Author: Stanislav Musil

My Experience at VMware Explore 2023

I recently had the incredible opportunity to attend VMware Explore 2023, and it was an enlightening journey into the future of digital transformation. This year’s event was brimming with innovative solutions and significant updates that left me excited about what’s coming next in the tech world.

Personal Insights

Attending VMware Explore 2023 was more than just an educational experience; it was a deep dive into the heart of innovation in MultiCloud. Each session and announcement was a glimpse into how technology can and will shape our future. From the in-depth discussions on cloud computing to the practical demonstrations of new software capabilities, every moment was an opportunity to learn and grow.

Homelab

As a homelaber this two sessions was a must

State of Union for VMware Home Labs (William Lam)

Home Labs The VCDX way (Johan van Amersfoort)

VMware Explore Video Library

https://www.vmware.com/explore/video-library/search.html#year=2023

VMware Explore party

The band “Manic Street Preachers” performed at this year’s VMware Explore Party.

Czech friends

I really enjoyed spending time with you.

Looking Ahead

As I left VMware Explore 2023, I was filled with a sense of excitement and curiosity about the future of technology. With VMware leading the charge in innovation, the possibilities seem endless. I’m eager to see how these new developments will unfold in the real world, transforming how we interact with technology in our daily lives.

Key Innovations and Updates

more: https://www.vmware.com/vmware-explore-new.html

VMware Tanzu Application Engine: The announcement of this tech preview was a highlight. It’s an app-centric layer that brings operational governance and compliance to multi-cloud environments, offering self-service access for developers

Enhanced Multi-Cloud Cost Forecasting: The integration of VMware Tanzu Cost with CloudHealth is a game-changer for budget management and planning, leveraging machine learning for up to 36-month cost forecasting

Tanzu Developer Portal: This portal, based on the Backstage open source IDP project, is set to revolutionize collaboration and execution across enterprise software teams

VMware Tanzu Hub: A central platform for application delivery and multi-cloud management. The Tanzu Intelligent Assist, powered by AI, was particularly impressive for its ability to interpret natural language queries

Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations: This includes new visibility of cluster costs and a simplified installation process, enhancing the Kubernetes experience

VMware Tanzu Guardrails: This tool enhances visibility and aids in resolving governance issues across public cloud environments

Tanzu Application Platform Enhancements: These include a preconfigured developer environment and new DORA metrics plugin for tracking software delivery performance

VMware Tanzu Insights: AI-ML based insights for Kubernetes and multi-cloud environments are set to revolutionize issue resolution processes

VMware Tanzu Greenplum: This automated machine learning agent integrates data science into the command line, simplifying complex data tasks

VMware Cloud on AWS: The expanded regional availability and enterprise-grade cloud management capabilities caught my attention, signaling a stronger AWS collaboration

vSphere 8 Update 2 and vSphere+: This update is set to enhance operational efficiency and accelerate innovation for DevOps

Digital Employee Experience Enhancements: The integration of enhanced analysis and additional data sources in Workspace ONE Intelligence is a step forward in understanding and improving the digital employee experience

Next..

Hope to see you ALL next year 4.-7. November 2024 -> Fira Gran Via, Barcelona (Spain)

One more thing 🙂 Did you know that you can use emojit in Snapshot name?

This blog post encapsulates the significant updates and personal reflections from VMware Explore 2023, highlighting the event’s impact on the future of technology.

Homelab 2022

Post Views: 502

LAB for 2022 is ready. Last year the price of the energy go so high, that I must to turn off some of my servers. So they are not running 24×7 🙁 Usually I run 2x vCenters, NSX-T, VSAN, Cloud Director, vRO, vRLI, Tanzu, K8S etc.. and a lots of linux VM’s all for testing and learning purpose. Licenses I have are from vExpert and VMUG Advantage.

2022-01-21

DC5

Networking:

  • Internet 500Mbit
  • Zyxel XS1930 (10gbit)
  • Zyxel GS1920
  • Mikrotik CRS 312 (12x 10Gbit)
Continue reading “Homelab 2022”

NSX-T upgrade to 3.1.1 with few issues.

