vSphere Management Assistant for vSphere 6.5 is Deprecated

The VMware vSphere Management Assistant (vMA) is a prepackaged Linux virtual machine in which administrators can deploy scripts and select third-party agents to manage ESX and ESXi systems. Software included in vMA includes vSphere CLI and an authentication component that supports non-interactive login. It also includes DCLI commands which allow you to manage services that are available via the vSphere REST API and are presented by the vSphere Automation SDK interfaces.
Download vMA 6.5 Guide from here

Note: vMA is deprecated and vMA 6.5 is the last release.

Session Timeout Setting in vRA 7.x

Configure the session timeout setting on the vRealize Automation appliance in accordance with your company security policy.

The vRealize Automation appliance default session timeout on user inactivity is 30 minutes. To adjust this time out value to conform to your organization's security policy, edit the web.xml file on your vRealize Automation appliance host machine.

Procedure

1	Open the/usr/lib/vcac/server/webapps/vcac/WEB-INF/web.xml file in a text editor.
2	Find session-config and set the session-timeout value. See the following code sample. <!-- 30 minutes session expiration time --> <session-config> <session-timeout>30</session-timeout> <tracking-mode>COOKIE</tracking-mode> <cookie-config> <path>/</path> </cookie-config> </session-config>
3	Restart the Apache server by running the following commands. /etc/init.d/apache2 stop /etc/init.d/apache2 start

vRA 7 Scenario : Reclamation Requests Status

Scenario:-

User 1:-
Deployed "N" Number of VMs
Now left the Organization

User X :-
This user account has Tenant Administrator Role
This User is sending the reclamation requests for reclaiming User 1 VMs

User 2:-
This user is New Joinee in place of User 1 and in the Same  Department where User 1 worked.

Question1:- What would be the status of VMs Reclamation request those are triggered by User X for User1 VM, when user 1 account is no longer available in AD as he left the organization.

Answer :- Tenant Admins can check this user reclamation requests from his own Inbox Tab and Accept or Reject those requests. 

Question2:- What would be the status of VMs Reclamation request those are triggered by User X for User1 VM, when user 1 account is no longer available in AD as he left the organization. And after those requests were triggered, Ownership of those User 1 VMs is transferred to User 2.

Answer :- User 2 cannot see these reclamation requests in her Inbox Tab as those were triggered before providing the Ownership of these VMs to User 2

VSAN 6.2 P.O.C Guide

https://storagehub.vmware.com/#!/vmware-vsan/virtual-san-6-2-proof-of-concept-guide

Reinitiate vRA 7 Installation Wizard

Many times if due to any reason vRA7 Installation is Interrupted then even after connecting with vRA Appliance Management Interface this is not getting initiated again. Now how to reinitiate it?
Steps are given below to reinitiate it:-

1. Connect with vRA Appliance Console
2. cd /usr/sbin
3. Run this command
./vcac-vami  installation-wizard activate 
Type
4. Yes 
5. Now connect with vRA Applaince VAMI > It's reinitiated

Sequence for Start, Shutdown and Restart of VMware vRA 7.x Environment

Start Up vRealize Automation

When you start vRealize Automation from the beginning, such as after a power outage, a controlled shutdown or after recovery, you must start its components in a specified order.

Prerequisites

Verify that the load balancers that your deployment uses are running.

Procedure

1	Start the MS SQL database machine. If you are using a legacy PostgreSQL standalone database, start that machine as well.
2	(Optional) If you are running a deployment that uses load balancers with health checks, disable the health check before you start the vRealize Automation appliance. Only ping health check should be enabled.
3	Start all instances of vRealize Automation appliance at the same time and wait for approximately 15 minutes for the appliances to startup. Verify that the vRealize Automation appliance services are up and running. If you have more than one node and you start only one node, you may have to wait for extra 35 minutes. However, the extra wait time would be canceled out as soon as you start the second node.
4	Start the primary Web node and wait for the startup to finish.
5	(Optional) If you are running a distributed deployment, start all secondary Web nodes and wait 5 minutes.
6	Start the primary Manager Service node and wait for 2 to 5 minutes, depending on your site configuration.
7	Start the Distributed Execution Manager Orchestrator and Workers and all vRealize Automation proxy agents. You can start these components in any order and you do not need to wait for one startup to finish before you start another.
8	If you disabled health checks for your load balancers, reenable them.
9	Verify that the startup succeeded. a Navigate to the vRealize Automation appliance management console by using its fully qualified domain name, https://vra-va-hostname.domain.name:5480/. b Click the Services tab. c Click the Refresh tab to monitor the progress of service startup.

When all services are listed as registered, the system is ready to use. 

Shut Down vRealize Automation

To preserve data integrity, you must shut down vRealize Automation in a specified order.

If you are using vCenter Server to manage your virtual machines, use the guest shutdown command to shut down vRealize Automation.

Procedure

1	Shut down the Distributed Execution Manager Orchestrator and Workers and all vRealize Automation agents in any order and wait for all components to finish shutting down.
2	Shut down virtual machines that are running the Manager Service and wait for the shutdown to finish.
3	(Optional) For distributed deployments, shut down all secondary Web nodes and wait for the shutdown to finish.
4	Shut down the primary Web node, and wait for the shutdown to finish.
5	(Optional) For distributed deployments, shut down all secondary vRealize Automation appliance instances and wait for the shutdown to finish.
6	Shut down the primary vRealize Automation appliance and wait for the shutdown to finish. If applicable, the primary vRealize Automation appliance is the one that contains the master, or writeable, Appliance Database. Make a note of the name of the primary vRealize Automation appliance. You use this information when you restart vRealize Automation.
7	Shut down the MSSQL virtual machines in any order and wait for the shutdown to finish.
8	If you are using a legacy standalone PostgreSQL database, also shut down that machine.

You shut down your vRealize Automation deployment.

Restart vRealize Automation

When you restart more than one vRealize Automation component, you must restart the components in a specified order.

You might need to restart some components in your deployment to resolve anomalous product behavior. If you are using vCenter Server to manage your virtual machines, use the guest restart command to restart vRealize Automation.

If you cannot restart a component or service, follow the instructions in shutdown and Startup order

Prerequisites

Verify that load balancers that your deployment uses are running.

Procedure

1	Restart the all instances of the vRealize Automation appliance at the same time.
2	Restart the primary Web node and wait for the startup to finish.
3	If you are running a distributed deployment, start all secondary Web nodes and wait for the startup to finish.
4	Restart all Manager Service nodes and wait for the startup to finish.
5	Restart the Distributed Execution Manager Orchestrator and Workers and all vRealize Automation agents, and wait for the startup to finish for all components. You can restart these components in any order.
6	Verify that the service you restarted is registered. a Navigate to the vRealize Automation appliance management console by using its fully qualified domain name, https://vra-va-hostname.domain.name:5480/. b Click the Services tab. c Click the Refresh tab to monitor the progress of service startup.

When all services are listed as registered, the system is ready to use.

VMware DEM Performance Analysis and Tuning

By default, vRealize Automation processes only two concurrent provisions per endpoint. VMware recommends that all deployments start with at least two DEM-Workers. In 6.x each DEM-Worker
could process 15 workflows concurrently. This has been increased to 30 in 7.0. If machines are being customized through Workflow Stubs, you should have 1 DEM-Worker per 20 Machines that will be provisioned concurrently. For example, a system supporting 100 concurrent provisions should have a minimum of 5 DEM-Workers.

Deploy VMware vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) 6.5 Step by Step

Overview of vCSA 6.5

The vCenter Server Appliance is supported on VMware ESXi™ 5.5 and later. The appliance package contains the following software:

■	Project Photon OS® 1.0
■	PostgreSQL database
■	vCenter Server 6.5 and vCenter Server 6.5 components
■	Platform Services Controller that contains all of the necessary services for running vCenter Server such as vCenter Single Sign-On, License service, and VMware Certificate Authority

Customization of the vCenter Server Appliance is unsupported except for adding memory, CPU, and disk space.

Improvements in vCSA 6.5

• Supports 2000 Hosts and 35000 VMs
• Update manager service is embedded in vCSA Appliance
• vCSA Supports High Availability
• vCSA Supports File-based Backup and Restore

DNS Requirements:-

• When you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance, similar to any network server, you can assign a fixed IP address and an FQDN that is resolvable by a DNS server so that clients can reliably access the service.
• When you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance with a static IP address, you ensure that in case of system restart, the IP address of the appliance remains the same.

• Before you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance with a static IP address, you must verify that this IP address has a valid internal domain name system (DNS) registration.
• When you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance, the installation of the Web server component that supports the vSphere Web Client fails if the installer cannot look up the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the appliance from its IP address. Reverse lookup is implemented using PTR records.
• If you plan to use an FQDN for the appliance system name, you must verify that the FQDN is resolvable by a DNS server.
• You can use the nslookup command to verify that the DNS reverse lookup service returns an FQDN when queried with the IP address and to verify that the FQDN is resolvable.

          nslookup -nosearch -nodefname FQDN_or_IP_address

• If you use DHCP instead of a static IP address for the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance, verify that the appliance name is updated in the domain name service (DNS). If you can ping the appliance name, the name is updated in DNS.
• Ensure that the ESXi host management interface has a valid DNS resolution from the vCenter Server and all vSphere Web Client instances. Ensure that thevCenter Server has a valid DNS resolution from all ESXi hosts and all vSphere Web Clients.

Network Ports Requirements
The vCenter Server system, both on Windows and in the appliance, must be able to send data to every managed host and receive data from the vSphere Web Client and the Platform Services Controller services. To enable migration and provisioning activities between managed hosts, the source and destination hosts must be able to receive data from each other.
If a port is in use or is blacklisted, the vCenter Server installer displays an error message. You must use another port number to proceed with the installation. There are internal ports that are used only for inter-process communication.

VMware uses designated ports for communication. Additionally, the managed hosts monitor designated ports for data from vCenter Server. If a built-in firewall exists between any of these elements, the installer opens the ports during the installation or upgrade process. For custom firewalls, you must manually open the required ports. If you have a firewall between two managed hosts and you want to perform source or target activities, such as migration or cloning, you must configure a means for the managed hosts to receive data.

In Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and later, firewall is enabled by default.

