Everything-Virtual

Author: Simon

  • Installing the Home Lab – Installing vCenter 5.5 on Windows 2012R2

    This post will detail all the steps required to install vCenter 5.5a on to a Windows 2012R2 guest machine, I should add that at the time of writing 2012R2 isn’t on the supported OS list and that there is an additional step that needs to be done to ensure that the installation succeeds first time.

    You will need to get a copy of OCSetup.exe because for some insane reason Microsoft dropped the use of it in Windows 2012R2 (it’s present in 2012). As a side note you can also use a copy of the file from Windows 2008R2 if you don’t have 2012 available. Once you have a copy place it in the C:\Windows\System32 folder.

    29-09-2013 00-06-5129-09-2013 00-08-0229-09-2013 00-09-04

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  • Installing the Home Lab – VMware Certificates – Part Two

    In the first post in this series we installed the Windows 2012 R2 Root Certificate Authority. This, the second in a series of posts details the configuration of the VMware specific Template and the distribution of the Root CA Certificate.

    VMware Cert Template Creation

    22-11-2013 15-47-26

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  • Installing the Home Lab – VMware Certificates – Part One

    The following post, the first in series of posts, details the installation and configuration of a Windows 2012R2 Enterprise CA to be used with a VMware Infrastructure Home Lab.

    It is assumed at this stage that you have a single host installed and are running a Windows Domain controller.

    As this is a home lab I have chosen to install the CA on to my Domain Controller rather than a dedicated server but if your environment is capable of running a dedicated CA VM then please do so.

    The installation can be carried out either using a PowerShell script or by using the Microsoft Wizard. I have only documented the PowerShell method here but you can use the Wizard if you want instead.

    Use the PowerShell script below to install the CA and Web Enrolment roles.

    Add-WindowsFeature ADCS-Cert-Authority, ADCS-Web-Enrollment -IncludeManagementTools

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  • New VMware Hands-on Labs

    VMware have just announced the availability of some new Hands-On Labs, there are now 16 lab topics available, free to everyone. Labs are listed below along with a direct link to enroll in the lab.

    Labs Currently Available

    · HOL-SDC-1301 – Applied Cloud Operations – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1301

    · HOL-SDC-1302 – vSphere Distributed Switch from A to Z – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1302

    · HOL-SDC-1304 – vSphere Performance Optimization – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1304

    · HOL-SDC-1305 – Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery In Action – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1305

    · HOL-SDC-1307 – vCloud Automation Solutions – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1307

    · HOL-SDC-1308 – Virtual Storage Solutions – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1308

    · HOL-SDC-1309 – vSphere Big Data Extensions – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1309

    · HOL-SDC-1310 – vSphere and vSOM 101 – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1310

    · HOL-SDC-1311 – VMware IT Business Management – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1311

    · HOL-SDC-1313 – vCloud Suite Use Cases – Infrastructure Provisioning (IaaS) – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1313

    · HOL-SDC-1314 – vCloud Suite Use Cases – Application Provisioning (PaaS) – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1314

    · HOL-SDC-1315 – vCloud Suite Use Cases – Control & Compliance – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1315

    · HOL-SDC-1316 – vCloud Suite Use Cases – Quality of Service – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1316

    · HOL-SDC-1317 – vCloud Suite Use Cases – Business Critical Applications – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1317

    · HOL-SDC-1318 – vCloud Suite Use Cases – Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery – Enroll in HOL-SDC-1318

    · HOL-MBL-1301-AZ – Horizon View from A to Z – Enroll in HOL-MBL-1301-AZ

    Labs Coming This Week

    • HOL-SDC-1303 – VMware NSX Network Virtualization Platform
    • HOL-SDC-1319 – VMware NSX for Multiple Hypervisor Environments
    • HOL-MBL-1301 – UC – VMware View Use Cases
    • HOL-MBL-1304 – Horizon Workspace – Explore and Deploy
    • HOL-MBL-1309 – Horizon Mirage – Manage Physical Desktops
    • HOL-MBL-1311 – Applied ThinApp with the Horizon Suite
    • HOL-HBD-1301 – vCloud Hybrid Service – Jump Start for vSphere Admins
    • HOL-HBD-1302 – vCloud Hybrid Service – Networking & Security
    • HOL-HBD-1303 – vCloud Hybrid Service – Manage Your Cloud
    • HOL-PRT-1301 – NetApp Virtual Storage Console
    • HOL-PRT-1302 – IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments
    • HOL-PRT-1303 – EMC – Using Puppet with vSphere Web Client
    • HOL-PRT-1304 – Infoblox – Automate with vCAC and the vCO IPAM plug-in
    • HOL-PRT-1305 – Cisco Nexus 1000V – Enhanced VXLAN Networking in vCloud Director
    • HOL-PRT-1306 – Catbird-Hytrust-LogRhythm – Partner Security and Compliance
    • HOL-PRT-1307 – Puppet Labs – Automate vSphere Provisioning and Management

    Log into the Online Portal at http://labs.hol.vmware.com.

