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

vSphere Data Protection 6.1 Part 1

• It is available as a Virtual Appliance.
• Minimum requirement:
• RAM - 4GB
• vCPU- 4 running @ 2GHz
• Disk Space: 873GB
• Provides disk based back up for virtual machines.
• It is based on the industry-leading EMC® Avamar® deduplication backup and recovery software.
•  A maximum of 20 vSphere Data Protection appliances can be deployed per vCenter Server.
• As many as eight external proxies (virtual appliances) can be deployed per vSphere Data Protection virtual appliance. 
• vSphere Data Protection supports as much as 8TB of deduplicated backup data capacity per appliance. 

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere/VMware-vSphere-Data-Protection-Overview.pdf

Password complexity in ESXi and how to change

1. Log in to the ESXi Shell and acquire root privileges.

2. Open the passwd file with a text editor.
For example, vi /etc/pam.d/passwd

3. Edit the following line.
password requisite /lib/security/$ISA/pam_passwdqc.so retry=N min=N0,N1,N2,N3,N4

4. Save the file.

For example:
when you open the fie edit the following entries:

password requisite /lib/security/$ISA/pam_passwdqc.so retry=2 min=13,10,6,5,7


With this setting in effect, the password requirements are:
-retry=2: A user is allowed 3 attempts to enter a sufficient password.
-N0=13: Passwords containing characters from one character class must be at least 12 characters long.
-N1=10: Passwords containing characters from two character classes must be at least nine characters long.
-N2=6: Pass phrases must contain words that are each at least eight characters long.
-N3=5: Passwords containing characters from three character classes must be at least seven characters long.
-N4=7: Passwords containing characters from all four character classes must be at least six characters long.

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.security.doc_50%2FGUID-F48903DA-8A66-47C7-9796-CD12339B2164.html

Install VMware Tools in UBUNTU 14.04.3 and HGFS

1. Open the terminal and login with root user account.

2. Redirect to the location where you have VMware tools files extracted.

3. Start the installation by using perl script by using this   ./vmware-install.pl

4. Prompts will be there to redirect some files. Locate them and you get an information regarding

HGFS-  The VMware Host-Guest Filesystem allows for shared folders between the host OS and the guest OS in a fusion or workstation virtual environment.Do you wish enable this feature.

5. So once everything is done. VMware tools will be installed. Just a reboot is required.

Failed to intialize in vSphere Replication Appliance 5.8

“Failed to Initialize” message on vSphere Replication 5.8 Appliance

I am able to view the console of the vSphere Replication Appliance,

Still when I try to open the user interface on the IP address of the vSphere Replication Appliance I get this error “Failed to Initialize” so in that case wait for 2-3 minutes that problem will  be resolved.

Enhancements in Site Recovery Manager 6.1

Site Recovery Manager 6.1 introduces a new set of enhancements and features that enable new levels of automation, control and protection, ranging from policy based protection to support for and integration with stretched storage.

Changes of note between Site Recovery Manager 6.0 and 6.1 include:

• Storage policy-based management to simplify the process of adding and removing protection to virtual machines.
• Support for stretched storage solutions combined with cross-vCenter vMotion allows companies to achieve application mobility without incurring downtime, while taking advantage of all the benefits of Site Recovery Manager.
• Enhancements to and integration with NSX 6.2 that simplify both the creation and execution of recovery plans and accelerate recovery time.
  

These new features maintain Site Recovery Manager 6.1 as the pre-eminent technology for protection and recovery of a virtual environment. Use of Site Recovery Manager 6.1 enables rapid recovery time objectives through easy nondisruptive testing and rapid automation of recovery plans, and helps you eliminate the complexity of managing disaster recovery. Site Recovery Manager 6.1 removes the risk and worry from disaster recovery.

https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/SRM/vmware-site-recovery-manager-whats-new.pdf

VMware vSphere Replication 6.0

The following features are new for this release:

• Network traffic compression: replicated data is now optionally compressed prior to being sent over the network, resulting in reduced replication times and less network bandwidth consumed.
• Linux guest OS quiescing: introducing Linux guest OS quiescing service to provide file-system level crash consistency to replicated Linux-based VMs.
• Network isolation: management and replication traffic can be split over separate networks.
• Increase in product scalability: each vSphere Replication Management Server can now configure for replication and manage a maximum of 2000 simultaneous replications, up from the limit of 500 replications in previous releases.
• Performance improvements: numerous enhancements were made to the host-based replication engine to enhance performance and minimize the amount of data that is transferred over the network, resulting in faster initial synchronizations.
• Interoperability with VMware vSphere Storage DRS at the target site: vSphere Storage DRS can now detect replica discs of replicated virtual machines at the target site. When vSphere Storage DRS needs to initiate a move of replica disks between datastores, vSphere Replication will seamlessly and automatically handle the move to the new datastore, thereby eliminating the need for any manual intervention by administrators.
• The vSphere Replication 6.0 release removes the functionality that switches the TCP port for replication traffic from port 31031 to 44046 after the end of the initial synchronization. Replication traffic now uses port 31031 at all times. For the purposes of traffic shaping, customers can use the Network isolation feature. 
• Existing replications are not affected during upgrade of vSphere Replication, and you do not have to reconfigure them due to this change. Existing replications will continue to use port TCP 44046 until they are reconfigured for some other reason.
  
  https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere-replication/doc/vsphere-replication-60-release-notes.html

Author

We are VMware Certified Instructor(VCI) with a VMware Authorised Training Center(VATC) based out of India authorized to deliver training across the Asia-Pacific region. We mainly focus on the Software-Defined Datacenter (SDDC) , Kubernetes, Docker & Container. As an Instructor our piece of work is it to learn, evolve, and deliver technologies to the client based on the requirement.

-Contributor
Tavman Singh Chhabra