Ports Required for Communication Between Components
Port	Protocol	Description	Required for	Used for Node-to-Node Communication
22	TCP/UDP	System port for SSHD.	Appliance deployments of ■ vCenter Server ■ Platform Services Controller	No
53		DNS service	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	No
80	TCP	vCenter Server requires port 80 for direct HTTP connections. Port 80 redirects requests to HTTPS port 443. This redirection is useful if you accidentally use http://server instead of https://server. WS-Management (also requires port 443 to be open). If you use a Microsoft SQL database that is stored on the same virtual machine or physical server as the vCenter Server, port 80 is used by the SQL Reporting Service. When you install or upgrade vCenter Server, the installer prompts you to change the HTTP port for vCenter Server. Change the vCenter Server HTTP port to a custom value to ensure a successful installation or upgrade. Important You can change this port number during the vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller installations on Windows.	Windows installations and appliance deployments of ■ vCenter Server ■ Platform Services Controller	No
88	TCP	Active Directory server.	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	No
389	TCP/UDP	This port must be open on the local and all remote instances of vCenter Server. This is the LDAP port number for the Directory Services for thevCenter Server group. If another service is running on this port, it might be preferable to remove it or change its port to a different port. You can run the LDAP service on any port from 1025 through 65535. If this instance is serving as the Microsoft Windows Active Directory, change the port number from 389 to an available port from 1025 through 65535.	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	■ vCenter Server toPlatform Services Controller ■ Platform Services Controller to Platform Services Controller
443	TCP	The default port that thevCenter Server system uses to listen for connections from thevSphere Web Client. To enable the vCenter Serversystem to receive data from the vSphere Web Client, open port 443 in the firewall. The vCenter Server system also uses port 443 to monitor data transfer from SDK clients. This port is also used for the following services: ■ WS-Management (also requires port 80 to be open) ■ Third-party network management client connections to vCenter Server ■ Third-party network management clients access to hosts Important You can change this port number during the vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller installations on Windows.	Windows installations and appliance deployments of ■ vCenter Server ■ Platform Services Controller	■ vCenter Server tovCenter Server ■ vCenter Server toPlatform Services Controller ■ Platform Services Controller to vCenter Server
514	UDP	vSphere Syslog Collector port for vCenter Server on Windows and vSphere Syslog Service port for vCenter Server Appliance Important You can change this port number during the vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller installations on Windows.	Windows installations and appliance deployments of ■ vCenter Server ■ Platform Services Controller	No
636	TCP	vCenter Single Sign-On LDAPS For backward compatibility with vSphere 6.0 only.	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	During upgrade from vSphere 6.0 only. vCenter Server 6.0 to Platform Services Controller 6.5
902	TCP/UDP	The default port that thevCenter Server system uses to send data to managed hosts. Managed hosts also send a regular heartbeat over UDP port 902 to the vCenter Serversystem. This port must not be blocked by firewalls between the server and the hosts or between hosts. Port 902 must not be blocked between the VMware Host Client and the hosts. TheVMware Host Client uses this port to display virtual machine consoles Important You can change this port number during the vCenter Server installations on Windows.	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofvCenter Server	No
1514	TCP/UDP	vSphere Syslog Collector TLS port for vCenter Server on Windows and vSphere Syslog Service TLS port for vCenter Server Appliance Important You can change this port number during the vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller installations on Windows.	Windows installations and appliance deployments of ■ vCenter Server ■ Platform Services Controller	No
2012	TCP	Control interface RPC for vCenter Single Sign-On	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	■ vCenter Server toPlatform Services Controller ■ Platform Services Controller to vCenter Server ■ Platform Services Controller to Platform Services Controller
2014	TCP	RPC port for all VMCA (VMware Certificate Authority) APIs Important You can change this port number during the Platform Services Controller installations on Windows.	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	■ vCenter Server toPlatform Services Controller ■ Platform Services Controller to vCenter Server
2015	TCP	DNS management	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	Platform Services Controller toPlatform Services Controller
2020	TCP/UDP	Authentication framework management Important You can change this port number during the vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller installations on Windows.	Windows installations and appliance deployments of ■ vCenter Server ■ Platform Services Controller	■ vCenter Server toPlatform Services Controller ■ Platform Services Controller to vCenter Server
5480	TCP	Appliance Management Interface Open endpoint serving all HTTPS, XMLRPS and JSON-RPC requests over HTTPS.	Appliance deployments of ■ vCenter Server ■ Platform Services Controller	No
6500	TCP/UDP	ESXi Dump Collector port Important You can change this port number during the vCenter Server installations on Windows.	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofvCenter Server	No
6501	TCP	Auto Deploy service Important You can change this port number during the vCenter Server installations on Windows.	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofvCenter Server	No
6502	TCP	Auto Deploy management Important You can change this port number during the vCenter Server installations on Windows.	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofvCenter Server	No
7080, 12721	TCP	Secure Token Service Note Internal ports	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	No
7081	TCP	VMware Platform Services Controller Web Client Note Internal port	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	No
8200, 8201, 8300, 8301	TCP	Appliance management Note Internal ports	Appliance deployments of ■ vCenter Server ■ Platform Services Controller	No
7444	TCP	Secure Token Service For backward compatibility with vSphere 5.5 only.	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	During upgrade from vSphere 5.5 only. ■ vCenter Server 5.5 toPlatform Services Controller 6.5 ■ Platform Services Controller 6.5 tovCenter Server 5.5
8084	TCP	vSphere Update Manager SOAP port The port used by vSphere Update Manager client plug-in to connect to the vSphere Update Manager SOAP server.	Appliance deployments ofvCenter Server	No
9084	TCP	vSphere Update Manager Web Server Port The HTTP port used by ESXihosts to access host patch files from vSphere Update Manager server.	Appliance deployments ofvCenter Server	No
9087	TCP	vSphere Update Manager Web SSL Port The HTTPS port used by vSphere Update Manager client plug-in to upload host upgrade files to vSphere Update Manager server.	Appliance deployments ofvCenter Server	No
9123	TCP	Migration Assistant port Only when you run the Migration Assistant on the source Windows installation. The Migration Assistant lets you migrate Windows installations of vCenter Serverand Platform Services Controller to appliances.	Windows installations and appliance deployments of ■ vCenter Server ■ Platform Services Controller	During migration only. ■ Source vCenter Server5.5 or 6.5 to targetvCenter Server Appliance 6.5 ■ Source vCenter Single Sign-On 5.5 to targetPlatform Services Controller appliance 6.5 ■ Source Platform Services Controller 5.5 to target Platform Services Controller appliance 6.5
9443	TCP	vSphere Web Client HTTPS	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofvCenter Server	No
11711	TCP	vCenter Single Sign-On LDAP For backward compatibility with vSphere 5.5 only.	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	During upgrade from vSphere 5.5 only. vCenter Single Sign-On 5.5 toPlatform Services Controller 6.5
11712	TCP	vCenter Single Sign-On LDAPS For backward compatibility with vSphere 5.5 only.	Windows installations and appliance deployments ofPlatform Services Controller	During upgrade from vSphere 5.5 only. vCenter Single Sign-On 5.5 toPlatform Services Controller 6.5

Storage Requirements
When you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance, the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you deploy the appliance must meet minimum storage requirements. The required storage depends not only on the size of the vSphere environment and the storage size, but also on the disk provisioning mode.