Post Views: 1,403

I updated NSX-T in my lab environment (more about the homelab here) from version 3.1.0 to 3.1.1 { more precisely from 3.1.0.0.0.17107157 to 3.1.1.0.0.17483185 }. And during the update I went through few issues, which I was able to solve 🙂 Learning curve go up ..

Before you start, read release notes: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T-Data-Center/3.1/rn/VMware-NSX-T-Data-Center-311-Release-Notes.html

The first step should be to check NSX-T backups and alarms. I did the first, but not the second. So it had consequences.

Continue reading “NSX-T upgrade to 3.1.1 with few issues.”

Homelab 2021

Post Views: 750

LAB for 2021 is ready. Last year new home DC building has been build.
Usually I run 2x vCenters, NSX-T, NSX-V, VSAN, Cloud Director, vRO, vRLI etc..
and a lots of linux VM’s all for testing and learning purpose. Licenses I have are from vExpert and VMUG Advantage.

2021-01-17

DC5

Networking:

  • Internet 500Mbit
  • Cisco 2970G
  • Zyxel GS1920
  • Mikrotik CRS 305 (4x 10Gbit)
  • Mikrotik CRS 312 (12x 10Gbit)
Continue reading “Homelab 2021”

Upgrade vCloud Director for Service Provider to 9.7

Post Views: 955

Upgrade to 9.7 is little bit more complicated, because you need to upgrade (if you are using it) PostgreSQL.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Put vCloud Director + PostgreSQL DB vm’s into maintenance in monitoring system.
  2. SSH to vCloud VM and shutdown services:

    /etc/init.d/vmware-vcd stop

  3. Start nginx or apache to show temporary web page (this needs to be configured ahead). It’s just for cases, that users are trying to connect and you don’t want to have a lot of calls/tickets why the vCloud is not running/etc/init.d/nginx start
  4. Check that the temporary page is visible.
  5. Do + check a vCloud vm + vCloud DB vm backup

    do a PostgreDB backup

    1. check free spacedf -hsu – postgrespg_dump vcloud > /var/lib/pgsql/vcloud-backup_20200202.sql

    2. check that backup is not zerols -la /var/lib/pgsql/vcloud-backup_20200202.sql

    3. output must look similar to this:-rw-r–r– 1 postgres postgres 4114824617 Feb 2 22:03 /var/lib/pgsql/vcloud-backup_20200202.sql

  6. Do snapshots on both  VMs “vCloud Director” + “PostgreSQL DB”
  7. Installation and upgrade PostgreSQL DB to v.10

    yum install postgresql10-server

    sudo systemctl stop postgresql-9.6.service && sudo systemctl stop postgresql-10.service

    systemctl stop postgresql-9.6.service

    su postgres

    /usr/pgsql-10/bin/initdb -E UTF8 –locale=en_US.UTF-8 -D /var/lib/pgsql/10/data/

    /usr/pgsql-10/bin/pg_upgrade –old-datadir /var/lib/pgsql/9.6/data/ –new-datadir /var/lib/pgsql/10/data/ –old-bindir /usr/pgsql-9.6/bin/ –new-bindir /usr/pgsql-10/bin/

    change /var/lib/pgsql/10/data/pg_hba.conf same as /var/lib/pgsql/9.6/data/pg_hba.conf

    # TYPE DATABASE USER ADDRESS METHOD
    # “local” is for Unix domain socket connections only
    local all all trust
    # IPv4 local connections:
    host all all 127.0.0.1/32 trust
    # IPv6 local connections:
    host all all ::1/128 trust
    # Allow replication connections from localhost, by a user with the
    # replication privilege.
    #local replication all trust
    #host replication all 127.0.0.1/32 trust
    #host replication all ::1/128 trust
    host all all 0.0.0.0/0 md5

    vi /var/lib/pgsql/10/data/postgresql.conf

    listen_addresses = ‘*’


    Disable PostgreSQL 9.6 and enable and start PostgreSQL 10

    systemctl disable postgresql-9.6.service
    systemctl enable postgresql-10.service
    systemctl start postgresql-10.service

    su postgres
    ./analyze_new_cluster.sh
    ./delete_old_cluster.sh

    Remove old PostgreSQL service

    yum remove postgresql96-server

  8. Check that vcloud DB user is owner of the DB in the postgress!!

    su postgres
    psql
    #list DB’s
    \l

    1. if not change owner of DB “vcloud” to user “vcloud” :ALTER DATABASE vcloud OWNER TO vcloud;
      \l
      \q
    2. optional you can do second DB backup on new PostgreSQL version
      pg_dump vcloud > /var/lib/pgsql/vcloud-backup_pg10_20190505.sql

