Uncancel the cancelled alert in vROPS 6.x

Question : If by mistake i cancelled an alert in vROPS then can i uncancel it?

Answer: No, it is not possible. But if the condition is not yet under control it will wait for number of wait cycles condition, it will be re-triggered automatically.

Specific Alert Notification in vROPS

As many times this question is asked "Is it possible to get the notification only for specific alert/alerts". My answer is YES for this. Then how one can achieve this. Let me explain this in the following screenshots

1. Log in to your vROPS console > Open the Content Page > Click on Notifications > Click on the Green Plus sign from the right hand side panel to create the new notification rule.

2. Select the appropriate options as per you rule requirement and select the specific alert as i selected in the below given screenshot > Click on save.
Note: Screenshot that i shared here is not the perfect rule as you notice some error. So what i just want to show here that you can achieve this with notification rule in vROPS.

This is how you can only configure the notification for the specific alert/alerts.

Patch for these Known Issue of vROPS in 6.1

The following issues are known to occur on VMware vRealize Operations Manager 6.1.

• The object type that is returned from the MethodInstances parameter value is different from earlier versions.
• Outbound SNMP messages do not contain alert messages when events are alerted via SNMP traps.
• Upgrade from vRealize Operations Manager 6.0.x to 6.1 fails with the following error: Cluster offline: PAK install failed.
• Dashboards do not display when the cluster is restarted.
• A null point exception occurs when you stop the collection of an object.
• Log Insight 3.0 cannot send alerts to a version of vRealize Operations Manager that is upgraded to 6.1.
• When new alert notifications are created with a filter, no new alerts are sent out even though new alerts exist. Only canceled alerts are sent out.
• When you configure outbound plug-ins, a null point exception occurs for instance level metrics.
• If the description in an alert definition is empty, it results in an error from SNMP messages. This occurs in the Hyperic adapter.

To resolve these issues Public Patch is available. Download this patch from here. Patch name is vRealize_Operations_Manager-cluster type-6.1.0.3294016.pak

For More Info:-
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2139886&src=vmw_so_vex_ragga_1012

Specific Month Detail in the vROPS Report

Question:- Is it Possible to generate the vROPS report with Some Views of Specific Month or Custom date Range?

Answer:- Yes Possible but from vROPS 6.1 Version, Edit a View (Create a clone copy if you want to modify built-in View and modify this copy) > Save it > Add this new view in your report template > Generate the report

Where to Modify this in View:-

Maximum Number of Reports in vROPS 6.x?

Question: How many reports can we keep in vROPS 6.x?
Answer : Maximum 10 Reports per Report Template you can keep in vROPS 6.x, With every newly generated report vrops deletes the oldest report.

Info Document Link:-
vRealize Operations Manager Customization and Administration Guide Page Number 106

New vRealize and NSX Courses

VMware vRealize Operations Manager for Operators (6.0)
VMware vRealize Automation: Install, Configure, Manage [V7.0]

VMware NSX: Install, Configure, Manage [V6.2] - Lab Connect
Click on the Course Links to know more about these courses

Deprecated VMFS volume(s) found on the host. Please consider upgrading volume(s) to the latest version in vSphere 6.0

Issue :- Deprecated VMFS volume(s) found on the host. Please consider upgrading volume(s) to the latest version

Reason :- This is known Issue in vSphere 6.0. This issue occurs because the version of the filesystem is not known during the initial detection. Therefore, comparing it against the list of valid filesystems does not return a match.
 
Solution :- Currently there is no solution.


Workaround:- Restart the Management Agents of the affected ESXi hosts to clear the Warning

Source: VMware KB 2109735

List all the ESXi host network adapters MAC Address

Whenever we do the troubleshooting of VM files lock issues then we need to find out the on which esxi host it is locked (check this post), we have commands to find out the MAC id of that host where it is locked but now the question how to find out that host, which host is this? There is Power CLI command that can help you to list all the esxi host adapters MAC in one screen
get-vmhostnetworkadapter | ft vmhost, mac, name

 

How to findout all the unregistered VM's in a specific ESXi Host?

