What’s New

vCenter Operations Manager 5.7 is the latest release of VMware’s integrated operations suite, converging performance, capacity, and configuration management. This new release introduces the following features and enhancements.

More Flexibility with Capacity Planning

Assess capacity risk and plan by allocation and/or actual demand: Set policies based on your varying business needs to assess capacity risk, efficiency, and forecast. For example, different buffers, over-commit ratios, alert thresholds, business hours, etc., across production and test-dev environments.

New views for Cluster Capacity Risk: Quickly identify via color-coded Cluster capacity risk view which clusters grouped by business criteria, etc., are at capacity risk—facing a capacity shortfall now or in the near future or just not sized right. Drill down for each cluster in the Cluster Risk Detail view to analyze which resource is it constrained on and why.

New policies for common environments and workloads: New out-of-the-box policies, such as Production and Test-Dev policies, enable quick set-up of vCenter Operations Manager capacity settings for common types of environments. Additional new out-of-the-box policies, such as Batch workload, Interactive workload, and Ignore VMs policies, help fine-tune capacity configuration settings to accurately right size and analyze different workloads based on their performance characteristics.

Improved Self-Monitoring

This release introduces new diagnostics metrics to monitor the health and availability of vCenter Operations Manager components, such as Analytics, Collector, Active MQ, Web server, database, and operating system.

Widgets with Improved Flexibility and Usability

• Health Tree Widget: Easy visualization for large number of objects.
• Generic Scoreboard Widget: Support for Sparkline, string metrics, and metrics filtering by resource.
• Metric Sparkline Widget: Configurable color ranges and units, support for resource type and label.
• Resource Widget: Customizable to add metrics beyond health.
• Top-N Analysis Widget: Support for analysis based on latest values.

New Custom Relationship Widget

Allows you to build a custom resource hierarchy and relationship view, just like the existing out-of-the-box vCenter Server view.

Custom UI Import and Export Changes for Dashboards and Super Metrics

• Export format changed from binary (.bin) to XML (.xml): .bin formats are still supported for backward compatibility.
• DBCLI Enhancements: Programmatically import and export Super Metrics.
• Pre-population of Dashboard objects during import.

Balanced Metrics Profile

This release introduces a new metrics profile that reports a reduced set of metrics. Increase the scalability of vCenter Operations Manager to support more resources by changing the metrics profile to the new “Balanced” profile in vCenter Operations Manager Administration.

VMware vCenter Infrastructure Navigator Filtering Capability

You can configure how resources discovered by vCenter Infrastructure Navigator are displayed in vCenter Operations Manager. This release introduces a configurable filtering capability to the vCenter Infrastructure Navigator adapter to control Application service and Application resource reporting. For each resource type, you can configure either “blackList” or “whiteList” filtering in the configuration file filterList.txt.

• blackList: The vCenter Infrastructure Navigator adapter ignores specified entries. If an Application Service name or an Application name is included in the “blackList,” it is not reported by the vCenter Infrastructure Navigator adapter. This is the default setting. The vCenter Infrastructure Navigator adapter filters unknown Application service names by default.
• whiteList: The vCenter Infrastructure Navigator adapter reports only the specified entries. If there are no entries added to the whiteList mode, none of the resources of the corresponding resource type are displayed.

New Browser Support

This release adds new support for the following browsers: Apple Safari version 6, Google Chrome versions 24 and 25, and Mozilla Firefox 18 and 19.

Security Hardening

This release includes additional security hardening and increases compliance with The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and The Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG) guidelines.

Now, the process for upgrading from vCenter Operations Manager 5.6 to the latest build based on vCenter Operations Manager 5.7.

Upgrade Process

1. Log in to your vCenter Operations Manager UI virtual machine through your web browser at https://<UI VM IP Address>/admin

2. Click the Update tab on the admin user interface.

3. On the Update tab, click Browse to find the update package

4. Choose the appropriate update package (VMware-vcops.5.7.0-1073531 is the base 5.7.0 release). Click Open.

5. With the path to your update package filled in appropriately, click Update.

6. Confirm the update by clicking OK.

7. The update package will then be uploaded to the vCenter Operations Manager appliance.

8. When presented with the EULA, accept the terms of the agreement, then click OK to proceed.

9. Click OK to confirm the update.

10. The update will now proceed. You will see a status bar for several minutes while the update moves forward.

11. You will, at some point, be logged out of the admin console. You can log back in to watch the update finish.

12. The update progress will be displayed on the Update tab.

13. Once the update is complete, you will see something similar to the message below.

14. You can verify your update by checking the About dialog through the client. It should now show vCenter Operations Manager version 5.7.0 build 1073531.

