody asked me a question about VMware vCenter running on a Windows Server. The Windows Server was running VMware vCenter 6.5 and in case of a datacenter related problem, they wanted to get access to the vSphere Web Client (Flash) on the system locally.

It sounds easy right…? Just open the browser on the Windows Server and navigate to the vSphere Web Client page but that didn’t appear to be the case, because the system is missing the browser plugins required to open the vSphere Web Client.

So let’s dive into the problem.

Microsoft Browsers:
They are running Windows Server 2016 and you might expect it to have two browsers: Internet Explorer 11 and Microsoft Edge. That does not seem to be the case. Windows Server 2016 is only shipped with Internet Explorer 11. Why? Windows Server 2016 is marked as an LTSB (Long Time Service Branch) so this means no Microsoft Edge and it is also not available for manual installation.

Microsoft: “The Long-Term Servicing Branch (LTSB) versions of Windows, including Windows Server 2016, don’t include Microsoft Edge or many other Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps. These apps and their services are frequently updated with new functionality, and can’t be supported on systems running the LTSB operating systems.”

Third-party browsers:
The company who was asking had a security policy that does not allow an installation of third-party browsers like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. Alright, so this is not an option. Don’t have to look at that further.

Adobe Flash:
So let’s try Internet Explorer 11. It appears to be missing Adobe Flash and you can not download and install it from Adobe Website.

At this point, I was stuck and there did not seem to be a simple solution.

Screenshots

vSphere Web Client missing Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash not available for installation on Windows Server 2016

Solution

After searching for a solution for about an hour. I came across a Microsoft Blog article listed below. This article is talking about installing Adobe Flash on Windows Server 2016. It appears that all the software is already on the system but just needs to be installed.

Procedure:
– Step 01: Close all browsers
– Step 02: Start a PowerShell session with elevated rights.
– Step 03: Run the following command:
dism /online /add-package /packagepath:"C:\Windows\servicing\Packages\Adobe-Flash-For-Windows-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.14393.0.mum"
– Step 04: Wait for the installation to complete.
– Step 05: Open a browser and navigate to the vSphere Web Client.
– Step 06: Everything should be working now.

Note: In the Microsoft Blog article they are talking about a reboot required in my case it was not required. Just a browser restart was enough.

Screenshots

Installing Adobe Flash on Windows Server 2016

vSphere Web Client with Adobe Flash

It sounded like an easy problem at first but it took some more time than I expected. The problem is solved with a simple one-liner and the customer is happy. I personally think that there might be other solution to the problem. If you know them please add a comment below.

Source(s):
– Blog.technet.microsoft.com – How to add the Adobe Flash Player / Shockwave Plugin for IE on Windows Server 2016
– Docs.microsoft.com – Microsoft Edge requirements and language support

No Workflow Output in vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) 7.4

2

Overview

Today I was checking my standalone vRealize Orchestator (vRO) appliance in my 24×7 Lab environment for scheduled task activities but something didn’t seem to be right. All scheduled tasks appeared to be running without problems, but there was no workflow output.

So what kind of schedule tasks is this Orchestrator running you might ask? This Orchestrator is responsible for maintaining my environment. Think about tasks like cleaning up snapshots, removing mounted CD-ROM media and adding new Virtual Machines to my backup schedule.

Let’s analyze the problem:

To check what was going-on I created a Workflow with a Scriptable Task that outputs text (the Workflow is displayed in the screenshot below). After realizing that vRO was not able to output any information to the screen it was time to start troubleshooting.

To start troubleshooting I connected with SSH to the vRealize Orchestrator appliance and started looking at the log files. Because vRO consists out of a lot of smaller sub systems it’s important to find the right log file.

  1. First I ran a command to show all log files with the latest change date. It appeared that the “catalina.out” was very busy. Every time I ran the command the file had a new timestamp.
    ls -ltur /var/log/vmware/vco/app-server/
  2. So lets look in the log file to figure out who is logging to this file:
    tail -f /var/log/vmware/vco/app-server/catalina.out
  3. It appeared that Apache Lucene was generating a continuous stream of messages/errors.
    Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: An SPI class of type org.apache.lucene.codecs.Codec with name 'Lucene6 0' does not exist. You need to add the corresponding JAR file supporting this SPI to your classpath. The current cl asspath supports the following names: [Lucene62]
    at org.apache.lucene.util.NamedSPILoader.lookup(NamedSPILoader.java:116)
    at org.apache.lucene.codecs.Codec.forName(Codec.java:116)
    at org.apache.lucene.index.SegmentInfos.readCodec(SegmentInfos.java:424)
    ... 103 more
    19:30:49,588 WARN StubbornRetrier:38 - Retry 1/6 failed because of: Could not load codec 'Lucene60'. Did you forget to add lucene-backward-codecs.jar?
    19:30:49,609 WARN StubbornRetrier:38 - Retry 5/6 failed because of: Could not load codec 'Lucene60'. Did you forget to add lucene-backward-codecs.jar?
    19:30:49,611 WARN StubbornRetrier:38 - Retry 3/6 failed because of: Could not load codec 'Lucene60'. Did you forget to add lucene-backward-codecs.jar?

