Category Archives: VMware

vExpert 2019 – Why The vCommunity is Still Important to me.

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Overnight, applications for the 2019 VMware vExperts where opened up and as per usual it’s created a flurry of activity on social media channels and well as private communications such as the vExpert Slack. There is no doubting that IT professionals still hold the vExpert award in high regard…though it’s also true that others have bemoaned (included myself at times) an apparent decline of its relevance over the past few years. That said it still generates lots of interest and the program is still going strong more than a decade since its inception in 2009.

The team running the program within VMware are no doubt looking to re-invigorate the program by emphasising the importance of being thorough in the 2019 application and to not do the bare minimum when it comes to filling out the application. The Application Blog Post clearly sets out what is required for a successful application in any of the qualification paths and there is even an example application that has been created.

Getting back to the title of the post and why the vExpert Award is still important for me…I think back over the years as to what the program has allowed me to achieve both directly and indirectly. Directly, it’s allowed me to network with a brilliant core group of like minded experts and with that allowed me to expand my own personal reach around the vCommunity. It’s also allowed me to grow as an IT Professional through the interactions with others in the program which has enabled me to expand my skills and knowledge on VMware technologies and beyond.

In additional to that, as I work in the vendor space these days and help with an advocacy program of our own…I’ve come to realise the importance that grass roots communities play in the overall health of vendors. When you take your eye off the rank and file, the coal face…whatever you want to call it…there is a danger that your brand will suffer. That is to say, never underestimate the power of the vCommunity as major influences.

And for the knockers…Those that have been in the program for a long time should try to understand that there are others that might have had failed applications, or others that are just learning about what being in a vCommunity is all about and are applying for the first time. Just because one may feel a sense of entitlement due to longevity in the program there are others that are desperate to get in and reap the rewards and for this, I still see the program as being absolutely critical to those that work in and around VMware technologies.

VMware technology is still very much relevant and therefore the communities that are built around those technologies much remain viable as places where members can interact, share, contribute and grow as IT professionals.

To that end, being a member of the vExpert program remains critical to me as I continue my career as an IT professional…have you thought about what it means to you?

References: 

https://blogs.vmware.com/vexpert/2019/01/07/vexpert-2019-applications-are-open/

Released: NSX-v 6.4.4 Edges in HTML5 and Fixes

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Last week VMware released NSX-v 6.4.4 (Build 11197766) that contains a some new features and addresses a number of resolved issues from previous releases. In recent times a lot of the focus has been on NSX-T as Kubernetes and Containers start to become more commonly discussed at the networking level and the fact that VMware Cloud on AWS is rolling out NSX-T under the surface across all regions…however it’s important to continue to highlight releases for NSX-v as this is still the NSX platform of choice out in the wild and for service providers.

This is more of a bug fix release however there are a few incremental enhancements to the NSX User Interface with additional components added to the HTML5 vSphere Client. These revolve around some Edge management being ported across to the vSphere Client…which is fine…but I do find it a little interesting that this isn’t done all in one bang so as to not frustrate administrators who still need to go back and forward depending on what they want to configure.

Though the list of unsupported functionality is shrinking with every release.

Other New Enhancements and Resolved Issues:

The only other noted enhancement also related to Edges and the amount of static routes that can be added…this increases from 2048 to 10,240 static routes for Quad Large and X-Large ESGs. Apart from that there is a smaller than usual list of Resolved issues however the majority again lie with fixes to the NSX Edges, so for those service providers that offer vCloud Director with NSX Edges, it’s worth a read.

In terms of interoperability with vCenter, ESXi and vCloud Director, there appears to be no issues with NSX-v 6.4.4 being used with the latest platform versions.

Those with the correct entitlements can download NSX-v 6.4.4 here.

References:

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-Data-Center-for-vSphere/6.4/rn/releasenotes_nsx_vsphere_644.html

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-Data-Center-for-vSphere/6.4/rn/nsx-vsphere-client-65-functionality-support.html#unsupportedFunct

AWS Outposts and VMware…Hybridity Defined!

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Now that AWS re:Invent 2018 has well and truly passed…the biggest industry shift to come out of the event from my point of view was the fact that AWS are going full guns blazing into the on-premises world. With the announcement of AWS Outposts the long held belief that the public cloud is the panacea of all things became blurred. No one company has pushed such a hard cloud only message as AWS…no one company had the power to change the definition of what it is to run cloud services…AWS did that last week at re:Invent.

