Alarm Override at Virtual Machine Workaround

Just recently in a delivery of vSphere, a participant asked for this question:-

Could we override an alarm created at datacenter object on an individual virtual machine?

Directly it will not allow as you could check in the below given screenshot:

A workaround for this is to create two different folders: FOLDER 1 for which you want to EXCLUDE virtual machines and FOLDER 2 in which you want to include virtual machines.

Instead of creating an alarm at data center Object level. Create an alarm at the folder level.

When you set an alarm on a parent object, such as a vCenter Server, a data center, or a cluster, all applicable child objects inherit the alarm. You can also set an alarm on a folder to propagate the same alarm to all objects contained in that folder. You cannot change or override an alarm that is set on a child object from its parent object. You must change the alarm on the child object itself.

VM from template will have the same SID

I was delivering a training and got a question:- Whether SID will remain same when we deploy a VM from template.

I knew the answer but just wanted to verify it.

YES!!  SID will remain same when we deploy a VM from template without sysprep or running customspec manager.

W7-01 is a windows 7 virtual machine.

W7-02 is deployed from template of W7-01 virtual machine.

Error Installing ESXi on Dell R720

• I was working in a datacenter with an administrator and got this error while trying to upgrade ESXi host.

• Later on did everything and came up with the solution to delete the RAID on which ESXi was installed and re-create the RAID. 
• Even after re-creating the RAID for ESXi installation it did not work.
• Later on, I realized to verify that the RAID that we have created was not initialized.
• Post reinitialization it worked and ESXi was installed.
• Here are some screenshots of RAID initialization:-

RAID Initialization - Dell PERC

What will happen if I upgrade my ESXi to 6.5 and add upgraded ESXi to new vCenter Server?

Virtual SAN 6.5

I will be able to see my existing vSAN Datastore, but I will not be able to use it.

As of now, i have created a cluster for virtual SAN. My hosts are just a part of my US Datacenter.

When i tried cloning my slax virtual mahine to this vSAN datastore, it gives me error

A general system error occurred: PBM error occurred during PreCloneCheckCallback: pbm.fault.PBMFault;

No VASA Provider for schema namespace (VSAN) found.

Virtual Flash Resource in Virtual Machine

VMware has already given some explanation for vFRC:-

1.  VMware vSphere® Flash Read Cache® 1.0
2. Performance of vSphere Flash Read Cache in VMware vSphere 5.5

Here I will show how you can configure:

1. Add a Flash/SSD Resource on your ESXi host which should not be claimed or used for any other purpose.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Once added you have to share this resource with individual virtual machine disk or whichever is I/O intensive.
   
   
   
   
3. The amount of vFRC reservation you want to have along with the desired block size.

Updating ESXi host & vCenter Server

Different methods are available for upgrading ESXi host as listed here.
I have used the very common methods to update i.e

1. Directly connecting the iso on the server and upgrading

2. Online upgrade from VMware software repository




Updating ESXi by mounting ISO

• Before upgrading ESXi 6.0.0 Build 2494585
  
  

• Inserted the CD/DVD.

           

   

• Initialised the server to install ESXi then choosen the option Upgrade ESXi, preserve VMFS Datastore.

         

• Once upgrade is done, just have to reboot the ESXi and here you go, ESXi has been successfully upgraded to the appropriate version.

           

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Online update of ESXi by connecting to the repository

• You can click here for latest patch release of ESXi 

• Before running this command you just have to make sure your ESXi has http client is enabled 

The same could be done using ESXi by configuring the firewall using ESXCLI:-
To Enable the rule:-
esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient

To disable the rule:-
esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e false -r httpClient

Finally you have the ESXCLI with which it could be upgraded. 
It will take significant amout of time depending on your bandwidth.

esxcli software profile update -p ESXi-6.0.0-20160804001-standard \ 
-d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml

Once everything is done, just reboot and enjoy.!!






For vCenter Server Appliance Upgrade:- Click Here,  

VMWare has already given an efficient step by step upgrade.

Reset System Configuration using powercli

From quite a few months I am using Ravello Systems cloud infrastructure for my lab testing purpose and it was very painful for me whenever I wanted to test a feature or solution I have to deploy a new ESXi every time.

To ease that task I have come with the idea of writing a script, after dedicating few here is my cup of tea you could use along with the snippet.

$vmhost="esxi01vsan62-srm-xbdx487y.srv.ravcloud.com"

set-vmhost $vmhost -state maintenance

Connect-VIServer $vmhost -username root -password VMw@re1

$esxhost = Get-VMHost $vmhost

$hostview = $esxhost | Get-View

$ns = Get-View -Id $hostview.ConfigManager.firmwareSystem

$ns.ResetFirmwareToFactoryDefaults()