  9. upgrade vCloud to 9.7
  10. Upload new version/patch to vCloud VM ( ./vmware-vcloud-director-distribution-9.7.0-14535248.bin )
    ensure that file is executable +x flag
    chmod a+x vmware-vcloud-director-distribution-9.7.0-14535248.bin
  11. Run the installation bin file
    ./vmware-vcloud-director-distribution-9.7.0-14535248.bin
  12. run upgrade script
    /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/upgrade
  13. Dont start vCloudDriector services after upgrade DB. Manually started Nginx is running!
    /etc/init.d/nginx stop
    /etc/init.d/vmware-vcd start
  14. Reboot vCloud Director VM
    shutdown -r -t 1
  15. Check vCloud Director: https://_VCLOUD.DOMAIN/
  16. Run script for checking edge VM

    /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool edge-ip-allocation-updates –host vcloud.domain.xyz –user administrator –status/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool edge-ip-allocation-updates –host vcloud.domain.xyz –user administrator –update-ip-allocations
  17. After 1-2 business days delete snapshots + DB backup file.

Homelab 2020

Post Views: 810

Still in progress… not all HW is in the list.. for now just the CORE HW is in the list… and new homeDC building is being build ..

DC5

Networking:

  • Internet 500Mbit
  • Cisco 2970G
  • Zyxel GS1920

Compute:

DELL R710

  • 2x Xeon
  • 192 GB RAM
  • iDRAC
  • 4x NIC

DELL R710

  • 1x Xeon
  • 92GB RAM
  • 4x NIC

DELL R710

  • 1x Xeon
  • 92GB RAM
  • 4x NIC

NUC1 – Test & Dev

  • i3-6100U @ 2.3GHz
  • 32GB RAM
  • 256GB NVMe
  • 500GB SATA 2,5″
  • 2x 1Gbit NIC (one of them is USB TP-LINK U300)

VSAN ROBO:

ESX2 (whitebox)

  • Intel G4560 @ 3.5GHz
  • MB: B250M-D3H
  • 64GB RAM
  • 500GB NVMe Samsung 970EVO
  • 1TB SSD SATA Samsung 860EVO
  • 2x 256GB SSD SATA Kingston
  • 4x 1Gbit NIC
  • 2x 10Gbit NIC (intel X540-AT2) Base-T

ESX5

  • Xeon D-2123IT @ 2.2GHz
  • MB: Supermicro SYS-E300-9D-4CN8TB
  • 128GB RAM
  • 500GB NVMe Samsung 970EVO
  • 1TB SSD SATA Samsung 860EVO
  • IPMI
  • 4x 1Gbit NIC
  • 2x 10Gbit NIC (intel X722) Base-T
  • 2x 10Gbit NIC (intel X722) SFP+

Storage:

NearStore

  • Xeon E3-1220L @2.3GHz (4core)
  • MB: Supermicro X9SCM
  • Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 6, Rev. B
  • 32GB RAM
  • 16x 2TB SATA
  • 3x 3TB SATA
  • IPMI
  • 2x 1Gbit NIC (82574LM + 82574L)
  • 2x 10Gbit NIC (intel X540-AT2) Base-T
  • 1x 10Gbit Asus

QNAP 653Pro

  • 6x 3TB SATA
  • 4x 1Gbit

DC 1

Networking:

  • Internet 100Mbit

Compute:

GOLEM – ESXi 6.5.0 – Build 10719125

  • Xeon X3450 @ 2.67GHz
  • MB: S3420GP
  • Case: 1U
  • 24GB RAM
  • 5x 1Gbit NIC
  • 2x 1TB HDD SATA
  • 2x 512GB SSD SATA

D&R Site

Networking:

  • Internet 50Mbit

Compute:

ESX

  • Xeon E3-1220L @2.3GHz (4core)
  • MB: Supermicro X9SCM
  • 32GB RAM
  • 2TB SATA
  • 2x 1Gbit NIC (82574LM + 82574L)

