One way to minimize the configuration of servers needed for the Auto Deploy infrastructure is to use the vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) as the TFTP server. Since Auto Deploy is built into the vCSA it has all the building blocks you need. Deploy your new vCSA Login and make sure all services are stopped (https://x.x.x.x:5480): SSH into the vCSA: ssh root@x.x.x.x Start the TFTP service: service atftp start Set chkconfig: chkconfig atftpd on Verify Changes: chkconfig –list atftpd Your TFTP directory is located at /tftpboot/

There are many options for setting up a TFTP server. It can be Linux, Windows, or even ran right off of the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA). Here are the steps I used to setup TFTP on CentOS: <li dir="ltr"> Make sure you see the :69 to verify that it is running? </li> <li dir="ltr"> Or turn iptables off completely (not the most secure option) <pre>service iptables stop</pre> </li>

While trying to setup a pair of vCenter Server Appliances (vCSA) I noticed that the documentation was confusing and incorrect. My goal was to have one vCSA as the vCenter Server, and another as the Auto Deploy Server. You need to make sure that the Auto Deploy service is not running on the vCSA that you are using as your vCenter. If you already have the Auto Deploy service running on your vCSA that you are using as your vCenter, you need to unregistered it from the local vCenter and set the service to not auto start.

Overview….. Infrastructure Setup You will need three servers besides your basic vSphere setup: TFTP, DHCP and the Auto Deploy server. You will also have to make sure you have PowerCLI Setup. TFTP Server Setup Red Hat/CentOS TFTP Server Setup Download the Deploy-tftp.zip file from vCenter and put it in the TFTP root directory: The file can be found in the web GUI: I put the file in: DHCP Server Setup Just like with TFTP, you can use pretty much anything for DHCP.

While trying to write a script to move our VMs to a newly created datastore cluster I discovered a bug in PowerCLI. The issue only comes into play when trying to convert to thin provisioning. I am using PowerCLI 5.1 Release 1 build 793510. If you run this command you get a giant trace stack: Running the same command without the -DiskStorageFormat flag will work fine: Also if you run the command with the thin provision flag against a datastore and not a datastore cluster it works fine as well:

Overview….. Infrastructure Setup You will need three servers besides your basic vSphere setup: TFTP, DHCP and the Auto Deploy server. You will also have to make sure you have PowerCLI Setup. TFTP Server Setup Red Hat/CentOS TFTP Server Setup Download the Deploy-tftp.zip file from vCenter and put it in the TFTP root directory: The file can be found in the web GUI: I put the file in: DHCP Server Setup Just like with TFTP, you can use pretty much anything for DHCP.

Service Providers have long used the vCloud Director notification system to receive events from the system. These can be used to perform actions or to build an integration with a back-office billing system. The events are published on a RabbitMQ instance and can be consumed in any language that can bind with the message bus. One of the main issues with using this method for integration with the billing system is how to recover from missed notifications.

What’s new for Virtual SAN 6.2? What’s new for Virtual SAN 6.2? Yes, finally… the Virtual SAN 6.2 release has just been announced. Needless to say, but I am very excited about this release. This is the release that I have personally been waiting for. Why? Well I think the list of new functionality will make that obvious. There are a couple of clear themes in this […] ” What’s new for Virtual SAN 6.

VMware NSX: 3 different use cases – via TechRepublic VMware NSX: 3 different use cases – via… VMware’s NSX is one of the most-popular options for network virtualization. Here’s how three companies are using it to power their businesses. VMware Advocacy

Photon Platform Devbox: give it a try! (via VMware’s @mreferre) Photon Platform Devbox: give it a try! Since VMworld, we’ve been talking at length about Photon Platform . But before, we go any further, let me explain the two building blocks that make up the Photon Platform, which are Photon Machine and Photon Controller . VMware Advocacy

VMware’s Casado warns Congress of “insufficient” national cyber defenses (@NetworkWorld) VMware’s Casado warns Congress of… VMware’s networking and security chief Martin Casado – a forefather of the software defined networking movement – testified before Congress last week that the country’s cyber security defenses are “insufficient.” VMware Advocacy

Over the past 3 years I have spent a lot of time building and refining nested ESXi as part of my day job. I worked for a large service provider at the time, and we developed our own portal on top of both the vSphere API as well as the vCloud Director API. Nesting VMware products to enable multiple developers to build against the different API’s was a perfect use case for nested virtualization.

Here are a few more great options for small test VMs: https://coreos.com/ (http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2014/07/how-to-quickly-deploy-coreos-on-esxi.html) http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os https://launchpad.net/cirros

A great article on how to build a minimal Ubuntu VM: https://coderwall.com/p/a56j3w

I was passed this article yesterday and it really it home, so I thought I would share. http://www.daedtech.com/how-to-keep-your-best-programmers This video is linked within, and it is really worth a watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Just found this video and it does a great job running through the setup:

It turns out that my issue came from the difference in default behavior between a vSS (Standard Switch) and a vDS (Distributed Switch). For those that want the TL:DR -> Set all security settings to “accept”. There are three security settings for switches in VMware. Promiscuous Mode – Allows the virtual networking adapter to observer any of the traffic submitted through the vSwitch. MAC Address Changes – Allows differences in the initial MAC address and the effective MAC on incoming traffic.

For the past few months we have been running multiple labs, two physical blades each, to do development against the vCloud 5.1 Beta. With the capacity that we have available in our overall lab, a nested approach like the VMworld labs would be a nice fit for our development team. Ideally we could spin up full vCloud instances in minutes. My experience thus far with nested environments was running vSphere in workstation to study for my VCP exam.