1. First Connect with ESXi Shell (Local or Remote) Let's assume hostname of esxi is ESXi-a-01
2. Then execute this command to findout all the .vmx files visible to particular esxi host example :- ESXi-a-01
find -iname \*.vmx 

3. Then execute  another command to list all the running vm's on the esxi host example :- ESXi-a-01
vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms

4. Now compare both the outputs and you will get the info what all the vms are not registered on this ESXi. Now as you can see in this example Linux-a-02, Linux-a-07, Linux-a-09, Linux-a-010 are not registered on this esxi host.

How to Findout the UUID of all the VMs

Today someone asked me that how to find out the UUID of all the VM's. I thought i should share it with everyone. Here is command to find out this detail:-
get-vm | %{(Get-View $_.Id).config.uuid} 

Virtual Machine Connection States

In VMware there are total five connection states available for the VM. You might have faced some issues related to these connection states in your day to day job. Lets have a look at these states in this diagram:-

Situations for Invalid or Orphaned VM State

Many times you guys might have seen the Orphaned or Invalid Connection state of the VM. Now the question is what are the situations those can trigger Invalid or Orphaned Connection State of a VM? Here is summary of those situations:-

Please refer VMware KB for more Info:-
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003742&src=vmw_so_vex_ragga_1012

Changes in vSphere 6.0 Logs details as compared to vSphere 5.x

In vSphere 6.0 any action perform against the ESXi hosts from vCenter Server listed as [user=vpxuser:DOMAIN\user]as given in the screenshot:-

In vSphere 5.5 any action perform against the ESXi hosts from vCenter Server listed as [user=vpxuser] as given in the screenshot:-

What should i do after changing the Logging Level in vCenter?

Everyone knows in vCenter we can change the logging level from Info to Trivia or Verbose for the troubleshooting purpose. But the question that is asked to me "I enabled Trivia or Verbose but i am not getting detailed info in the log messages"

Answer = Restart the vCenter Server Service after each change made in the logging level Settings

These are the logging levels we have in VMware vCenter:-

Note:- VMware recommendation is to enable the trivia or verbose only when you are doing troubleshooting. Once troubleshooting is done, revert it back to the default settings. Don't keep it enabled in the production environment.

vCloud Automation Center / vRealize Automation Versions History Timeline

In July 2012, VMware acquired a company named Dynamic Ops, product that was offer by them was DCAC (Dynamic Ops Cloud Automation Center). Then in December 2012 after this acquisition, VMware introduced the product with the name vCAC (vCloud Automation Center). In September 2014, VMware rebranded the product again with the name vRealize Automation and introduced the product vRealize Automation 6.1. Latest release of this product is vRealize Automation 7.0, which was introduced in December 2015. This product provides Unified Portal for the Deployment and Management of Cloud solutions across VMware Private and Public Cloud, Physical Infrastructure & Multiple hypervisors and Public Clouds. I created this history timeline of all the versions of this product those are available till now i am writing this post and thought of sharing this with my blog readers

For more info refer release notes of different versions of this product:-
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vrealize-automation-pubs.html

If you want to know that how to check the release notes of different versions of this product, refer my previous post from here. In this i explained this about vROPS but although procedure is same.

vCenter Operations Manager a.k.a vRealize Operations Manager Versions History Timeline

In 2010 VMware acquired a IT Analytics and Infrastructure monitoring company named Integrien. At the end of August 2010, during VMworld 2010 VMware annouced that they acquired Integrien. In March 2011, VMware announced that the Integrien AliveVM product has been redesigned, reengineered and renamed it VMware vCenter Operations Manager and Launched at VMworld 2011. In December 2014 VMware renamed the product again and they changed name to vRealize Operations Manager 6.0. On 10th February 2016 VMware Released the latest version of the product with the name vRealize Operations Manager 6.2.There are many versions of this product so i thought lets make it simple by creating the versions history timeline. 
vCenter Operations Manager / vRealize Operations Manager Versions history timeline diagram is given below:-

