Knowledge

• Identify firewall access rules for Update Manager

Skills and Abilities

• Install and configure Update Manager Download Service
• Configure a shared repository
• Configure smart rebooting
• Manually download updates to a repository
• Perform orchestrated vSphere upgrades
• Create and modify baseline groups
• Troubleshoot Update Manager problem areas and issues
• Generate database reports using MS Excel or MS SQL
• Upgrade vApps using Update Manager
• Utilize Update Manager PowerCLI to export baselines for testing
• Utilize the Update Manager Utility to reconfigure vUM settings

When you upgrade a VMware vSphere environment the following error can occur when you just updated the VMware vCenter server.

In my case this was an upgrade of VMware vCenter 4.1 to VMware vCenter 5.1 with VMware vSphere ESX 4.1 hosts. In the installation of vCenter I checked the option to upgrade the vCenter agents on the hosts automatically. After the installation of vCenter I checked the status of the hosts. The following error was showing.

This sometimes happens. I started searching for a solution. I found VMware KB1002672 and VMware KB1003714 that describes my problem.

Reading both KB articles my first try was to manually restart the vpxa agent and the management agents. See VMware KB1003490

When reading the different articles my ESX host was already unreachable for my vCenter server. Communication to the host was no problem.

So I started SSH and restarted the management Agents. Then I restarted the vpxa agent service. Both where successful. Now select Connect in vCenter. The installation of the new vpxa agent started again and now it was successful after a couple of minutes. Problem solved.

If there are still problems, see VMware KB1003714 for a manual installation of the vpxa agent.

Skills and Abilities

• Use Profile Editor to edit and/or disable policies
• Create sub-profiles
• Use Host Profiles to deploy vDS
• Use Host Profiles to deploy vStorage policies
• Manage Answer Files
  

When you perform a P2V of a physical server to a virtual server the performance is not to great. It could be a lot better when you turn of the SSL encryption.

This post is a note to myself. Turn of SSL encryption when doing a P2V and you don’t want to wait a long time

Source: VMware KB2020517

Purpose

By default, the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0 default the converter worker encrypts the data stream using SSL. Encrypting the traffic increases security, but it can decrease performance.

This article provides steps to disable SSL encryption in VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0.

Resolution

To disable SSL encryption for the converter worker:

1. Locate the converter-worker.xml file. By default, it is located at:
   • Windows 7 and 2008 Server – C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
   • Windows Vista, XP and 2003 Server – %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
   • In older Windows versions – %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
2. Take a backup of the converter-worker.xml file.
3. Open the file in a text editor and locate the tag pair <useSsl></useSsl>. It is located inside the <nfc> tag and has a value of true.
4. Change the value to false.
5. Save and close the file.
6. Restart the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Worker service on the machine.

VMware has also created a Youtube movie.

Knowledge

• Identify VMware FT hardware requirements
• Identify VMware FT compatibility requirements

Skills and Abilities

• Modify VM and ESXi host settings to allow for FT compatibility
• Use VMware best practices to prepare a vSphere environment for FT
• Configure FT logging
• Prepare the infrastructure for FT compliance
• Test FT failover, secondary restart, and application fault tolerance in a FT Virtual Machine

Knowledge

• Identify the three admission control policies for HA
• Identify heartbeat options and dependencies
  

Skills and Abilities 

• Calculate host failure requirements
• Configure customized isolation response settings
• Configure HA redundancy
  • Management Network
  • Datastore Heartbeat
  • Network partitions
• Configure HA related alarms and monitor an HA cluster
• Create a custom slot size configuration
• Understand interactions between DRS and HA
• Analyze vSphere environment to determine appropriate HA admission control policy
• Analyze performance metrics to calculate host failure requirements
• Analyze Virtual Machine workload to determine optimum slot size
• Analyze HA cluster capacity to determine optimum cluster size
  

Today I noticed something strange in our brand new VMware vSphere 5.1 environment. I was trying to patch a Windows 2012 template when I noticed it didn’t have a network connection. This VM is using a Distributed Switch Configuration.

So I checked the VM settings, and indeed it wasn’t connected.

So I checked the Connected box, and the following error appears. Invalid configuration for device ’0′. See screenshot.

The solution for this error is simple. Connect the network card to another network. Than place it back to the original network. Now it works again.
For more information about this error see the following articles:

• VMware KB2013639
• Grzegorz Kulikowski Blog
• Sysadmin blog

Knowledge

• Identify hot keys and fields used with resxtop/esxtop
  
• Identify fields used with vscsiStats
  

Skills and Abilities

• Configure esxtop/resxtop custom profiles
  
• Determine use cases for and apply esxtop/resxtop Interactive, Batch and Replay modes
  
• Use vscsiStats to gather storage performance data
  
• Use esxtop/resxtop to collect performance data
  
• Given esxtop/resxtop output, identify relative performance data for capacity planning purposes
  

Knowledge

• Explain DRS / storage DRS affinity and anti-affinity rules
  
• Identify required hardware components to support DPM
  
• Identify EVC requirements, baselines and components
  
• Understand the DRS / storage DRS migration algorithms, the Load Imbalance Metrics, and their impact on migration recommendations
  

Skills and Abilities

• Properly configure BIOS and management settings to support DPM
  
• Test DPM to verify proper configuration
  
• Configure appropriate DPM Threshold to meet business requirements
  
• Configure EVC using appropriate baseline
  
• Change the EVC mode on an existing DRS cluster
  
• Create DRS and DPM alarms
  
• Configure applicable power management settings for ESXi hosts
  
• Properly size virtual machines and clusters for optimal DRS efficiency
  
• Properly apply virtual machine automation levels based upon application requirements
  
• Create and administer ESXi host and Datastore Clusters
  
• Administer DRS / Storage DRS
  

Knowledge

• Compare and contrast virtual and physical hardware resources
  
• Identify VMware memory management techniques
  
• Identify VMware CPU load balancing techniques
  
• Identify pre-requisites for Hot Add features
  

Skills and Abilities

• Tune Virtual Machine memory configurations
  
• Tune Virtual Machine networking configurations
  
• Tune Virtual Machine CPU configurations
  
• Tune Virtual Machine storage configurations
  
• Calculate available resources
  
• Properly size a Virtual Machine based on application workload
  
• Modify large memory page settings
  
• Understand appropriate use cases for CPU affinity
  
• Configure alternate virtual machine swap locations