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Wednesday, 25 November 2015

Adding Physical HP Endpoints in vCAC a.k.a vRA 6.x Creating Reservation - Part 2

Physical reservations are different in nature than a virtual reservation. Unlike virtual reservations we cannot dynamically assign Memory, CPU, Disks, or network adapters. We are stuck with what is in the physical machine. When we talk about self-service and automation it poses an interesting problem. How do we allow users to request a physical server that meets their needs.
The Physical Reservations combined with Physical Blueprints in vCAC help us solve this problem. In this article we are talking about Physical HP servers, and if we had a rack loaded full of servers it’s highly probable they wouldn’t be exactly the same. That’s fine we can add as many physical servers of varying configurations as we need to a reservation in vCAC. A physical Hp server reservation in vCAC is simply a collection of Physical HP servers managed through their iLo interfaces.
If you have reviewed Adding Physical HP iLo EndPoints you would have noticed that every physical server requires an endpoint. Once the endpoint is created vCAC does a discovery and learns about the physical specs of the server. A resource is then created for that server that can be added to a physical reservation.

Creating the reservation

  1. Start by going to Infrastructure -> Reservations -> Reservations and from the “New Reservations” menu select Physical.
  2. vcac601pr-0
  3. Give your new reservation a Name, Select the Tenant, Select the Business Group, and assign a priority.
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  5. Next select the resources tab and click “Add Machine”.
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  7. Select the machine(s) you would like to add to the reservation and click “ok”.
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  9. Next select the alerts tab, configure the appropriate alert thresholds, configure the email address and select “ok” to finish creating the reservation.
  10. vcac601pr-4

Adding Physical HP Endpoints in vCAC a.k.a vRA 6.x - Part 1

1. We start by going to the Infrastructure tab, then choosing Endpoints from the side menu and then Endpoints again. Once therehowever over the New Endpoint item on the right side of the page.
vcac601vchsep-8

2. Once the menu slides down select Physical and then HP iLO.
vcac601hpep-0
3. When the New Endpoint – HP iLO page open we need to give the Endpoint a Name. < Next we have to input the Server iLO address in the address field. This can be FQDN or IP address. Then select the appropriatecredentials in the Credentials field.
vcac601hpep-1
4. If you click the “Details” tab you can enter optional information about the Physical Servers Datacenter, Rack, & Row.
vcac601hpep-2
5. Click “Ok” to create the EndPoint.
If manually adding Physical HP iLo endpoints you will need to do this for each and every machine. Alternatively you can utilize the Import Feature available on the ‘Enpoints” page to import a CSV file with all your HP iLO endpoints defined in it.
* Important – There is no need to add the Physical machines to a Fabric Group.

Source:-http://flcloudlabs.com/

Thursday, 5 November 2015

What is PoD (Point of Delivery)?

 A point of delivery, or PoD, is "a module of network, compute, storage, and application components that work together to deliver networking services. The PoD is a repeatable design pattern, and its components maximize the modularity, scalability, and manageability of data centers."

Wednesday, 4 November 2015

What's New in This Release of Horizon 6.2?

VMware Horizon 6 version 6.2 provides the following new features and enhancements:
  • Windows 10
    • Windows 10 is supported as a desktop guest operating system
    • Horizon Client runs on Windows 10
    • Smart card is supported on Windows 10.
    • The View User Profile Migration tool migrates Windows 7, 8/8.1, Server 2008 R2, or Server 2012 R2 user profiles to Windows 10 user profiles.
  • RDS Desktops and Hosted Apps
    • View Composer. View Composer and linked clones provide automated and efficient management of RDS server farms.
    • Graphics Support. Existing 3D vDGA and GRID vGPU graphics solutions on VDI desktops have been extended to RDS hosts, enabling graphics-intensive applications to run on RDS desktops and Hosted Apps.
    • Enhanced Load Balancing. A new capability provides load balancing of server farm applications based on memory and CPU resources.
  • One-Way AD Trusts
    One-way AD trust domains are now supported. This feature enables environments with limited trust relationships between domains without requiring View Connection Server to be in an external domain.
  • Cloud Pod Architecture (CPA) Enhancements
    • Hosted App Support. Support for application remoting allows applications to be launched using global entitlements across a pod federation.
    • HTML Access (Blast) Support. Users can use HTML Access to connect to remote desktops and applications in a Cloud Pod Architecture deployment.
  • Virtual SAN 6.1
    • All-Flash support (Requires vSphere 6.0)
    • Stretched cluster support (Requires vSphere 6.0 U1)
  • Access Point Integration
    Access Point is a hardened Linux-based virtual appliance that protects virtual desktop and application resources to allow secure remote access from the Internet. Access Point provides a new authenticating DMZ gateway to View Connection Server. Smart card support on Access Point is available as a Tech Preview. Security server will continue to be available as an alternative configuration. For more information, see Deploying and Configuring Access Point.
  • FIPS
    Install-time FIPS mode allows customers with high security requirements to deploy Horizon 6.
  • Graphics Enhancements
    • AMD vDGA enables vDGA pass-through graphics for AMD graphics hardware.
    • 4K resolution monitors (3840x2160) are supported.
  • View Administrator Enhancements
    • View Administrator shows additional licensing information, including license key, named user and concurrent connection user count.
    • Pool creation is streamlined by letting View administrators clone existing pools.
  • Horizon 6 Interoperability with vSphere 6 Update 1
  • Horizon 6 for Linux Desktop Enhancements
    Several new features are supported on Horizon 6 for Linux desktops, including NVIDIA GRID vGPU, vSGA, RHEL 7.1 and Ubuntu 14.04 guest operating systems, and View Agent installation of JRE 8 with no user steps required.