Power line communications can also be used in a home to interconnect home computers and peripherals, and home entertainment devices that have an Ethernet port. Powerline adapter sets plug into power outlets and establish an Ethernet connection using the existing electrical wiring in the home. (Power strips with filtering may absorb the power line signal.) This allows devices to share video and data without the inconvenience of running dedicated network cables.

The most widely deployed powerline networking standard is from the HomePlug Powerline Alliance. HomePlug AV is the most current of the HomePlug specifications and was adopted by the IEEE 1901 group as a baseline technology for their standard, published 30 December 2010. HomePlug estimates that over 45 million HomePlug devices have been deployed worldwide. Other companies and organizations back different specifications for power line home networking and these include the Universal Powerline Association, the HD-PLC Alliance and the ITU-T’s G.hn specification.

I chose the TP-Link TL-PA4010KIT AV500 High-speed AV 500Mbps Nano Powerline Adapter Starter Kit (Amazon link) due to some reviews that I’d read on them, as well as the price. In the end, I’d like to use these as Ethernet bridges for 3-4 devices in my house, so this is very much a test deployment.

In my first PLC deployment, I’m looking to connect my router in my basement to a repurposed WRT54GL in my bedroom, so I plug in an adapter near both devices and run a CAT5e Ethernet cable to each device. As soon as both adapters are plugged in, they make a connection to one another, which is good in my book – the simpler the configuration, the better. Now, let’s look at the performance.

Speedtest.net

Powerline:

Wireless:

Fast Ethernet:

File Copy (LAN)

Powerline:

Wireless:

Fast Ethernet:

Latency (LAN)

Powerline:

Wireless:

Fast Ethernet:

Conclusion

Based on the tests I’ve run thus far, these TP-Link adapters appear to fulfill my requirements for increased stability and throughput versus my wireless network. While not quite as good as a Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet connection, I would definitely recommend these adapters for anyone in a similar situation with similar constraints.

Configuring ESXi Authentication Services

First, we’ll need to create the ESX Admins group in Active Directory and populate it with users. This is the group that ESXi will give administrative rights once ESXi has been configured to authenticate versus AD.

Next, we need to configure our ESXi hosts to authenticate against Active Directory. This assumes your hosts are already available within vCenter Server.

Web Client

1. Click on your ESXi host in the Hosts and Cluster inventory view, click Manage, Settings, then Authentication Services under System. Click Join Domain.

2. Fill in your domain name and give proper credentials to join the domain, then click Join Domain. Note that prepending the domain name, e.g. DOMAIN\User, will cause authentication to fail. Either use the user@domain.tld format, or only the user name will suffice.

You should now see the Active Directory domain configuration as below.

C# Client

1. Click on your ESXi host in the Hosts and Cluster inventory view, then click the Configuration tab and Authentication Services under Software

2. Click Properties to bring up the Directory Services Configuration dialog box. Using the Select Directory Service Type drop-down menu, choose Active Directory.

3. Fill in your domain name, and click Join Domain.

4. Give proper credentials to join the domain, then click Join Domain. Note that prepending the domain name, e.g. DOMAIN\User, will cause authentication to fail. Either use the user@domain.tld format, or only the user name will suffice.

You should now see the Active Directory domain configuration as below.

To show that authentication is actually working, I’ll SSH into that ESXi host and log in using Active Directory user credentials.

Configuring vCenter Single Sign On

Since I want my vSphere administrators to be able to fully control my entire vSphere stack, I’m going to give them administrative rights in vCenter Single Sign on.