Storage:

Synology DS210j

  • 2x 3TB SATA
  • 2x 1Gbit

VMware vCloud Director for Service Provider upgrade from 9.7 to 10.0

Check prerequisites, documentation, release notes

Documentation: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vCloud-Director/index.html

Release notes: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vCloud-Director/10.0/rn/VMware-vCloud-Director-for-Service-Providers-100-Release-Notes.html
API: https://code.vmware.com/apis/553/vcloud-director

Instalation,configuration and upgrade guide: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vCloud-Director/9.7/com.vmware.vcloud.install.doc/GUID-F14315CC-B373-4A21-A3D9-270FFCF0A417.html
In my scenario I have CentOS 7 VM where is vCloud director 9.7 running. And another VM where is running PostgreSQL.

Step-by-step guide

  1. stop vCloud services

    /etc/init.d/vmware-vcd stop

  2. backup vCloud DB. In my case PostgreSQL

    su – postgres

    pg_dump vcloud > /var/lib/pgsql/vcloud-backup_20200124-1821.sql

  3. create snapshot on vCloud Director VM a PostgreSQL VM
  4. upload and run installation file

    ./vmware-vcloud-director-distribution-10.0.0-14638910.bin

    Checking free disk space…doneChecking for a supported Linux distribution…Detected CentOS7 systemdoneChecking for necessary RPM prerequisites…doneExtracting VMware vCloud Director. Please wait, this could take a few minutes…vmware-vcloud-director-25.2019.09.12-14636284.x86_64.rpmvmware-vcloud-director-rhel-25.2019.09.12-14636284.x86_64.rpmvmware-vcloud-director-h5ui-25.2019.09.12-14636284.x86_64.rpmvmware-phonehome-1.0.0-14574960.noarch.rpmdoneVerifying RPM signatures…doneAn older version of VMware vCloud Director has been detected and will beupgraded to 10.0.0.If you choose to proceed, the installer will stop the vmware-vcd service,back up any configuration files from the previous release and migrate theproduct configuration as necessary.

    Would you like to upgrade now? (y/n)? y
    Upgrading VMware vCloud Director…
    Installing the VMware vCloud Director 10.0.0 RPM…
    warning: vmware-vcloud-director-25.2019.09.12-14636284.x86_64.rpm: Header V3 RSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID 66fd4949 : NOKEY
    Preparing… ################################# [100%]
    Updating / installing…
    1:vmware-vcloud-director-rhel-25.20################################# [ 13%]
    2:vmware-vcloud-director-25.2019.09warning: /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/global.properties created as /opt /vmware/vcloud-director/etc/global.properties.rpmnew
    ################################# [ 25%]
    3:vmware-vcloud-director-h5ui-25.20################################# [ 38%]
    4:vmware-phonehome-1.0.0-14574960 ################################# [ 50%]
    Cleaning up / removing…
    5:vmware-phonehome-1.0.0-12611311 ################################# [ 63%]
    6:vmware-vcloud-director-h5ui-24.20################################# [ 75%]
    7:vmware-vcloud-director-24.2019.03################################# [ 88%]
    Update completed.
    8:vmware-vcloud-director-rhel-24.20################################# [100%]
    done
    No DSA certificates found; disabling DSA ciphers for SSL/TLS connections. See KB 2056026 for details

    Upgrade installation complete.
    Next steps:

    You will need to upgrade the database schema before starting the
    vmware-vcd service. The product upgrade tool should be run only once per
    vCloud Director group. The tool may be run with the following command:
    /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/upgradeRun upgrade script

  5. Run upgrade script
    /    opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/upgrade

    Welcome to the vCloud Director upgrade utility

    Verify that you have a valid license key to use the version of the
    vCloud Director software to which you are upgrading.

    This utility will apply several updates to the database. Please
    ensure you have created a backup of your database prior to continuing.