Related Articles:-
Part1
Part2
Part3

Source:-
VMware Release Notes
Youtube
 

Sunday, 1 November 2015

What is RPO, RTO, WRT, MTD?

As this was the toughest topic for me to explain that What is RPO, RTO, WRT, MTD?  so today i will explain this topic in the same way in which my colleague explained me and i was able to understand too.
RPO = Recovery Point Objective
RTO = Recovery Time Objective
WRT = Work Recovery Time
MTD = Maximum Tolerable Downtime

Stage 1 : Business as Usual
At this stage all systems are running production and working correctly.

Stage 2: Disaster Occurs
On a given point in time, disaster occurs and systems needs to be recovered. At this point theRecovery Point Objective (RPO) determines the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. For example, the maximum tolerable data loss is 15 minutes.
Stage 3: Recovery 
At this stage the system are recovered and back online but not ready for production yet. The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) determines the maximum tolerable amount of time needed to bring all critical systems back online. This covers, for example, restore data from back-up or fix of a failure. In most cases this part is carried out by system administrator, network administrator, storage administrator etc.
Stage 4: Resume Protection
At this stage all systems are recovered, integrity of the system or data is verified and all critical systems can resume normal operations. The Work Recovery Time (WRT) determines the maximum tolerable amount of time that is needed to verify the system and/or data integrity. This could be, for example, checking the databases and logs, making sure the applications or services are running and are available. In most cases those tasks are performed by application administrator, database administrator etc. When all systems affected by the disaster are verified and/or recovered, the environment is ready to resume the production again.
The sum of RTO and WRT is defined as the Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MTD) which defines the total amount of time that a business process can be disrupted without causing any unacceptable consequences. This value should be defined by the business management team or someone like CTO, CIO or IT manager.

This is of course a simple example of a Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery plan and should be included in your Business Impact Analysis (BIA).

Reference Link

Saturday, 31 October 2015

Managing IBM Power and Z Systems via vRealize Automation

One of the challenges in creating hybrid cloud is stitching different infrastructure fabrics into a unified infrastructure platform. The other challenge is achieving automation at infrastructure level as well as at application level. IBM and VMware have joined forces to address these challenges in the industry to enable customers to manage different IBM and VMware infrastructure fabrics through a single solution. This integration is part of vRealize Automation product and is available out of the box in the latest vR Automation 6.2.3 release. vRealize Automation can now manage different IBM Power platforms by interacting with IBM PowerVC, and it can also manage System-Z platform by integrating with IBM Cloud Manager (ICM). vRealize Automation makes calls to OpenStack enabled API of IBM PowerVC and IBM Cloud Manager (ICM) to deliver this functionality.
Currently available functionality in vR Automation 6.2.3 release is –
1) OpenStack endpoint for PowerVC or IBM Cloud Manager (ICM)
2) Data collection on VM (LPARs) resources (CPU, memory) and network states
3) Creation of new LPARs based on image information available inside PowerVC or ICM
4) Deployment design via vR Automation blueprint model
5) Service brokerage via vR Automation self service catalog with flexibility to customize deployments at request time
6) Support for the endpoint in vR Automation fabric groups and reservations
7) Power related lifecycle actions – PowerOn, PowerOff, Restart

Source:-
https://blogs.vmware.com/management/2015/10/managing-ibm-power-z-systems-via-vrealize-automation.html

How to Migrate Citrix XenApp to VMware Horizon 6 - New Document Available

Wednesday, 28 October 2015

What's New in Site Recovery Manager a.k.a SRM 6.1?