1. Log in to the vCenter Server Web Client using the admin@system-domain user.

2. Click Administration on the left-hand side of the window

3. Click SSO Users and Groups (If you haven’t already configured SSO to use your Active Directory domain as an Identity Source, see this article – Configuring vCenter SSO to Use a New Identity Source  )

4. Click the __Administrators__ Group, then click the Add Principals button.

5. Click the Identity Source drop-down menu, and choose your Active Directory domain.

6. Search the domain for the group ESX Admins. Select your ESX Admins group, then click Add. Click OK when finished.

You should now see your ESX Admins group as a Principal for the __Administrators__ SSO Group.

Configuring vCenter Server Permissions

An interesting thing happens after giving vCenter SSO permissions: a thing which does well to delineate the relationship between vCenter Server and vCenter Single Sign On permissions.

I can log in to the vCenter Server Web Client with my vSphere Admin account, but I see an empty inventory since that account has no rights within vCenter Server. Now, let’s give it some permissions.

Web Client

1. Log into vCenter Web Client as an administrator.

2. Select the vCenter Server object in the Hosts and Clusters inventory view. Click Manage, then Permissions.

3. Click the + icon to add permissions.

4. Click Add to add a new group. Click the Domain drop-down menu and choose your Active Directory domain.

5. Search for ESX Admins, select the ESX Admins group, and click Add. Click OK.

6. Click the drop-down menu under Assigned Role and choose Administrator. Click OK to finish adding the permissions.

Now, if I log in with my vSphere Admin account…

I have full administrative rights to my vCenter Server.

C# Client

1. Log in to vCenter Server via the C# vSphere Client with a vCenter Server administrator.

2. Select the vCenter Server object in the Hosts and Clusters, then select the Permissions tab.

4. Click Add under Users and Groups.

5. Choose your Active Directory domain in the Domain drop-down menu, then search for ESX Admins. Select the ESX Admins group, click Add, then click OK.

6. Select Administrator in the Assigned Role drop-down menu, then click OK to finish adding the permissions.

7. You should now see the ESX Admins group as an administrator under the vCenter Server object.

…and we’re done!

To add a new AD Identity Source:

1. Log in to the vCenter Server Web Client as admin@system-domain (password defined during SSO installation).

2. Click Administration in the left-hand pane.

3. Under Sign-On and Discovery, click Configuration. On the Identity Sources tab, click the green + icon to add a new Identity Source.

1. Name – Name of the identity source, e.g., domain name
2. Primary Server URL – Primary domain controller
3. Secondary Server URL – Secondary domain controller (optional)
4. Base DN for Users – The base domain name for users (optional)
5. Domain Name – The domain’s DNS name, e.g., domain.tld
6. Domain Alias – The domain’s NetBIOS name, e.g. DOMAIN (optional)
7. Base DN for Groups – The base domain name for groups (optional)
8. Authentication Type – Choose Password
9. User Name - A domain user with minimum read-only rights to the base DN for users and groups
10. Password – The password for the above user

5. Click Test Connection to make sure you have connectivity.

6. Click OK to add the Identity Source.

7. Select the new Active Directory Identity Source, then click the icon for Add to Default Domains. Click OK on the subsequent warning.

8. Click the up arrow to move your Active Directory domain to the top, then click the Save button to save the configuration

You’ve now added a new Active Directory Identity Source.

Upon searching for a solution, I found the following thread on VMware’s communities site – http://communities.vmware.com/thread/426705

The advice in the above thread worked for me, so here it is:

1. Restart the VirtualCenter Server service on your vCenter Server

2. Restart the vShield Manager virtual appliance.

3. Log in to the vShield Manager web UI.

4. Click Settings & Reports

5. Click Edit to the right of vCenter Server

6. Re-enter the vCenter Server admin password and click OK.

Now, you’ll need to redeploy or create a new vCNS Edge Gateway. To redeploy:

1. Click Edge Gateways under Cloud Resources. Right click your Edge Gateway, then click Re-Deploy.

To create a new vCNS Edge Gateway:

1. Click Organizations, then select the Organization to which the Edge Gateway will be added. Click the Organization name to open the Organization administration screen.

2. Click Administration.

3. Select the Organization vDC, then click the link.

4. Click Edge Gateways under the Organization vDC

5. Click the green plus to add a new Edge Gateway.

6. Select settings appropriate for your deployment (High Availability, Compact vs. Full, etc.) and click Next. Note that if you choose to Configure IP Settings manually, Sub-Allocate IP Pools, or Configure Rate Limits, more will be required than in this guide.

