Useful links to know more about VMware Cloud on AWS

As most of us would be aware, in Oct this year VMware and AWS announced a partnership where VMware Cloud would run on AWS infra…This VMware vSphere-based cloud service running on AWS that will make it easier to run any application and can be also connected to inhouse existing VMware virtual infrastructure…for detailed info please refer to below listed links.

VMware and Amazon Web Services Announce Strategic Partnership

VMware Cloud on AWS – A Closer Look

In the Works – VMware Cloud on AWS

VMware Cloud on AWS

VMware Cloud on AWS: The Only Way to Extend Your VMware Environment into AWS

VMware on AWS: A one-way ticket to the cloud

VMware Cloud on AWS - Overview

                                   

Components of VMware Cloud on AWS

                                                   Thanks to Amazon/VMware for this nice Graphic

VMware Cloud on AWS Demo…

For more videos – check out the VMware Cloud on AWS YouTube Playlist HERE.

Note: As per the information available so far, As part of the deal, VMware will be AWS's preferred private cloud partner and Amazon will be VMware's preferred partner in the public cloud and VMware Cloud on AWS will go live sometime in 2017.

I would add more related links here in future.....

That's it for now..........Wish you all A VERY Happy New Year ... :)

VMware Product Walkthroughs site - self-paced demos with screenshots

I am not sure how many of us aware of VMware Feature Walkthrough Site, I personally found it very useful as its a great resource for stepping through a self-paced demo of a particular VMware product or feature.

This site (https://featurewalkthrough.vmware.com) provides great technical overviews and step-by-step guidance for installing, configuring and managing VMware solutions. The content here has some great info including product demos which help to explain what a given product does and what it offers. .

Currently following VMware Solutions are listed here,

vSphere 6
vSphere 6.5
vSphere with Operations Management
vRealize Suite
vRealize Network Insight
Virtual SAN
vCenter Site Recovery Manager
NSX
vCloud Air
VMware Integrated OpenStack
SAP on SDDC

Each walkthrough includes screen shots with relevant steps highlighted and text explaining the process.

That's it... :)

vSphere's Datacenter Command-Line Interface: Getting Started with Datacenter CLI

This post was originally published on VMware vSphere Blog and I am just re-posting it here for future reference...

Datacenter Command-Line Interface (DCLI) is one of vSphere’s newest CLIs. DCLI works exclusively with the vSphere Automation API (REST API for vSphere) to provide both an interactive and scriptable mode to monitor and manage all features made available to the REST based API.
With the vSphere 6.5 release, DCLI has picked up a ton of new functionalities! DCLI can now interact with the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), perform VM tasks, receive environmental vSphere information, managing vSphere Tags, and work with the Content Library. This is definitely a great tool to have in the toolbox for anyone accessing a vSphere environment.

Accessing DCLI

DCLI is able to be installed on a multitude of Windows and Linux systems as part of the vSphere Command-Line Interface (vCLI). DCLI is also automatically included within the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) as well as being included as part of the installation process for vCenter Server on Windows.

Using DCLI

There are two ways to use DCLI, either in an interactive shell or via scripting mode. Both methods have their benefits, so it comes down to either preference or what fits the use case at the time.

Interactive Shell

DCLI’s interactive shell has several great features, such as tab complete and session history retention and the ability to find a namespace just by starting it off with the first few characters.

Accessing DCLI’s Interactive Shell

Here’s an example workflow of using DCLI’s interactive shell:

• Start DCLI with the following options (Note: options start with a + in DCLI)
  • +server -> The vCenter name/IP to connect to
  • +skip-server-verification -> Instruct DCLI to ignore any certificate warnings
  • +interactive -> Start the interactive mode

Once in the interactive shell, you can either hit tab and see the namespaces available or start typing in the name of the object you’d like to begin viewing or working with.
The example below shows a tab complete example when working with VM objects:

Here’s an example on retrieving the VCSA’s system version and then how the session history works:  

As seen above, just by typing in the first letter of a prior command allows the user to recall that command without having to type the entire line. The history will persist through sessions as well, making this a very nice feature!

Scripting Mode

The scripting mode allows DCLI commands to be used within scripts. These scripts can then be turned into more extensive workflows and/or scheduled tasks.
Calling DCLI commands through the scripting mode is fairly similar to interactive mode, but a server has to be specified each time. The full namespace has to be referenced as well.
Here’s an example of retrieving the VCSA’s system version and then retrieving a list of VMs:

Here is an example of a bash script to create 10 VMs on a given datastore, resource-pool and folder:

 

#!/bin/bash

COUNTER=0

while [ $COUNTER -lt 10 ]; do

echo Creating LoopVM$COUNTER

dcli com vmware vcenter vm create --name LoopVM$COUNTER --guest "SLES_12_64" --resource-pool "resgroup-9" --folder "group-v7" --datastore "datastore-12"

let COUNTER=COUNTER+1

done

bold=$(tput bold)

normal=$(tput sgr0)

echo ${bold}--- VM List ---${normal}

dcli com vmware vcenter vm list

Output Formatting

DCLI also has the ability to change how the output from commands are handled. The formatter allows users to specify outputs of CSV, HTML, JSON, Simple, Table, or XML.
Here’s an example of using the formatter by showing a list of the hosts and then specifying the “+formatter json” parameter to receive the same output in JSON:

Credential Store

One of the other big capabilities of DCLI is storing credentials with the Credential Store. This streamlines the process of connecting to the same vCenter repeatedly, and even more so when working in scripting mode.
The first time a user connects to a vCenter server, they will be prompted to store the credentials to the credstore. After that initial save, the credstore will be referenced with each connection to that server. If needed, credentials can be specified at the command line to over-ride the values stored in the credstore.
Users can also work with the credstore to either populate credentials with the “+credstore-add +username user” parameter, remove credentials with the “+credstore-remove +user user +server servername.fqdn”, and list what credentials already exist with the “+credstore-list” parameter.
Here’s an example output from using the “+credstore-list” parameter within an interactive mode session:

Demonstration

Here’s a demonstration video showing DCLI’s interactive mode in action! The video details connecting to a VCSA, entering DCLI’s interactive mode, displaying some general environmental information as well as pointing out some of the benefits when using interactive mode, and lastly it creates a VM and shows all the important information about that new VM.
Pay close attention to that VM creation command, there’s a sneak peak of an upcoming post in this series on DCLI.

Conclusion

DCLI has, relatively, flown under the radar up until this point. Interactive mode allows even brand new users to easily access and run commands within moments of connecting and without knowin the name of the name spaces or reading documentation. Scripting mode lets users have those same great commands available outside of the interactive shell and utilize them in a standalone basis or within a scheduled task or cron job. These commands can easily be used with the formatter option to produce a variety of outputs and allow quick integration into other products.

DCLI is a great and intuitive CLI that should be added to anyone’s toolbox!
For more information on getting started with DCLI, see the DCLI Reference.

That's it... :)

VMware Update manager 6.5 and vCenter Server Appliance aka VCSA

As most of us know VMware update manager is one of the most preferred way to patch/upgrade the VMware infrastructure however if someone using a VCSA then until now they have to install vUM on a separate Windows server to make use of it but not anymore.

In vSpgere 6.5 VMware Update Manager is fully integrated with vCenter Server appliance or VCSA, by default the service is set to start automatically so its ready for use right away…

The embedded Update Manager leverages the vPostgres database that is part of the VCSA deployment, so there’s nothing extra to install, configure, or tune.  And because embedded Update Manager does not require a separate VM with its own general purpose operating system, that’s one less element in your datacenter to patch and license!

Useful links,
VMware vSphere Update Manager 6.5 Release Notes
VMware vSphere 6.5 Embedded Update Manager (VUM) Demo video on Youtube

That's it... :)

Application on VM runs slower then expected on few ESXi hosts while no issue on others

This is second time when I observed, during some activities on one of my database server, its responding slower than expected even though not using much system resources.  Here the server was using >50% of CPU, but was struggling to complete the task however not throwing any kind of resources contention alerts. On checking found there was no disk, RAM or network issues however CPU latency was bit high <25%.

The ESXi 6.x host where this VM resides having plenty of available CPU/memory resources so what’s wrong here.

While comparing the configuration of two hosts (one on which VM have no perf issue and the other), I recalled we might missed the changes in the Hardware Power management setting from BIOS of the target host.

“Note: for the resolution of this issue, you may directly jump to last paragraph of this post.”

Physical servers power management setting is something that can have an impact on server CPU performance as when the load is low on server it reduces the CPU clock speed or shutdown some cores to reduce the power consumption.

Ideally we should change the power management settings from BIOS during OS/ESXi installation on Server but we can also do that later from iLO console.

By default HP ProLiant servers have the power management setting set as Dynamic Power saving mode to run the server CPU with its full capacity. We need to change it to Static High performance mode, it will disable any kind of power management from server.

Like ESXi, if your server OS supports the server hardware power management then for ProLiant servers, you can also set the power management setting as OS Controlled and then can choose the required setting from within OS like in case of ESXi, from host configuration power management setting.

To Change the Power Management setting from HP ProLiant server iLO :

After logging in to iLO, from lest side menu select Power management => Power Settings => From here under Power Regulator Settings,  select Static High Performance mode.

To Change the Power Management setting from within ESXi: If you want to control this settings from within OS or when Hardware power Regulator Settings is set to OS controlled then to change the Power Management setting from within ESXi,

After connecting to vCenter via Web client, Select the intended host => Mange => Settings => under Hardware tab drop down, select Power Management => From here Select, Static High Performance

If using thick client then,

Now come back to the issue of application performance, on checking I found the Hardware Power Regulator Settings was set to default on this ESXi host and once I changed it to High performance……..Voila now there no CPU latency and the application started performing as expected.

For detailed info, please have a look at these white papers,

HP white paper on Power consumption and system performance

Host Power Management in VMware vSphere, Performance Study

Power Management settings available within ESXi 6.x host

Related KB article, kb# 1018206

That's it... :)