  • Creating vCenter and VUM 5.5 databases.

    As a precursor to installing vCenter 5.5 in my 2012R2 lab at home I needed to create the vCenter and VUM databases in SQL 2012 and make sure that everything was setup correctly before the vCenter installation.

    To make things easier I used the SQL Scripts below to create two DBs (VC55 and VUMDB) as well as creating the vc_user account and password.

    [code lang=”sql”]USE MASTER;
    GO
    CREATE DATABASE [VC55] ON PRIMARY(
    NAME=’VC55′,
    FILENAME=’D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\VC55.mdf’,
    SIZE=5000KB,
    FILEGROWTH=10%)
    LOG ON
    (NAME=’VC55_log’,
    FILENAME=’E:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\VC55.ldf’,
    SIZE=1000KB,
    FILEGROWTH=10%)
    COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
    GO
    [/code]

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  • ESXi 5.5 Upgrade in 7 Steps

    So with the release of ESXi 5.5 I decided to follow my previous instructions and upgrade my hosts using the esxcli commands.

    1. Place the Host into Maintenance Mode and ensure that there are no running VM’s on the host.

    2. Ensure you have SSH enabled

    image  image  image

    3. Make sure that the Outbound HTTP rule is enabled, either by using the console or via the command line later on (command line is esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient )

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  • Condusiv V-locity VM Testing – Synology DS1513+

    This is a follow on posting about my Condusiv V-Locity VM testing carried out back in July.

    I have carried out testing on the Synology DS1513+ NAS using both iSCSI and NFS.

    Lab Setup

    Host Hardware

    ESXi HOST: Shuttle XPC SH67H3, 32GB RAM; 1x i7 3770 @ 3.4ghz with ESXi 5.1u1 (5.1.0 build 1021289)

    STORAGE PLATFORM

    Synology: DS1513+ running DSM 4.2

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  • VMware Releases New Desktop Virtualisation Products

    VMware have just released a slew of desktop virtualisation products in the last 24 hours, they have released VMware Workstation 10, VMware Fusion 6, VMware Fusion 6 Pro, VMware Player and VMware Player 6 Plus. 

    Key new features include:

    • The latest operating systems – Support for Windows 8.1, OS X Mavericks (Fusion and Fusion Pro only) as well as new Linux distros. Computers running Windows 8.1 can be converted into virtual machines via VMware Converter.
    • Better performance – These products enable virtual machines to be created with up to 16 vCPUs, 64GB of memory, 8TB disks and adds faster USB connections, a new vSATA controller and twice as many virtual networks.
    • Expiring virtual machines – Restricted virtual machines can be set to expire at a specified date and time. An expired virtual machine automatically suspends and will not restart without administrator intervention.
    • The ability to run a cloud on Your PC – Workstation 10 lets you build a cloud on your PC running popular applications from Pivotal, Puppet Labs and Vagrant.

    Pricing and availability

    All are now available to purchase in full or as an upgrade.

    VMW-BXSHT-FSN6imageimage

    VMW-BXSHT-FSN6-PROimage

    VMW-BXSHT-PLYR6-PLSimage

    VMW-BXSHT-WORK10imageimage

    Please click on the images above to go to the Product, Full product and Upgrade Product pages.

  • vCloud Suite 5.5 Announcement

    VMware have announced updates to their vCloud Suite product.

    VMware have extended the number of products that are included in the vCloud Suite 5.5, this includes vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) availability in all editions rather than just the Enterprise Suite. Prior to this announcement vCloud Automation Center came in a single version, however the announcement let’s us know that we now have Standard, Advanced and Enterprise versions available.

    • vCloud Automation Center – Standard Edition offers the basic self service portal feature of vCAC.
    • vCloud Automation Center – Advanced Edition offers the same functionality as the existing vCAC product.
    • vCloud Automation Center – Enterprise Edition offers full vCAC functionality plus vFabric App Director for Release Automation.

    vCloud Director and vCloud Networking and Security are not sold as standalone products anymore.

    All editions of the vCloud Suite now include automation features (offered by vCAC) and Operations Management (using vCOPS).

    overview-vcloud-suite

  • New VMware Certification Offerings – VMware Certified Associate (VCA)

    One of the things that VMware hadn’t followed up was their Associate certification offerings, when they first announced the VCA4 DT exam a couple of years ago there was a hope that VMware would offer further exams but for the last couple of years they haven’t. That’s just changed Smile

    VMware have just announced the availability of more VMware Certified Associate level certifications (VCA). Like the earlier VMware VCA4 DT certification there are no mandatory training course or pre-reqs for the VCA exams but there are recommended FREE on-line training courses which can be taken for the exam preparation.

    There are currently 3 exams which are available now for registration with the VCA-NV exam coming soon.

    Below are the VMware Certified Associate which are available:

    More information about the new certification can be found on the VMware Certification page and the VMware Certfication Road Map