Sending Notifications through Message Board in VMware vRA

You can use message board to send the notifications to the vRA users. How to configure it:-
1. Assign Security Administrator Role to a User or Group. Check this post to know how to assign it
2. Login with Security Administrator Role User
3. Open Administration Tab > Notifications > Message Board > Select Type (It can be URL or Custom Message) > Type your message > OK

4. All users will get this notification at the Header Area > Click on View Message

5. Message will be opened

If you want to send URLs in the notification messages then configure Message Board Whitelist URLs through Security Administrator role user.

Docker Installation on Windows Operating System - Part 4

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Docker Installation on Windows Operating System
1. Open https://www.docker.com/
2. Login with Docker ID (If you have not created the account yet, Click on Sign-In and Create the account) as it is needed for downloading the docker installer.

3. Open https://www.docker.com/ again
4. Now click on Get Started

5. Click on Download Desktop and Take a Tutorial

6. Click on Get Started with Docker Desktop

7. Click on Docker Desktop for Windows, It will start downloading executable and size of this file is approx. 850MB

8.  Execute the installation and Select the option as needed for this screen. As i don't want to run windows based containers due to this i have not selected this check box > Click on OK > Now this will start the Docker Installation. Wait for 2-3 Minutes.

9. Once the installation is completed, it will create the desktop shortcut.

10. Now click on this shortcut, you will get the popup message to restart your system. Click on OK

11. Now you can see docker icon in the notification area, this means docker is running in your system

12. Click on this docker icon in notification area. It will open the windows where you have to login with your Docker ID

13. Now Open your favorite Terminal and run this command. I have executed this command one by one in both the terminals and result is same
docker info

To check the docker version, you can use "docker version" command

14. Now you are ready to create and run containers with docker commands
docker run <image name>

What is Container? - Part 3

What is Container?
Container is an Instance of Docker Image that runs the program. Container Lets you to run two different applications those who are dependent on Same Application but they need two different versions of same application. Like App1 need Python V1 and App2 needs Python V2. Due to OS level constraints you cannot run two different versions of same application. With container it is Possible.

Container Architecture
First of all for understanding the container architecture one should know how our apps interacts with resources in general.
1. Whenever Application is launched within the OS, it starts processes and these processes will start the system call to read the data from hard disk.
2. OS Kernel receives this call and checks which process is making the call and accordingly provides the resources.

Now as the example given by me earlier what if i want to run two different applications where they have dependency on two different versions of same application. How container solves this problem:-

1. In Container with Namespaces one can Isolate resources for per process. we can configure this process should use this particular Hard-disk area. 
2. with cgroups, which process can use how much RAM, CPU, HDD Space and Network Resources.
3. Now whenever someone runs "docker run" command, it creates container and starts the application which creates the process for application.

What Image Contains? - It contains File System Snapshot which include all the dependencies and config and startup command. Whenever docker run command is executed it creates new instance from docker image file system snapshot and run the startup command configured in the image.

 

Terminology used in Containers

Popular Container Engines
Dockers

Rkt

Apache Mesos

Containers vs. VMs

Benefits of Containers
1. Saves Resources
2. Starts in Few Seconds
3. Isolate Applications not entire systems

Drawbacks of Using Virtual Machines
1. Waste Resources
2. Starts in Few Minutes
3. Isolate Systems

Both together will offer you best in class. You can run containers directly on physical machine or in a virtual machine.


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What is Docker? - Part 2

Docker is a platform or ecosystem for creating and running container. Now the Next question is what is container.

Docker Client (Docker CLI)
It is a tool that from where we are going to issue the commands

Docker Server (Docker Daemon)
It is a tools that is responsible for Creating images, running containers and maintaining containers.

Docker Hub
It is free repository of Docker Public Images. Example - Busybox, redis, postgres etc.

Docker Image
Docker Image is single file with all the dependencies and config that is required to run the program.

What Image Contains? - It contains File System Snapshot which include all the dependencies and config and startup command. Whenever docker run command is executed it creates new instance from docker image file system snapshot and run the startup command configured in the image.

Docker Run Command Architecture
As you have seen in my previous post i have executed docker run command to create and start docker container. What exactly is happened when this command is executed.

