To configure a HP iLO board you can use a web browser of course. But how to access iLO when you did not set a correct IP address or Administrator password in BIOS using F8 key? Of course you can reboot and enter F8 at boot. But to restart a ESXi host just to enter a iLO IP address is not very elegant. Here I will […]
ESXi host lost management
I have seen a very strange behavior these days in ESXi host. I looked at the networking configuration of an ESXi 5.1 U3 host. The configuration was changed over the last years. So I suggested to do some adaptations and improvements. So we did redundant pSwitch connections and dual-vMotion ports. We used management and vMotion ports on a single standard switch using two uplinks. VM […]
Upgrading vCOPS (within and) to vROPS
Because of massive changes in architecture in vRealize Operations Manager 6.x (vROPS) a in-place upgrade from version prior to 6.0 is not an option. The way to migrate your collected data to vROPS is a side-to-side migration. This means you install a new vROPS system and link to your existing vCOPS system. vROPS copies data to its own DBs and uses your historical data. Your existing vCOPS […]
Protect Linked-Clone Replicas and show with Replica a desktop is based on
I had a strange behavior in a vSphere Cluster with View Linked-Clones. The problem was that it was not possible to vMotion a Linked-Clone VM to an other host. The error was like: Cannot open the disk ‘/vmfs/volumes/11111111-22222222-3333-444444444444/VDI-1/-VDI-1-000001.vmdk’ or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. I could not find any problems by checking snapshot chains. So I investigated Replica-VMs. vCenter allowed tasks like Power […]
Installing vRealize Operations Manager (for Horizon)
This post describes information about the new architecture of vRealize Operations Manager 6.x and necessary steps to deploy it. Additionally there is a description of installing package for VMware Horizon View.
Stuff about vCloud Automation Center [6.0] (4+5/5)
vCO Multiple parallel workflows Checkpointing Workflows can be interactive a lot of (<500) predefined workflows are already implemented vCO workflows can to integrated into vSphere Web Client in vCAC Integrated vCO in vCAC Appliance can be used. Good practice is to use a stand-alone vCO Appliance. Endpoint necessary. Install vCAC plug-in in vCO. There are also workflows implemented to configure vCAC (e.g. manage SSL certificates). […]
Stuff about vCloud Automation Center [6.0] (3/5)
CUSTOM PROPERTIES A really powerful framework to control workflow using built-in and self created custom properties. Custom properties are case sensitive! Use custom properties to customize machine through these stages Request Provisioning Manage Retire You should create an own namespace for properties to avoid conflicts with built-in properties. VMware provides Custom Property Reference Guides at: 6.0 6.1 Built-in properties are executed automatically. For example VMware.VirtualCenter.Folder […]
delete vmkdump-files on ESXi hosts (and hidden vmkfstools options)
Recently I wanted to unmount a VMFS volume to remore it gracefully from all hosts. Unfortunatly I can’t do this, because files were still locking the volume. These files were located in [volume]/vmkdump. Trying to remove them using rm does not work because they are locked. HOW TO find the locking host of a locked file [Using lsof does not work me because the files are note […]
Stuff about SimpliVity
General Information First Hardware Partner is Dell (OmniCube), second is Cisco (OmniStack). These two are certified, but more manufacturer can become a partner in future. HW (Dell): two mirrored disks (rear, uses a separated Raid-controller) used for ESXi, 2x10Gbit, 2x1Gbit, Accelerator Card (NIC Port for diagnosis) Accelerator contains transistors that keeps electric current for 3 minutes. In case of power loss, RAM can be written […]
Some useful notes about KMS and VDI
Here are some very useful links and commands to implement and troubleshoot Microsoft KMS (Office and Windows). Steps to install KMS for Windows (Link: here): Install KMS Server, install the KMS Key: slmgr.vbs /ipk kms-key You should get an success-message after a few seconds. If not, maybe the key is not an KMS Key or the wrong key. Activate the KMS Server online: slmgr.vbs /ato Check […]
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