As I explained before vRO consists out of multiple smaller systems and Apache Lucene is one of them. So what is Apache Lucene exactly?

Apache LuceneTM is a high-performance, full-featured text search engine library written entirely in Java. It is a technology suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially cross-platform.

vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – Version

vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – Scriptable Task Output Logging

vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – No log output

vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – Catalina Log File

Procedure:

When searching on the log file error I directly found a VMware KB to resolve this issue.

  1. Start a SSH session with the vRO Appliance.
  2. Login with the root account.
  3. Stop the vRO server service.
    service vco-server stop
  4. Run the following command to remove the old lucene logs, this might be a single file or multiple files.
    rm -rf /var/log/vco/app-server/scripting.log_lucene*
  5. Start the vRO server service.
    service vco-server start

vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – Login

vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – Applying Fix

Test:

To confirm the procedure/fix I ran the test workflow again. The screenshot is listed below and shows output to the screen. This is the expected behavior so we can conclude that the fix solved the problem.

Based on the information already available on the internet it seems that the upgrade from vRealize Orchestrator 7.3.1 to 7.4 is the root cause of the problem. The positive side of the problem is that the vRealize Orchestrator engine is just doing its work. In my lab environment I discovered the problem three weeks after the upgrade. To clarify: all my workflows that were running in these three weeks were not experiencing any problems.

vRealize Orchestrator 7.4 – Output Working

Source:

Removing a Virtual Machine from vRealize Automation with the vRealize CloudClient

0

Overview

Today I was dealing with an issue in vRealize Automation (vRA). The customer had deleted some virtual machines in the vCenter inventory that were managed by vRealize Automation (vRA). So this resulted in registered virtual machines in vRealize Automation that were reported as missing.

For this blog post I recreated the problem in my Lab environment to have the ability to share the screenshots.

vRealize Automation Missing Virtual Machines

vRealize Automation 7.3 – Infrastructure – Managed Machines

Environment

Like explained in the beginning of this blog post. I recreated the problem in my home lab environment. To give you some background information about this environment. The Lab environment is running the following products and versions:
– VMware vCenter 6.5
– VMware ESXi 6.5
– VMware vRealize Automation 7.3.1
– VMware vRealize Orchestrator 7.3.1
– VMware NSX-V 6.4.0

The clusters are split into a “Mgmt & Edge” Cluster and a “Payload” Cluster. The virtual machines that were managed by vRealize Automation were located on the “Payload” cluster. So to recreate the problem I removed the virtual machines in the “Payload” cluster.

Incase you are interested in more information about my Home Lab, you can go to the following page.

Procedure:

  1. Download the latest version of the vRealize ClientCloud from the VMware website (the link can be found below).
  2. When the download is done, unzip the zip file (VMware_vRealize_CloudClient-4.5.0-8227624.zip).
  3. Navigate to the following directory (VMware_vRealize_CloudClient-4.5.0-8227624bin).
  4. Start the CloudClient (Windows: cloudclient.bat / Linux: cloudclient.sh).
  5. Log in to the vRA Appliance:
    Syntax:
    vra login userpass --user admin ID --tenant Tenant Name --server vRA FQDN --password Password

    Example:
    vra login userpass --user "M. Buijs" --password VMware1! --tenant Production --server https://cmp.lab.local

  6. Log in to the IaaS Machine:
    Syntax:
    vra login iaas --user service account --domain the domain --server web server --password Password

    Example:
    vra login iaas --user svc-vra-iaas --password VMware1! --domain lab.local --server iaasweb.lab.local

  7. Remove the virtual machine:
    Syntax:
    vra machines forceunregister --name %VMname%

    Example:
    vra machines forceunregister --name Prod-IT-00021

Keep in mind: It may take 5 to 10 minutes to remove the virtual machine from the interface.

vRealize CloudClient

vRealize CloudClient 4.5.0 – Started Application

vRealize CloudClient 4.5.0 – Authentication and removal

Links:

Here are some useful links related to the problem:
– VMware KB2144269 – Removing a virtual machine from vRealize Automation 7.x using CloudClient
– VMware vRealize CloudClient 4.5.0 – Download Page