Yes, Microsoft have had the Azure Stack concept for a number of years now, however they have not executed on the promise of that yet. Azure Stack is seen by many as a white elephant even though it’s now in the wild and (depending on who you talk to) doing relatively well in certain verticals. The point though is that even Microsoft did not have the power to make people truely believe that a combination of a public cloud and on premises platform was the path to hybridity.

AWS is a Juggernaut and it’s my belief that they now have reached an inflection point in mindshare and can now dictate trends in our industry. They had enough power for VMware to partner with them so VMware could keep vSphere relevant in the cloud world. This resulted in VMware Cloud on AWS. It seems like AWS have realised that with this partnership in place, they can muscle their way into the on-premises/enterprise world that VMware have and still dominate…at this stage.

Outposts as a Product Name is no Accident

Like many, I like the product name Outposts. It’s catchy and straight away you can make sense of what it is…however, I decided to look up the offical meaning of the word…and it makes for some interesting reading:

  • An isolated or remote branch
  • A remote part of a country or empire
  • A small military camp or position at some distance from the main army, used especially as a guard against surprise attack

The first definition as per the Oxford Dictionary fits the overall idea of AWS Outposts. Putting a compute platform in an isolated or remote branch office that is seperate to AWS regions while also offering the ability to consume that compute platform like it was an AWS region. This represents a legitimate use case for Outposts and can be seen as AWS fulling a gap in the market that is being craved for by shifting IT sentiment.

The second definition is an interesting one when taken in the context of AWS and Amazon as a whole. They are big enough to be their own country and have certainly built up an empire over the last decade. All empires eventually crumble, however AWS is not going anywhere fast. This move does however indicate a shift in tactics and means that AWS can penetrate the on-premises market quicker to extend their empire.

The third definition is also pertinent in context to what AWS are looking to achieve with Outposts. They are setting up camp and positioning themselves a long way from their traditional stronghold. However my feeling is that they are not guarding against an attack…they are the attack!

Where does VMware fit in all this?

Given my thoughts above…where does VMware fit into all this? At first when the announcement was made on stage I was confused. With Pat Gelsinger on stage next to Andy Jessy my first impression was that VMware had given in. Here was AWS announcing a direct competitive platform to on-premises vSphere installations. Not only that, but VMware had announced Project Dimension at VMworld a few months earlier which looked to be their own on-premises managed service offering…though the wording around that was for edge rather than on-premises.

With the initial dust settled and after reading this blog post from William Lam, I came to understand the VMware play here.

VMware and Amazon are expanding their partnership to deliver a new, as-a-service, on-premises offering that will include the full VMware SDDC stack (vSphere, NSX, vSAN) running on AWS Outposts, a fully managed and configurable server and network installation built with AWS-designed hardware. VMware Cloud in AWS Outposts is VMware’s new As-a-Service offering in partnership with AWS to run on AWS Outposts – it will leverage the innovations we’ve developed with Project Dimension and apply them on top of AWS Outposts. VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts will be a subscription-based service and will support existing VMware payment options.

The reality is that on-premises environments are not going away any time soon but customers like the operating model of the cloud. More and more they don’t care about where infrastructure lives as long as a services outcome is achieved. Customers are after simplicity and cost efficiency. Outposts delivers all this by enabling convenience and choice…the choice to run VMware for traditional workloads using the familiar VMware SDDC stack all while having access to native AWS services.

A Managed Service Offering means a Mind shift

The big shift here from VMware that began with VMware Cloud on AWS is a shift towards managed services. A fundamental change in the mindset of the customer in the way in which they consume their infrastructure. Without needing to worry about the underlying platform, IT can focus on the applications and the availability of those applications. For VMware this means from the VM up…for AWS, this means from the platform up.

VMware Cloud on AWS is a great example of this new managed services world, with VMware managing most of the traditional stack. VMware can now extend VMware Cloud on AWS to Outposts to boomerang the management of on-premises as well. Overall Outposts is a win win for both AWS and VMware…however proof will be in the execution and uptake. We won’t know how it all pans out until the product becomes available…apparently in the later half of 2019.

IT admins have some contemplating to do as well…what does a shift to managed platforms mean for them? This is going to be an interesting ride as it pans out over the next twelve months!

References:

VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts: Cloud Managed SDDC for your Data Center

vSphere 6.7 Update 1 – Top New Features and Platform Supportability

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Last week VMware released vSphere 6.7 Update 1. While the buzz around this release was less than the previous release it still contains a ton of enhancements for vCenter, ESXi and vSAN. Like 6.7 before it, this is a lot more than a point release and represents a significant upgrade from vSphere 6.7.