·  Storage policy-based management: Site Recovery Manager 6.1 simplifies the process of adding and removing protection to virtual machines. It features new storage-profile protection groups that:
  • Utilize vSphere storage profiles to identify protected datastores and automate the process of protecting and unprotecting virtual machines and adding and removing datastores from protection groups.

  • Enable integration with vRealize Automation to perform self-service provisioning of SRM protection to applications in a private cloud environments.
·  Integration with VMware NSX: Integration with VMware NSX 6.2 lets you use network virtualization to simplify the creation and execution of recovery plans and accelerate recovery.
  • By leveraging new NSX logical switches that span vCenter boundaries, Site Recovery Manager allows you to automatically map network resources across the sites when creating a recovery plan, which lowers operational expenses and reduces time to protection.

  • After failover, network and security settings including IP addresses, security groups, firewall settings and edge configurations are preserved on recovered virtual machines, further decreasing recovery times.
·  Zero-downtime application mobility: Site Recovery Manager 6.1 can orchestrate cross-vCenter vMotion operations at scale using recovery plans when using a supported metro-distance stretched storage solution as underlying replication.
  • Site Recovery Manager users can perform disaster avoidance and data center migrations without downtime and accelerate disaster recovery time.

  • Stretched-storage users can experience the benefits of Site Recovery Manager, such as centralized recovery plans, automated non-disruptive testing and orchestrated virtual machine recovery.
For More Info download PDF from here



Tuesday, 27 October 2015

What's New in vCloud 8 for Service Providers?

  • vSphere 6.0 support: vCloud Director for Service Providers 8.0 adds support for vSphere 6.0 in backward compatibility mode.
  • NSX support: vCloud Director for Service Providers 8.0 adds support for NSX 6.1.4 in backward compatibility mode. This means that tenants' consumption capability is unchanged and remains at the vCloud Networking and Security feature level of vCloud Director 5.6.
  • Organization virtual data center templates: Allows system administrators to create organization virtual data center templates, including resource delegation, that organization users can deploy to create new organization virtual data centers.
  • vApp enhancements: Enhancements to vApp functionality, including the ability to reconfigure virtual machines within a vApp, and network connectivity and virtual machine capability during vApp instantiation.
  • OAuth support for identity sources: Support added for OAuth2 tokens.
  • Tenant throttling: : Prevents a single tenant from consuming all of the resources for a single instance of vCloud Director and ensures fairness of execution and scheduling among tenants.
Source:-
VMware Release Notes

Thursday, 15 October 2015

Fault Tolerance Requirements, Limits, and Licensing in vSphere 6.x


Before using vSphere Fault Tolerance (FT), consider the high-level requirements, limits, and licensing that apply to this feature.

The following CPU and networking requirements apply to FT.
CPUs that are used in host machines for fault tolerant VMs must be compatible with vSphere vMotion or improved with Enhanced vMotion Compatibility. Also, CPUs that support Hardware MMU virtualization (Intel EPT or AMD RVI) are required. The following CPUs are supported.

■
Intel Sandy Bridge or later. Avoton is not supported.
■
AMD Bulldozer or later.
Use a dedicated 10-Gbit logging network for FT and verify that the network is low latency.

In a cluster configured to use Fault Tolerance, two limits are enforced independently.

das.maxftvmsperhost

The maximum number of fault tolerant VMs allowed on a host in the cluster. Both Primary VMs and Secondary VMs count toward this limit. The default value is 4.

das.maxftvcpusperhost

The maximum number of vCPUs aggregated across all fault tolerant VMs on a host. vCPUs from both Primary VMs and Secondary VMs count toward this limit. The default value is 8.

The number of vCPUs supported by a single fault tolerant VM is limited by the level of licensing that you have purchased for vSphere. Fault Tolerance is supported as follows:

■
vSphere Standard and Enterprise. Allows up to 2 vCPUs
■
vSphere Enterprise Plus. Allows up to 4 vCPUs

Note
FT and legacy FT are not supported in vSphere Essentials and vSphere Essentials Plus.

Source:
VMware Documentation

Wednesday, 14 October 2015

App HA Most FAQ

Question:- Is there a new product that replaces vSphere AppHA?

Answer:- There is no replacement for the vSphere AppHA feature, customers can use vSphere Data Protection, HA, Fault Tolerance, and Replication to protect their environments along with supported third-party products.

Question:- Are there alternative third party products available?

Answer:- Yes, for AppHA scenarios customers can use third-party applications, such as ApplicationHA from Symantec.

Note: VMware does not recommend any specific third-party application.

Source:-
VMware Documentation