    Do you wish to upgrade the product now? [Y/N] y
    Examining database at URL: jdbc:postgresql://Postgre-DB.lab:5432/vcloud?socketTimeout=90
    The next step in the upgrade process will change the vCloud Director database schema.
    Backup your database now using the tools provided by your database vendor.
    Enter [Y] after the backup is complete. y
    Running 5 upgrade tasks
    Executing upgrade task:
    Successfully ran upgrade task
    Executing upgrade task:
    Successfully ran upgrade task
    Executing upgrade task:
    Successfully ran upgrade task
    Executing upgrade task:
    ……………./Successfully ran upgrade task
    Executing upgrade task:
    ……………[15]
    Successfully ran upgrade task
    Database upgrade complete
    Upgrade complete

    Would you like to start the vCloud Director service now? If you choose not
    to start it now, you can manually start it at any time using this command:
    service vmware-vcd start

    Start it now? [y/n] y

    Starting vmware-vcd-watchdog: [ OK ]
    Starting vmware-vcd-cell [ OK ]


 

HCI Bench – vSAN performance tool – Part 3: Tests and Results

Tests

Once you hit the “Test” button you can go watch some movies. It’s take a time depend on your HW. For me it was couple of hours.

  • It starts with VM deployment

  • It will create bunch of VM’s (each 4vCPU, 4GB of RAM, 9xHDD (total 250GB))

Testing was done by using Vdbench VM with input argument “-fvdb-8vmdk-100ws-4k-70rdpct-100randompct-8threads”

Results

Tested VSAN configuration:

  • 4x Node configuration with 10gigabit connection
  • VC build: VMware vCenter Server 6.5.0 build-7515524

Each ESXi host:

  • Build: VMware ESXi 6.5.0 build-7388607
  • CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Silver 4114 CPU @ 2.20GHz ( Packages: 2, Cores: 20 )
  • Memory: 256 GB
  • Server vendor/model: Dell Inc. PowerEdge FC640
  • VSAN Disks:
    • SSD: Local TOSHIBA Disk (naa.58ce38ee2000c0ad)
      • TOSHIBA PX05SMB080Y
      • 800 GB
    • SSD: Local TOSHIBA Disk (naa.58ce38e06c8a274d)
      • TOSHIBA PX05SRB192Y
      • 1920 GB
    • SSD: Local TOSHIBA Disk (naa.58ce38e06c8a26fd)
      • TOSHIBA PX05SRB192Y
      • 1920 GB
    • SSD: Local TOSHIBA Disk (naa.50000397cc89cd79)
      • TOSHIBA PX05SMB080Y
      • 800 GB

HCI Bench – vSAN performance tool – Part 1: Installation

What is HCI Bench

HCIBench stands for “Hyper-converged Infrastructure Benchmark”. It’s essentially an automation wrapper around the popular and proven VDbench open source benchmark tool that makes it easier to automate testing across a HCI cluster. HCIbench aims to simplify and accelerate customer POC performance testing in a consistent and controlled way. The tool fully automates the end-to-end process of deploying test VMs, coordinating workload runs, aggregating test results, and collecting necessary data for troubleshooting purposes.

HCIBench is not only a benchmark tool designed for vSAN, but also could be used to evaluate the performance of all kinds of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Storage in vSphere environment.

HomePage:
http://labs.vmware.com/flings/hcibench

User Guilde:
http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmw-tools/hcibench/HCIBench_User_Guide.pdf

Prerequisites

  • vSphere 5.5 environment or higher with vCenter (doesn’t support deployment on a standalone ESXi host).
  • Good to have DHCP on VLAN where the benchmark VM will be deployed.
  • vMotion configured

Installation

  • Select name and location for your VM

  • Review details

  • Accept license agreement
  • Select storage. Put it outside the VSAN datastore

  • Select destination network
    If there’s no DHCP Server on the VLAN which Vdbench client VMs will be deployed on, or the VLAN for Vdbench client VMs can not be routed from the Public Network, map this Network to the VLAN and Enable DHCP Service in the Web UI if needed

  • Customize the VM. As I am using DHCP in my LAB so all Network fileds are empty. And at the bottom enter your password for root.

  • Review configuration data before deployment

  • Hit “Finish” and watch progress in “Recent Tasks”

Related parts:

HCI Bench – vSAN performance tool – Part 1: Installation
HCI Bench – vSAN performance tool – Part 2: Configuration
HCI Bench – vSAN performance tool – Part 3: Tests and Results

Source: http://labs.vmware.com/flings/hcibench