vCenter HA: Known Issues in vSphere 6.7

There are two known issues regarding vCenter HA in vSphere 6.7. VMware Engineering is aware is actively working to address these in the future.

The first issue affects some (non-critical) service startup after failover and the second issue affects patching a vCenter HA enabled system to 6.7 U2.

Currently, the first issue requires you to remove vCenter HA, perform a workaround, and re-enabled vCenter HA so my advice to you would be to remove vCenter HA before you begin your update to 6.7 U2 since you’re going to have to remove it post-update anyways.

If you’re already on 6.7 U2 with vCenter HA enabled, you’ll also need to remove vCenter HA to resolve the first issue.

Continue reading “vCenter HA: Known Issues in vSphere 6.7”

Advertisement

Step-by-Step: vCenter Server Appliance Convergence using the vSphere Client

In this step-by-step guide we are going to walkthrough how to converge three vCenter
Server Appliances using external Platform Services Controllers to vCenter Server Appliances with embedded Platform Services Controllers.

Continue reading “Step-by-Step: vCenter Server Appliance Convergence using the vSphere Client”

Virtual Hardware Version 15

Just a quick heads up about Virtual Hardware Version 15 which released as part of vSphere 6.7 Update 2.

Usually new virtual hardware versions only come about with a full major release of vSphere but this is the first time, as far as I can remember, that a new virtual hardware version has been introduced as part of an update release.

The important thing to note about virtual hardware versions is that they do not run on earlier versions of ESXi than the version they first released with.

Virtual hardware version 15 was released with ESXi 6.7 U2, therefore it will not run on any earlier version of ESXi, including ESXi 6.7 GA or 6.7 U1.

Continue reading “Virtual Hardware Version 15”

vCenter Server Appliance Convergence using the vSphere Client

vSphere 6.7 U1 saw a CLI based version of the vCenter Server Appliance convergence tool. In vSphere 6.7 U2 we now have all that great functionality built right into the vSphere Client. If you are currently running with external Platform Services Controllers, now has never been a better or easier time to move to embedded.

Please check out the documentation here.

Start by navigating to Administration > System Configuration where you will find an enhanced System Configuration view compared to previous versions.

Screenshot 2019-04-11 at 09.49.37

Continue reading “vCenter Server Appliance Convergence using the vSphere Client”

The Future of vCenter Server is Now

Over the past 18 months VMware has announced several deprecations with regards to vCenter Server.

The Flash based vSphere Web Client and Windows based vCenter Server were first to see their time expiring and this wasn’t much of a surprise to anyone as the HTML5 based vSphere Client began to approach full functionality and the vCenter Server Appliance having been positioned as the preferred version of vCenter Server.

About a year later, VMware announced the deprecation of external Platform Services Controllers. These moves bring simplicity to vCenter Server as a product.

It’s clear that the vision of the product is vCenter Server Appliance, using embedded Platform Services Controller, managed using the HTML5 vSphere Client.

Now time for a brief history lesson…

Continue reading “The Future of vCenter Server is Now”

vCenter HA using the vSphere Client

vCenter HA first launched with vSphere 6.5 for the vCenter Server Appliance and it was configured using the Flash based vSphere Web Client.

With vSphere 6.7 U1 you can now configure vCenter HA, much more easily, using the HTML5 based vSphere Client.

Screenshot 2019-04-02 at 13.59.14

Continue reading “vCenter HA using the vSphere Client”

vSphere 6.x Certificates – Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

As I work closely with VMware Support, it’s clear that issues and confusion around vSphere 6.x certificates are still very much a pain-point for customers.

I’ve spoken a bit about this topic in the past (but have been meaning to get back to it). You can see my previous posts below: (Note: even though they say 6.0 they are applicable for 6.5 too)

What I want to achieve by this post is to hopefully dispel some of the confusion. First, repeat the title of this post to yourself – “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Just because you can replace any and all certificates in a vSphere environment, doesn’t mean necessarily should.

The only question you need to be able to answer is – “What problem am I trying to solve?

tl;dr

Long story short, for the majority of use cases, replacing the Machine SSL certificate on each vCenter / PSC should be sufficient. Keep reading for more information.


Continue reading “vSphere 6.x Certificates – Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”