Storage Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance
The storage requirements are different for each vSphere environment size and depend on your database size requirements.

Storage Requirements for a vCenter Server Appliance with an Embedded or External Platform Services Controller
	Default Storage Size	Large Storage Size	X-Large Storage Size
Tiny environment (up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines)	250 GB	775 GB	1650 GB
Small environment (up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines)	290 GB	820 GB	1700 GB
Medium environment (up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machine)	425 GB	925 GB	1805 GB
Large environment (up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines)	640 GB	990 GB	1870 GB
X-Large environment (up to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual machines)	980 GB	1030 GB	1910 GB

Storage Requirements for the Platform Services Controller Appliance

The storage requirement for a Platform Services Controller appliance is 60 GB.

Hardware Requirements:-

When you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance, you can select to deploy an appliance that is suitable for the size of your vSphere environment. The option that you select determines the number of CPUs and the amount of memory for the appliance. The size of the Platform Services Controller appliance is the same for all environment sizes.

Hardware Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance

The hardware requirements for a vCenter Server Appliance depend on the size of your vSphere inventory.

Hardware Requirements for a vCenter Server Appliance with an Embedded or External Platform Services Controller
	Number of vCPUs	Memory
Tiny environment (up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines)	2	10 GB
Small environment (up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines)	4	16 GB
Medium environment (up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machine)	8	24 GB
Large environment (up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines)	16	32 GB
X-Large environment (up to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual machines)	24	48 GB

Note

If you want to add an ESXi host with more than 512 LUNs and 2,048 paths to the vCenter Server Appliance inventory, you must deploy a vCenter Server Appliance for a large or x-large environment.

Hardware Requirements for the Platform Services Controller Appliance

The hardware requirements for a Platform Services Controller appliance are 2 vCPUs and 4 GB memory. 

Deployments Steps:-

1. Download vCSA 6.5 ISO from VMware Website

2. Mount the ISO on the machine from where you want to trigger this deployment. It can be Windows, Linux and MAC. In my case OS was Windows  and Path is given in the below screenshot. Double click on Installer.exe

3. Launch the Install by clicking on Install

4. Click on Next

5. Accept the License Agreement > Click on Next

6. Here i am going with Embedded PSC > Click on Next

7. Provide the details of your ESXi host (Mostly this host is in Management Cluster) > Click on Next

8. Click Yes on Certificate Message. It is because of Self-Sign Certificate

9. Now configure your vCenter Appliance VM Name > Click on Next

10. Configure the Deployment Size based on your Inventory Size

11. Select the Datastore and Thin/Thick Provisioning for the vCenter VM > Click on Next

12. Configure the Network details for the vCenter Appliance > Click on Next

13. Click on Finish.

 14. Now deployment is started wait for its completion

 15. Now the Stage 2 Starts, this is configuration phase for vCSA

16. Provide NTP Server details for time sync > Click on Next

17. Configure SSO > Click on Next

 18. Click on Next

19. Review the details > Click on Finish.

20. Click on OK at the Warning message.

21. Wait for the Configuration phase to be completed successfully.

Known Limitations of vCSA 6.5
The current release has several known limitations.
The following list contains features or actions that are currently not supported:

■	Local Windows OS users and groups are not migrated to the Photon OS of the vCenter Server Appliance 6.5. If you assigned vCenter Server permissions to any Local Windows OS users and groups, remove the permissions assignments before the migration. You can re-create Local OS users and groups on the Photon OS of the vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 after the migration.
■	After the migration, the source vCenter Server is turned off and cannot be turned on to avoid network ID conflicts with the target vCenter Server Appliance. After the source vCenter Server is turned off, all solutions that are installed on the source vCenter Server and that are not migrated become unavailable.
■	Migration of deployments that use custom ports for services other than Auto Deploy, Update Manager, and vSphere ESXi Dump Collector are not supported.
■	The migration process migrates only one network adapter settings to the target vCenter Server Appliance. If the hostname of the source vCenter Serverresolves to multiple IP addresses across multiple network adapters, you have the option to select which IP address and network adapter settings to migrate. After the migration, you can add the rest of the network adapters and settings to the target vCenter Server Appliance.
■	You cannot migrate a vCenter Server instance that uses a DHCP IP address. Refer VMware Documentation for more Info