Tag: vSphere 6.5

Opening vSphere Web Client (Flash) on Windows Server 2016

1

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

Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 1 Released

0

With the release of Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 in November, there was an announcement made about the vSphere 6.5 support.

“Yesterday, with impeccable timing, VMware announced the general availability of vSphere 6.5. As always, we started work on the full integration of vSphere 6.5 since its beta, however, we now need adequate time to integrate the final VDDK code and then perform full regressive testing against the final vSphere 6.5 code to ensure the reliability of our advanced vSphere integrations. Therefore, full support for vSphere 6.5 in Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 will be delivered as a part of Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 1. And while an exact support timeline will depend on the results of our testing, historically we deliver support for new vSphere releases approximately two months after the final code availability.” Source: https://www.veeam.com/blog/new-veeam-availability-suite-9-5-is-available-today.html

On 20 January, Veeam has finally released update 1 for the Backup & Replication software (download link below).

Platform support:

  • Dell EMC Data Domain OS 6.0 support, including synthetic full backup performances optimizations, backup retention and health check reliability improvements
  • HPE 3PAR 3.2.2 MU3 support, including multiple API interaction improvements for added reliability and performance
  • HPE StoreOnce 3.15.1 support, bringing Instant VM Recovery to Catalyst-based backup repositories
  • Veeam Agent for Linux 1.0 support
  • Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows 2.0 Public Beta (build 2.0.0.594) support
  • VMware vSAN 6.5 support
  • VMware vSphere 6.5 support
    • Encrypted VMs support
    • VMFS6 support
    • Virtual hardware version 13 support
    • NBD compression
    • New guest interaction API support
    • New VM tag API support

Download link: https://www.veeam.com/kb2222

Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Generally Available

1

A couple of weeks ago Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 was made available for download.

New features

Some great new features have been introduced in the Veeam Availability Suite 9.5:

  • Microsoft 2016 server support (Windows Server 2016 and Hyper-V 2016)
  • Microsoft 2016 services support (Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint and SQL Server)
  • Storage Snapshot support for Nimble Storage
  • Direct Restore to Microsoft Azure
  • Advanced ReFS Integration

Read more

VMware vSphere 6.5 General Availability

2
vSphere 6.5 - Logo

VMware vSphere 6.5 is General Available (GA) so this means it is available for download on the VMware website!

For those who like to try out vSphere 6.5. The download mirrors are listed below.

It might be a good idea to wait a couple of months or even until vSphere 6.5 Update 1 is released to put into production.

For those who are interested. In vSphere 6.5 the following features are now available. Keep in mind there are a lot of more items new or changed in this release. I just listed the most interesting:

  • VMware vCenter Appliance Enhancements:
    • Migration Tool
    • Improved appliance management
    • Native high availability
    • Native backup and restore
    • New API Explorer
  • VMware vCenter Administrative Interfaces:
    • vSphere Web Client enhancements
    • vSphere Web Client integration with vSphere Update Manager
    • vSphere Web Client integration with Host Profiles
    • vSphere Web Client integration with Auto Deploy
    • vSphere Client is onboard (HTML5)
  • vSphere 6.5 – Availability Enhancements
    • Proactive HA
    • VMware vSphere High Availability Orchestrated Restart
    • vSphere HA Admission Control Improvements
    • vSphere HA Support for NVIDIA GRID vGPU Configured VMs
  • vSphere 6.5 – Fault Tolerance Enhancements
    • Improved integration with vSphere DRS
    • Reduced network latency
    • Support for multiple port groups
  • vSphere 6.5 – Storage Enhancements
    • Advanced Format Drives and 512e Mode
    • Automated UNMAP
    • LUN Scalability (maximum number of LUNs to 256 and paths to 1,024)
    • NFS 4.1 Support
    • Software iSCSI Static Routing Support
  • vSphere 6.5 – Network Enhancements
    • Dedicated Gateways for VMkernel Network Adapter
    • SR-IOV Provisioning
  • vSphere 6.5 – Security
    • Virtual Machine Encryption
    • Encrypted vMotion
    • Secure boot support
    • Enhanced logging

vSphere 6.5 Announcement

The official announcement can be found on the following page (Link: VMware Announces General Availability of vSphere 6.5). The complete overview can be found in the VMware White Paper – vSphere 6.5 – What’s New PDF file.

vSphere 6.5 Download

Here are the download locations on the VMware.com website.

VMware vSphere 6.5 Announced

2

At VMworld 2016 the next version of vSphere has been announced by Pat Gelsinger. The new version is called VMware vSphere 6.5 and introduces a lot of new features.

As I see it VMware has introduced some long-awaited features:

  • Native High Availability for the vCSA appliance
  • The vSphere Client is HTML5-based
  • VMFS allows for 512 devices and 2000 paths
  • vMotion supports traffic encryption
  • VMware Update Manager (VUM) integrated into the VCSA appliance

A couple of days after the announcement a lot of articles have been published on the internet. I have listed some of the most interesting that every VMware Engineer should read: