vCenter Server

Written by Sam McGeown on 14/3/2019
Published under VMware and vSphere
Most vSphere admins are more than comfortable with using Update Manager to download patches and update their environment, but few that I talk to actually know a huge amount about the Update Mangaer Download Service (UMDS). UMDS is tool you can install to download patches (and third party VIBs - I’ll get to that) for Update Manager and it’s useful for environments that don’t have access to the internet, or air-gapped, and also for environments with multiple vCenter Servers where you don’t necessarily want to download the same patch on every server.
Written by Sam McGeown on 29/9/2015
Published under VMware, vRealize Automation and vSphere
As a vExpert, I am blessed to get 1000 CPU hours access to Ravello’s awesome platform and recently I’ve been playing with the AutoLab deployments tailored for Ravello. If you’re unfamiliar with Ravello’s offering (where have you been?!) then it’s basically a custom hypervisor (HVX) running on either AWS or Google Cloud that allows you to run nested environments on those platforms. I did say it’s awesome. As an avid home-lab enthusiast Ravello initially felt weird, but having used it for a while I can definitely see the potential to augment, and in some cases completely replace the home lab.
Written by Sam McGeown on 21/7/2015
Published under VMware
Note: This falls under the “I don’t think this is supported” category – use this method at your own peril! As part of some testing I’ve been doing for vRealize Automation DR scenarios, I wanted to test changing the IP address of a HA PSC pair using a script (think SRM failover to a new subnet). What I didn’t want to do was simply edit the connections directly – quite often with the VMware appliances there are scripts on start-up to ensure the configuration is correct and consistent – what I wanted was to be able to find a more supported and reliable way.
Written by Sam McGeown on 20/7/2015
Published under VMware
I’m not sure how supported this is, but this process can recover a vSphere 6 vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller when you’ve lost the root password. Download the OpenSUSE Rescue CD - http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/13.2/iso/ Mount the CD to the PSC Appliance Reboot the appliance and enter the BIOS setup using F2, configure the CD-ROM as first-boot device. Save and exit to reboot into the SUSE Live-CD. Once the Live-CD has booted to a desktop, you’ll see a 12GB volume at the top – that’s your PSC appliance root.
Written by Sam McGeown on 7/7/2015
Published under VMware and vRealize Automation
vSphere 6 HA SSO (PSC) with NetScaler VPX Load Balancer for vRealize Automation Deploying vRealize Automation 6.2 Appliance Cluster with Postgres Replication Deploying fully distributed vRealize Automation IaaS components - Part 1: Pre-requisites Deploying fully distributed vRealize Automation IaaS components - Part 2: Database, Web and Manager services Deploying fully distributed vRealize Automation instance - Configuring NetScaler Monitors Providing a highly available single sign on for vRealize Automation is a fundamental part of ensuring the availability of the platform.
Written by Sam McGeown on 29/6/2015
Published under
After deploying a new vSphere 6 vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) and configuring the Platform Services Controller (PSC) to act as a subordinate Certificate Authority (CS), I was unable to register the NSX Manager to the Lookup Service. Try saying that fast after a pint or two!? Attempting to register NSX to the Lookup Service would result in the following error: NSX Management Service operation failed.( Initialization of Admin Registration Service Provider failed.
Written by Sam McGeown on 2/4/2015
Published under VMware
I tested vSphere 6 quite intensively when it was in beta, but I didn’t ever upgrade my lab – basically because I need a stable environment to work on and I wasn’t sure that I could maintain that with the beta. Now 6 has been GA a while and I have a little bit of time, I have begun the lab upgrade process. You can see a bit more about my lab hardware over on my lab page.
Written by Sam McGeown on 1/4/2015
Published under VMware and vRealize Automation
I tested vSphere 6 quite intensively when it was in beta, but I didn’t ever upgrade my lab - basically because I need a stable environment to work on and I wasn’t sure that I could maintain that with the beta. Now 6 has been GA a while and I have a little bit of time, I have begun the lab upgrade process. You can see a bit more about my lab hardware over on my lab page.
Written by Sam McGeown on 1/4/2015
Published under VMware
I tested vSphere 6 quite intensively when it was in beta, but I didn’t ever upgrade my lab - basically because I need a stable environment to work on and I wasn’t sure that I could maintain that with the beta. Now 6 has been GA a while and I have a little bit of time, I have begun the lab upgrade process. You can see a bit more about my lab hardware over on my lab page.
Written by Sam McGeown on 1/4/2015
Published under VMware and vSphere
I tested vSphere 6 quite intensively when it was in beta, but I didn’t ever upgrade my lab - basically because I need a stable environment to work on and I wasn’t sure that I could maintain that with the beta. Now 6 has been GA a while and I have a little bit of time, I have begun the lab upgrade process. You can see a bit more about my lab hardware over on my lab page.