For Release Notes of these different Versions refer these links:-

For Release Notes of these different Versions refer these links and then select the appropriate version from the drop down menu given on the right hand side of the page.

vCenter Operations Manager Versions Release Notes:-
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vcops-pubs.html 
 
vRealize Operations Manager Versions Release Notes:-
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vrealize-operations-manager-pubs.html

User Interfaces in vROPS (vRealize Operations Manager)

vROPS provides two interfaces:-
1. Administration Interface
2. Product User Interface
In the Diagram that is given below both are interfaces are explained and where we can use these interfaces

What is vROPS a.k.a vCOPS?

vRealize Operations Manager (vROPS) a.k.a vCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS) is provides visibility and insights in to Capacity, Performance & Health of your environments.

Benefits of vROPS:-

1. Cloud Operations Console = It is console from where you can do the centralized management of your environment.

2. Less Administration overhead to investigate and resolve issues = It can reduce the administration overhead that is needed to investigate and resolving the issues by providing the recommendations and sometimes can provide the action button to apply those recommendations.

3. Predicitive Capacity Modeling = you can visualize changes and even schedule the prospective changes in your environent with it.

4. Integrated Compliance = Once vSphere solution is integrated with vROPS it provides the hardening guide with vSphere solution as well and due to this auto integration of hardening guide it can generate alert symptoms. Although you can create custom symptoms as well.

5. Better Operations Visibility = Once vSphere Solution or any other solution is integrated with vROPS, it provides the visibility across all the layers of the infrastructure in the form of Health, Risk and Efficiency category.

6. Management Pack for All Domains = It provides management pack for all the domains like Cloud, Virtual, Application, Storage, Networking etc. For more info you can refer https://solutionexchange.vmware.com. Management Pack is the way of integrating a solution with vROPS.

In the upcoming blog posts i will try to give more info about these features. Stay tuned for the more updates.

Starting, Stopping, Restarting the Services in vCSA 6.0 Shell

To know to how to access vCSA shell refer this post that i posted earlier. In this post i will discuss how you can Start/Stop or Restart the Services in vCSA 6.0 Shell:-

1. Connect with the shell use command
Shell

2. To list all the services execute this command:-
service-control 

3. To know how to use this service-control command run
service-control --help

4. For example you want to check the status of vmware-vws service run command
service-control --status vmware-vws

5. To start the service vmware-vws run this command
 service-control --start vmware-vws

In the same manner you can replace start with stop to stop the service.
 

PSC (Platform Service Controller) & vCenter Server Services

vCenter Server instances can be deployed in various modes, depending on the location of Platform Services Controllers:

•      vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller

•      vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller

PSC and vCenter offers number of services. Let's have a look at those services and their functions:-

You cannot distribute these vCenter Server functions across multiple servers.

•         VMware vCenter Single Sign-On = To Forward the authentication requests.

•         VMware License Server = Provides centralized License management

•         Lookup Service For Component Registrations = It holds information of the products those are integrated.

•         Certificate Authority (VMCA) = VMware CA provisions each ESXi host, each vCenter Server service, each machine in the environment, and each solution user with a certificate signed by VMware CA

•         Certificate Store (VECS) = VMware Endpoint Certificate Store (VECS) serves as a local (client-side) repository for certificates, private keys, and other certificate information that can be stored in a keystore.

•         VMware Directory Services (VMDIR) = It provides directory services with vSphere.local domain in this environment although from version 6 this domain name can be any name of your choice.

•         vSphere Web Client = It is used to connect with vCenter and manage the vCenter by using Web Browser that is supported by VMware

•         Inventory Service = It stores vCenter application and inventory data and enables you to search this data across linked vCenter Instances

•         VMware vSphere Auto Deploy = It provides stateless and stateful deployments of ESXi

•         vCenter Server support tool = This provides Kernel dump Collection by collecting them over the network.

•         VMware vSphere Syslog Collector = This is Centralized log collection tool from vmware to redirect the multiple esxi host logs to centralized location

For more info refer VMware Documentation