7. Add any external networks to the Edge Gateway. Click Next when finished.

8. Name your Edge Gateway, click Next.

9. Click Finish.

• Creating virtual machine DRS Groups
• Creating host DRS Groups
• Creating Run VMs on Hosts Rules
  • Must versus should
• Creating Separate Virtual Machines/Keep Virtual Machines Together Rules

Creating virtual machine DRS Groups

To create a virtual machine DRS Group:

1. Right-click the DRS cluster in question, then click Edit Settings.

Alternatively, select the DRS cluster in the Hosts and Clusters inventory view, then click Edit Settings.

2. Click DRS Groups Manager under vSphere DRS.

3. Here, you’ll see any existing DRS Groups. Click Add under Virtual Machines DRS Groups to add a new virtual machine DRS Group.

4. Select the virtual machines you wish to place in a DRS Group, click the right arrow to add them to the DRS Group, give it a meaningful name, then click OK.

You’ve now created your virtual machine DRS Group.

Creating host DRS Groups

Still in the DRS Groups Manager, to create a host DRS Group:

1. Click Add under Host DRS Groups.

2. Select the hosts you wish to place in a DRS Group, click the right arrow to add them to the DRS Group, give it a meaningful name, then click OK.

You’ve now created a host DRS Group.

Creating Run VMs on Hosts Rules

To create a Run VMs on Hosts rule, you must have added the virtual machines in question to a Virtual Machines DRS Group, as well as added the specified ESXi hosts to a Hosts DRS Group. Please refer to the previous sections for guidance on those two tasks.

1. Click Rules just below the DRS Groups Manager in the Cluster Settings window.

2. Click Add to create a new DRS Rule.

3. In the Type drop-down menu, choose Virtual Machines to Hosts.

4. Choose the appropriate Cluster VM Group, Cluster Host Group, DRS Policy (covered more later), and finally, give it a descriptive name. Click OK when finished.

You’re now finished creating the Run VMs on Hosts DRS Rule. You should see it in your Rules inventory, as below.

Must versus should

When creating a Run VMs on Hosts rule, you’ll be presented with the following options:

• Must run on hosts in group
• Should run on hosts in group
• Must not run on hosts in group
• Should not run on hosts in group

Now, the difference between these rules may seem obvious, but there is a bit of subtlety at play here. The main thing to be cognizant of is that HA will respect Must run or Must not run rules when performing HA restarts after a host failure. For further reading on the topic, see the excellent articles below from Frank Denneman:

http://frankdenneman.nl/drs/sdrs-anti-affinity-rule-types-and-ha-interoperability/

http://frankdenneman.nl/drs/vm-host-affinity-rules-should-or-must/

Creating Separate Virtual Machines/Keep Virtual Machines Together Rules

Traditionally known as VM affinity/anti-affinity, these rules will do as described, either keep virtual machines together on the same host or keep them separated on different hosts.

1. In vSphere DRS Rules, click Add.

2. In the Type drop-down menu, choose either Keep virtual machines together or Separate virtual machines, depending on your intent.

3. Click Add to add virtual machines to the rule.

4. Select the virtual machines you wish to keep together or separate, then click OK.

5. Give the rule a descriptive name, assure the correct virtual machines are in the list, then click OK.

6. You should now see the new rule in your Rules list. Click OK to finish.

I found this book to be good on View basics, but overall, it tends to be repetitive and filled with a lot of needless how-to. I understand completely that this is supposed to be a how-to book and that gratuitous use of basic text and screenshots will and should be present; however, many of the topics given precious page space are simply superfluous. These topics tend to be tangentially or even directly related to a VMware View how-to, but none of them are something that should exist within a View technical guide, and as such, they end up just being filler. These include:

• Licensing considerations (would have been great if actual licensing considerations had been contained herein)
• Step-by-step installation of Microsoft SQL Server
• Step-by-step installation of vCenter Server and ESXi
• Configuration of Auto Deploy and Host Profiles
• Step-by-step installation of vCenter Operations Manager
• Step-by-step installation of vCenter Update Manager
• Step-by-step installation of Trend Micro Deep Security
• Configuration of Microsoft Clustering using iSCSI
• Configuration of WANem
• Configuration of Wireshark

Don’t get me wrong – none of these were factually incorrect. I have no problem with the guides themselves, they just don’t belong in a VMware View how-to book.

