Step by Step Upgrade of VCSA 5.5 to VCSA 6.0

1. Mount the ISO and click on vcsa-setup.html . The upgrade and install button will only be displayed if you have installed client integration plugin. Once it is displayed on the web browser click on UPGRADE

 2. Installation wizard will start as soon as you click on yes.

3. Accept EULA

 4. Choose the target server on which to deploy this upgraded VCSA

5. Here starts the upgradation tasks where you have to provide the information of existing vCenter Server and ESXi host where this vCenter Server resides along with the information of Single Sign On Domain.

6. Here now you can modify the size of deployment. As this is my test environment so i have kept it tiny with minimum configuration.

7. Review the information and click on finish. It will get upgraded.

Virtual SAN 6

Configure & Enhancements:

• Minimum Requirement:
  -Three ESXi 6.0 or above hosts or above.
  -Network card
  -License
  -SSD & HDD or SSD & SSD
• Enhancements:
  - Increased the number of ESXi hosts which can take part in       virtual san cluster from 32 to 64.
  - Introduced All flash configuration.

EMC vVNX (Software Defined Storage)

DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

• Virtual VNX (vVNX) is a software stack that provides many VNX features. It allows VNXe software to be available as a downloadable virtual storage appliance (VSA) for use with a VMware ESX or ESXi hypervisor. 
• Most of the folks who wants to test the new feature of VMware for the Software Defined Storage i.e VVOL like most of us have came across so far can test with the help of this solution by EMC ie.  VVols technical preview for vVNX from their website.
• It is available as an OVA (Appliance )which requires
     -M inimum RAM or what i can say from my observation is exactly 12288MB (12GB)
     -Disk format for this appliance by EMC is Thick Provision Eager Zero.
     - 2 CPU
• For the first login USERNAME & PASSWORD for login into terminal for verifying the settings is service\service but in order to access the Unisphere USERNAME:admin, Password: Password123#.

• In my next post i will share how you can create a storage pool, LUN, NFS & vVOL.

https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-42029?attachmentName=vVNX_Install_Guide.pdf&attachmentURL=/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadBody/42029-102-11-144283/vVNX_Install_Guide.pdf
https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-44385

vSphere Data Protection Part 2

In vSphere Data Protection we have shown the minimum requirements , how to deploy vDP and configure.

Now in this post i am going to share how you can restore the virtual machine and perform the file level recovery.


1. Once vSphere Data Protection is configured , you will find its plugin in here.

2. Click on this vDP

3. After that a job is required in which we get an option to select the particular virtual machine, datacenter or partiicular hard disks of a virtual machine. 

4. We have to specify the job schedule time and retention policy. By default the retention period is of 30 days and could be customized. 

5. In order to restore the machine to a previous backup point, just go to Restore tab and choose the machine and the point where to restore. 

6. Another feature of vSphere Data Protection is, it provides file level recovery. For that you have to login into the operating system and then onto the url of file level recovery i.e.

https://ApplianceNameOrIP:8543/flr