Looking through the release notes, there appears to be less for service providers in this release though I still feel like it’s important to highlight the base hypervisor (ESXi) as well as the management platform (vCenter). vSAN has had another significant update and that will warrant a post on it’s on. I’ll also talk about current interoperability with vCloud Director and NSX as well as current Veeam supportability for vSphere 6.7 Update 1 as well as touch on Veeam’s current supportability.

  • New (almost 100%) Fully functional HTML5 client
  • Upgrade path from vSphere 6.5 U2 to vSphere 6.7 Update 1
  • Enhanced support for NVIDIA Quadro vDWS VMs and support for Intel FPGA
  • New vCenter Convergence Tool
  • Updated vSAN
  • Enhanced vSphere Content Library
Fully Functional HTML5 Client

Most functions have now been ported across to the HTML5 vSphere Client. This results in administrators not having to switch back and forth between the FLEX Web Client and the HTML5 client. Update 1 features:

  • vCenter High Availability (VCHA)
  • Auto Deploy
  • Host Profiles
  • vSphere Update Manager
  • Network Topology Diagrams
  • Performance Charts
  • Improved Searching
  • Dark Theme

Emad Younis has a detailed post here that goes through the new features.

Upgrade Path from vSphere 6.5 Update 2 to vSphere 6.7 Update 1

One of the issues with vSphere 6.7 was the fact that the vSphere 6.5 Update 2 release would not be able to be upgraded to vSphere 6.7.  With the release of vSphere 6.7 Update 1. vSphere 6.5 Update 2 to vSphere 6.7 Update 1 is now a fully supported.

Enhanced Content Library

New improvements to the content library in vSphere 6.7 Update 1 enables the importing of OVA templates from a HTTPS endpoint and also local storage.  Importing now verifies the certificate of the OVA bundle and also now natively supports VM templates (VMTX) and associated operations such as deploying a VM directly from Content Library.

vCenter Specific Enhancements

With vCenter Server 6.7 Update 1, you can move a vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services Controller from one vSphere domain to another vSphere domain. Services such as tagging and licensing are retained and migrated to the new domain.

There is a new Burst Filter to manage event bursts and prevent the database of vCenter Server from flooding with identical events over a short period of time.

vCenter Server 6.7 Update 1 supports VMware vSphere vMotion between on-premises vCenter’s and VMware Cloud on AWS. You can use either the vSphere Client or vSphere Web Client, or the API. Both sides need to be at 6.7 Update 1.

you can import Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) files in a Content Library. The OVA files are unzipped during the import, providing manifest and certificate validations, and create an OVF library item that enables deployment of virtual machines from a Content Library.

With vCenter Server 6.7 Update 1, you can use the Appliance Management User Interface to configure and edit the firewall settings of the vCenter Server Appliance.

ESXi Specific Enhancements

There are a few vendor/hardware related features and enhancements in Update 1 for ESXi 6.7. The release notes cover them in detail here. But as mentioned above, probably the biggest addition here is the ability to upgrade from ESXi 6.5 Update 2 which I know a few service providers where stuck on. In terms of known issues the release notes also contain a good list. There are some here that impact Service Providers so it’s worth reading through them.

vCD and NSX Supportability:

Shifting from new features and enhancements to an important subject to talk about when talking service provider platform…VMware product compatibility. For those VCPP Service Providers running a Hybrid Cloud you should be running a combination of vCloud Director SP or/and NSX-v of which the 6.4.3 and 6.4.2 versions are supported at release. Most providers should be on these releases so that’s good news.

Looking at vCloud Director, it looks like 9.5 is the only supported version at the moment

Veeam Backup & Replication Supportability: 

Veeam commits to supporting major version releases within 90 days or sooner of GA. There has been many discussions going round whether an Update is a major release these days…and general consensus now is that VMware is releasing these updates with enough changes to potentially impact backup supportability.

So with that, those Service Provider that are also VCSPs using Veeam to backup their infrastructure should not upgrade to vSphere 6.7 until Backup & Replication Update 4 is released. For those that are bleeding edge and have updated your only is to go with the workaround that is detailed here. It works…but again, it’s a work around.

Wrapping Up:

Rounding off this post, in the Known Issues section there is a fair bit to be aware of for 6.7 Update 1. it’s worth reading through all the known issues just in case there are any specific issues that might impact you.

Happy upgrading!