The vSphere portion of chapter two also seemed very out of place, and it reads like it was written by going through product pages and pulling out tidbits of information. It ends up being very light on actual vSphere design for View guidance. I also would have liked to see it include guidance on vSphere 5.1 and View 5.1.1. They were released in August, with official support coming in late-October, so it shouldn’t have been out of the question for a book not published until mid-December.

There were a couple of sections that I thought were outstanding, which were:

• vCenter Operations for View how-to and guide
• PCoIP tuning section

In the end, this book is very competent at its stated goal, though I would have liked to have seen it a couple hundred pages shorter. A bit of diligent editing could have made this book much more concise and on topic, both of which are essential in technical guides.

• Proactive Smart Alerts
• Intelligent Operations Groups
• vSphere Health Monitoring
• Self-learning Performance Analytics

vCenter Operations Foundation 5.6 Deployment

1. Download the vCenter Operations Manager 5.6 virtual appliance, in OVF format, from the vSphere product support site – http://www.vmware.com/support/product-support/vsphere/index.html

2. In the vSphere Client, click File > Deploy OVF Template.

3. On the Deploy OVF Template window, click Browse.

4. Browse to the vCenter Operations OVA package, then click Open.

5. Click Next.

6. Click Next.

7. Click Accept to accept the EULA, then click Next to proceed.

8. Name the vApp, choose its location in the VMs and Templates Inventory, then click Next.

9. Choose a Configuration, then click Next.

10. Choose Host/Cluster, then click Next (Note: If you have a specific host or cluster selected in inventory, the vApp will automatically be deployed there.)

11. Choose the destination datastore, then click Next.

12. Choose the disk format (Thin, Eager Zeroed Thick, or Lazy Zeroed Thick), then click Next. Since my datastore is NFS, the disk will automatically be Thin.

13. Choose the network for your vApp, then click Next.

14. Choose your IP address allocation policy. Click Next.

15. Apply Timezone and IP addresses here if necessary. Click Next to proceed. As noted, you will need to have deployed an IP Pool within vCenter Server. If you haven’t done so, cancel and deploy the IP Pool per the vCenter Operations Manager Deployment and Configuration guide.

16. Optionally, check Power on after deployment to have the vApp automatically power on once deployed. Click Finish to complete the wizard.

vCenter Operations Foundation 5.6 Initial Configuration

1. Once the vApp is fully deployed, go to https://<UI VM IP Address>/admin in your web browser.

2. Log in as admin, with the default password listed below.

3. Enter in the hosting vCenter Server details. These are the details for the vCenter Server in which the vCenter Operations vApp has been deployed. If you have multiple vCenter Servers to be monitored, those will be specified later.

If you are using self-signed SSL certificates, you will be prompted to proceed with connection since the cert will be unverified. Click Yes to trust the vCenter Server.

4. Set new admin and root passwords for both VMs in the vApp. Click Next to proceed.

5. Specify the information for the vCenter Server to be monitored. (Note: If you wish to use a vCenter user with limited rights to do data collection from your vCenter Servers, include that user here as the Collector User. Since the Registration User will need administrator rights, it can also be used to collect data.)

6. Since this is the first registration of a vCenter Operations Manager appliance, no previous registrations were detected. Click Next to proceed. For help on importing data into a new vCenter Operations Manager implementation, please refer to the vCenter Operations Manager documentation. https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vcops-pubs.html

7. If you have no linked vCenter Servers to register, click Finish to complete the initial configuration. If you have a linked vCenter Server to register, choose it from the drop down menu and click Register, then Finish to complete.

8. When the vCenter Server registration is complete, you should see a new Solutions and Applications icon for vCenter Operations Manager. Double-click it to open vCenter Operations Manager.