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Why One Should Use Docker? - Part 1

Docker, one of the hot topic in the market these days. Now the question is why this is hot topic in the market and what it is trying to solve.....right? Before starting with why one should use docker, i will discuss what docker is trying to solve.
            As we all know whenever we want to run any software in any OS we have to take care of dependencies and many other things and what if you missed something then you will get errors and you have fix all those missing components and re-run the installer and if something is still not installed then repeat the same procedure to fix it and re-run the installer. Traditional Software Installation workflow is like this given below:-

Docker makes this easy, to run software without worrying about software installer downloads and it's dependencies.

Lets take the Example here, I want to run an application "Redis". Steps for running this application are in traditional way:-
1. Download it from the Redis Website

2. Now if i will run the same wget command as given in the above screenshot, it's throws this error "command not found"

Now how easily you can you run same application without worrying about its installer and dependencies through Docker.
1. Install Docker
2. Open your favorite terminal this depends on OS where you have installed docker, in my case i have installed it on Windows and i have Windows Command Prompt. Now run this command:-

docker run -it redis
and My application is ready to run in just few seconds or minutes

I hope it is clear now why one should use docker.

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Kubernetes Academy by VMware - Free Cloud Native Education Platform

Yesterday VMware has announced a Free Cloud Native Education Platform named Kubernetes Academy  to learn kubernetes skill-set.

How to Access Kubernetes Academy
1. Create your Account
https://kubernetes.academy/courses#signup

2. Start accessing the free courses available here to enhance your knowledge. These are the courses available here but i believe time to time new courses will be added in this list:-

Security Administrator Role in VMware vRA

In vRA, there is a role in the product which is Security Administrator Role in the Product

What Security Administrator Role User can do?
Create a Message Board Whitelist

Who can Assign this role?
Tenant Administrator Role User

How to Configure the Message Whiteboard List

1. Assign the Security Administrator Role
2. Login with Security Administrator Role User
3. Click on Administration Tab > Message Board Whitelist > New > Specify URL with HTTPS > Click on OK.

Get Service Categories Visibility in VMware vRA 7.6

By default when someone opens catalog tab in vRA 7.6, they gets the visibility of catalog item and you can use search feature to search for the specific catalog item but for searching for any catalog item one should know the name of catalog item which is difficult to memorize. Now you can filter out your catalog items based on service category, lets see you can list service category in vra 7.6:-

1. Login in to vRA Self Service Portal
2. Open Catalog Tab > Click on Filter Icon

3. Now select specific category to filter out catalog items belongs to specific category

Two Options to Upgrade Your One Version Old VMware VCP Certifications to VCP 2019

Two Options to Upgrade Your One Version Old VMware VCP Certifications to VCP 2019:-

Option 1- Pass one of the Exams

Option 2- Attend one of the training courses in 2019

Need more info, Feel free to contact me.

vSphere 6.7 U3 Cloud Native Storage (CNS)

Check this Cormac Hogan Blog Post
https://cormachogan.com/2019/08/15/introducing-vmware-cloud-native-storage-cns/

Private Network Profile - New in VMware vRA 7.6

• You can create a private network for NSX for vSphere that uses the IPAM specification that is supplied with vRealize Automation.

• You can create an on-demand private network profile for NSX for vSphere relative to an external network profile.

• Private networks are not available for NSX-T.

• Private networks are not available for third-party IPAM.

• You can define one or more ranges of static IP addresses for use in provisioning a network. You can create a private network profile with or without static IP addresses or ranges. DHCP 

• Private networks have no inbound or outbound connectivity. An edge is not provisioned for private networks.
  

Control Machine Prefix Visibility in VMware vRA 7.6

vRA 7.6 has new option to control Machine Prefix Visibility, where you can decide do you want to provide the visibility to all tenants or to specific one?

List of VMware Retired Certifications and Exams

Check this link to find out the list of VMware Retired Certifications and Exams:-
https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/certification/vmw-certification-retired-exams.pdf

Process ID and Parent ID

You use the ps command to obtain a listing of processes currently running.

Each of these entries has a different process ID (PID) in the first column, but the same parent ID in the second column.Processes with the same parent ID is an indication that this is a multithreaded process, that is, a process that has more than one line of execution.

ESXCLI vs LOCALCLI

esxcli command is popular command among vsphere administrator which can be used to manage esxi host configuration through ESXi Shell or remotely like vCLI or PowerCLI but there is one more command available for managing the esxi when hostd is unavailable. Here is comparison of esxcli and localcli

Here is the example of localcli. You can use it in the same manner like esxcli but remember localcli is unsupported.