VMware

Workload migration to VMware Cloud Foundation is discussed on nearly every engagement that I have been working on in the last couple of years in my role as Sr. Consultant at VMware. There are several ways to do this, but in my opinion the most versatile way is to use VMware HCX. Have a look at the “Workload Migration Strategies with VMware Cloud Foundation” white paper written by my colleagues Heath Johnson and John Nicholson […]

In one of my previous blogs about commissioning and decommissioning ESXi hosts in VMware Cloud Foundation, I’ve included a procedure how to cleanup ESXI host that has been decommissioned so it can be used again in another workload domain. There has been some changes that make this process much easier in VCF 3.5 and later so it is time for an update. Note: the old procedure using the DCUI is still supported. Cleanup ESXi Host […]

In my previous post, I’ve deployed vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager in a VCF environment. From there, you can automatically deploy vRealize Operations Manager from the SDDC Manager dashboard and connect it to your workload domains for monitoring and analysis. Add vRealize Operations Manager license Before you begin the deployment, add a valid vRealize Operations Manager license key into the SDDC Manager license inventory. From the SDDC Manager dashboard, navigate to Administration -> Licensing and click […]

If you want to deploy vRealize Lifecycle Manager from the SDDC Manager in a situation where internet connectivity is not available to your VMware Cloud Foundation system, VCF offers an offline Bundle Transfer utility to manually download the bundles from VMware depot website to a local machine and then upload them to the SDDC Manager. Before you begin make sure you have a machine (Windows/Linux) with internet access and Java 8 or later installed. In […]

One of the coolest features in the VMware Cloud Foundation 3.x release is in my opinion the ability to automatically replace SSL certificates for vSphere and vRealize components. SDDC Manager supports both Microsoft and non-Microsoft certificate authorities but in current release only Microsoft Certificate Authority is supported for automatic replacement of the certificates. I am not going to explain how to set up a MSCA but in case you need one, there are configuration steps […]

In the previous post, we’ve created a workload domain with a cluster. In your VMware Cloud Foundation environment, you can stretch workload domain clusters in the management domain or in the VI workload domain across two availability zones. More on availability zones can be found in the documentation. As always, before you begin, check the requirements for a stretched workload domain cluster in the documentation. Note – Once a cluster is stretched, you cannot un-stretch […]