9. vCenter Operations Manager, without a license key, i.e., eval mode, automatically defaults to Foundation license mode. Click About, and you should see something very similar to this:

In Licensing, you should also see the vCenter Operations Manager asset without a license key. In Foundation license mode, there is none to apply.

You’re now ready to start using vCenter Operations Foundation 5.6!

The general steps for upgrading are as follows:

1. Quiesce all cells
2. Upgrade vCloud Director
3. Upgrade vCloud Director database
4. Restart vCloud Director service
5. Upgrade vShield Manager
6. Upgrade ESXi hosts and vCenter Server

Quiesce All Cells

To start off the process, we’ll quiesce and shutdown the cell. First, let’s check the cell status.

• /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool -u <username> cell –status

My installation has zero active jobs, but yours may have some or even many. We’ll run a quiesce command to suspend the task scheduler. Once all tasks are finished, the cell is turned to inactive.

• /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool -u <username> cell –quiesce true

Now that the cell is inactive, we can gracefully shut it down.

• /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool -u <username> cell –shutdown

The cell has now been successfully shut down.

Upgrade vCloud Director

The next step is to upgrade vCloud Director. To do so, we’ll need to get the upgrade bits onto the server. I’ve copied mine into the /tmp directory. Before I run the upgrade installer, I need to make sure it’s executable.

• chmod u+x vmware-vcloud-director-5.1.0-810718.bin

Now that it’s executable, we can run it.

• ./vmware-vcloud-director-5.1.0-810718.bin

Note that I’m prompted because I’m not running a supported Linux distribution (CentOS 5.8 x64). If you’re on RedHat Enterprise Linux of a supported rev, you shouldn’t see the error.

Hit ‘y’ to upgrade.

You should see something similar to the screenshots below during the upgrade process.

The vCloud Director upgrade is now complete.

Upgrade vCloud Director Database/Restart Service

The next step is to upgrade the vCloud Director database. To do so, run the following command.

• /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/upgrade

Note – It’s very important to have a full backup of your database before proceeding. Hit ‘y’ to upgrade the database.

You should see a screen similar to that below. Hit ‘y’ to rebuild indexes, then to update database statistics or ‘n’ to skip. This is recommended to increase database performance. When finished, hit ‘y’ to automatically start the vmware-vcd service.

The vCloud Director database has now been upgraded. My lab vCloud Director wasn’t accessible at this point until I fully rebooted the machine, but your mileage may vary. A simple ‘service vmware-vcd restart’ may be all that’s required.

Upgrade vShield Manager

The next step is to upgrade vShield Manager from 5.0 to 5.1, which will be accomplished via the vShield Manager GUI.

Log in as you usually would as an administrative user.

Once logged in, click on ‘Settings & Reports’

Now, click on the ‘Updates’ tab.

On the ‘Updates’ tab, click ‘Upload Upgrade Bundle’.

Browse to the file location, then hit ‘Upload File’. Note – I ran into a problem here where vShield Manager would not recognize my upgrade package as legit. See the link below for a resolution.

http://blog.shiplett.org/vshield-manager-5-1-upgrade-issue/

You should then see a popup similar to the one below. Click ‘OK’.

Once the upgrade file has been imported, click ‘Install’ to perform the upgrade.

vShield Manager will now confirm the upgrade. Click ‘Confirm Install’.

You should now see the process go forward.

After the installation is finished, the virtual appliance will reboot, and you will have to log back in, possibly even re-enable the vShield Manager vCenter plugin. When you log back in to vShield Manager, you should see a new interface, as below.

On the ‘Updates’ tab, you’ll see that you’re on the new revision, 5.1.0-807847.

vShield Manager is now up to date.

Upgrade ESXi hosts and vCenter Server

This is not a necessary step for operation of vCloud Director 5.1, and is itself a lengthy article, so watch this space for another article outlining the upgrade process for ESXi hosts and vCenter Server.

After further inspection, I noticed that the original file listed on VMware’s site for download was a .tar.gz

So, on the off-hand chance that it might work, I renamed the file to .tar.gz, and lo and behold, the upgrade proceeded without any problems.

As a note, I experienced this with Windows 7 x64 and Chrome 21.0.1180.89. If you experienced this as well, please leave a comment with your OS and browser so we can let others know the conditions in which this might happen.