References:

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/rn/vsphere-vcenter-server-671-release-notes.html

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/rn/vsphere-esxi-671-release-notes.html

Quick Fix – VCSA 6.7.0.10000 Can’t Update via URL from Management Interface

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I had an issue with my VCSA today trying to upgrade to vCenter 6.7 Update 1 whereby the Management Interface Upgrade option was not detecting the update to upgrade the appliance to 6.7 Update 1. It was a similar issue to this VMwareKB, however the URL that is mentioned in that instance was already in the VCSA Settings.

My first instinct was to check the disk space and see if there where any pressures in that area. I did find that the /dev/sda3 partition was low on space, so I expanded the disk following advice given by Mark Ukotic. After a reboot and resize I had plenty of storage left, but still couldn’t trigger an update from the URL. At this point I did download the Update patch ISO from the VMware Patch center and loaded it up manually…however the issue of it not popping up automatically was annoying me.

As mentioned, the settings of the VCSA Update window has the following URL listed:

https://vapp-updates.vmware.com/vai-catalog/valm/vmw/8d167796-34d5-4899-be0a-6daade4005a3/6.7.0.10000.latest/

Having asked around a little the quick fix was provided by Matt Allford who provided me with the URL that was present in his VCSA after he upgraded successfully via the CLI.

https://vapp-updates.vmware.com/vai-catalog/valm/vmw/8d167796-34d5-4899-be0a-6daade4005a3/6.7.0.20000.latest/

I added that as a custom repository as shown below…

I was then able to rescan and choose from the list of updates for the VCSA.

And perform the upgrade from the Management Interface as first desired.

Interestingly enough, after the upgrade the default Update Repository was set to the one Matt provided for me.

This is the first time i’ve seen this behavior from the VCSA but I had reports of people being able to upgrade without issue. I’m wondering if it might be the particular build I was on, though that in it’s self was not picking up any patches to update to either. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to comment below.

Quick Fix: Terraform Plan Fails on Guest Customizations and VMware Tools

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Last week I was looking to add the deployment of a local CentOS virtual machine to the Deploy Veeam SDDC Toolkit project so that it included the option to deploy and configure a local Linux Repository. This could then can be added to the Backup & Replication server. As part of the deployment I call the Terraform vSphere Provider to clone and configure the virtual machine from a pre loaded CentOS template.

As shown below, I am using the Terraform customization commands to configure VM name, domain details as well as network configuration.

In configuring the CentOS template i did my usual install of Open VM Tools. When the Terraform plan executes we applied the VM was cloned without issue, but it failed at the Guest Customizations part.

The error is pretty clear and to test the error and fix, I tried applying the plan without any VMware Tools installed. In fact without VMware Tools the VM will not finish the initial deployment after the clone and be deleted by Terraform. I next installed open-vm-tools but ended up with the same scenario of the plan failing and the VM not being deployed. For some reason it does not like this version of the package being deployed.

Next test was to deploy the open-vm-tools-deploypkg as described in this VMwareKB. Now the Terraform plan executed to the point of cloning the VM and setting up the desired VM hardware and virtual network port group settings but still failed on the custom IP and hostname components of the customisation. This time with a slightly different error.

The final requirement is to pre-install the perl package onto the template. This allows for the in guest customizations to take place together with VMware Tools. Once I added that to the template the Terraform Plan succeeded without issue.

References:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2075048

 

 

Released: vCloud Director 9.5 – Full HTML5 Tenant UI, NSX-T Thoughts and More!

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Last week VMware released vCloud Director 9.5 (build 10266189) which builds on the 9.1 release that came out earlier this year. This continues to deliver on VMware’s promise to release major vCD updates every six months or so. This update completes the HTML5 Tenant Portal port as well as continuing to enhance the usability of the HTML5 interface by extending the Provider UI to be more functional. Under the hood there are a number of networking enhancements as well as the initial introduction of a vCD Cell Appliance.

New Features and Enhancements:

  • Fully Functional HTML5 Tenant Portal
  • Cross-OrgVDC and Multi-Site Cross-VDC Networking
  • Initial Support for NSX-T
  • Enhanced Role Base Access Control (RBAC)
  • vCloud Director Appliance
  • IPv6 Support for Guest VMs
  • Updated Plugin for vRealize Orchestrator
  • API and SDK Enhancements
  • Container Service Extension (CSE) 1.2

In this post, I am going to focus more on the HTML5 Tenant and Provider Portal as well as touch on some of the important changes to supportability this release brings. As you can see from the list above, there are a number of major features to talk about, and i’ll try to put together a few more posts over the next few weeks digging into them specifically.

Tenant UI Reaches Feature Parity:

Starting from this release the reliance on the old Flex based portal is no more. All tenant tasks have been ported over to the HTML5 portal along with a lot of additional enhancements. If I think back a couple years ago when vCloud Director was at a cross roads in terms of how VMware continued to develop it, it’s amazing to see this new UI fully complete.

Everything that Tenant’s could see in the Flex UI is present in the HTML5 UI.
Some of the additions include a recent tasks pane, support for independent disks is not only an API only feature now and can be accessed via the UI as well as Affinity Rules being configurable from the HTML portal.

Provider UI Improvements:

Heading over to /provider will get you into the HTML5 Provider UI. This now lists all vCD Organizations and you can create a new Org and then click through to the Tenant UI as Administrator to perform configuration tasks

You can also manage Catalogs and as with vCD 9.1 you can manage the Content Library through the provider UI. What else is new in 9.5 is the ability to allow the management of users, groups, roles, global roles.

Depreciated APIs and Functionality:

vCD 9.5 brings with it the end of support for Oracle Database which brings full circle the requirement for Oracle. Many of you who started on vCD when it was in Beta or v1 remember that it needed an Oracle database and didn’t support MSSQL. With the support of PostgreSQL it’s now ironcially MSSQL’s days that are numbered with 9.5 being the last release to support MSSQL as the vCD Database. 

For those that use vCloud Network Isolation (VCDNI), that is now also no longer supported as well as a continued end of support for Older API Versions with version 19.0 and earlier no longer supported.

From a networking point of view vCD 9.5 is the last release to support the creation edge devices in the non-advanced mode which is effectively the old vShield mode. Only edge devices that have been created or converted to advanced will be supported by the HTML5 UI.

Compatibility with Veeam, vSphere 6.5, 6.7, NSX-v 6.4.x and NSX-T 2.2 Support:

On the NSX-T front…from the release notes:

vCloud Director 9.5 is the first version to support NSX-T, which can be combined with the existing support for NSX-V in the same vCloud Director installation. You can add a NSX-T Manager and the corresponding vCenter(s) as a resource in vCD (via API) and create a Provider VDC (PVDC) that is backed by NSX-T. All the vCenters in this PVDC should be backed the same NSX-T manager. All the hosts in these vCenters then will be installed with the DPDK switch. A VLAN backed network pool for each OrgVDC can be created,
from this the network configuration on tenant side is the same as with NSX-V.

NSX-T is something that VMware is pushing very hard now, and i’ll be honest in saying that i’ve not had a chance to tinker with it. I’m still very much in tune with NSX-v however it’s clear from the push of NSX-T into VMware Cloud on AWS and now into vCD that it is the network virtualization platform of choice moving forward…though I must check on the progress of the Edge devices. These are critical to tenant edge services that front a vDC and there is a lot of power in the current NSX-v edges.

Current NSX Platform? Future Direction?

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vCloud Director 9.5 is compatible with the latest vSphere 6.7, 6.5 Update 2 (but not 6.5 GA) and NSX-v 6.4.3 and supports full interoperability with other versions as shown in the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix. Interestingly enough, 9.5 has more supportability for NSX-v and obviously with NSX-T having initial limited support.

With regards to Veeam support, I am sure that our QA department will be testing the 9.5 release against our integration pieces at the first opportunity they get, but as of now, there is no ETA on offical support.

There are only two resolved issues in this build and there are a number of known issues that can be found here.

Conclusion:

Overall this is again, a very strong release and it’s clear to now see that vCD is 100% supported and backed by VMware. You can start to see a shift of the platform away from just being an abstraction layer to becoming what could be a brokerage engine expanding on the extensibility thats being built into the product under the hood. vCloud Director 9.5 continues to fulfil the promise of enabling SDDC functionality to VMware service providers.

There is a White Paper where you can find more details about what’s contained in the 9.5 release. Tom Fojta and Daniel Paluszek from VMware have a what’s new blog posts as well.

#LongLivevCD

References:

https://cloudsolutions.vmware.com/assets/blt4e4a9fe9b7954100/What’s%20New%20with%20vCloud%20Director%209.5.pdf

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vCloud-Director-for-Service-Providers/9.5/rn/vmware-vcloud-director-for-service-providers-95-release-notes.html

Automated Configuration of Backup & Replication with PowerShell

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As part of the Veeam Automation and Orchestration for vSphere project myself and Michael Cade worked on for VMworld 2018, we combined a number of seperate projects to showcase an end to end PowerShell script that called a number of individual modules. Split into three parts, we had a Chef/Terraform module that deployed a server with Veeam Backup & Replication installed. A Terraform module that deployed and configured an AWS VPC to host a Linux Repository with a Veeam PN Sitegateway. And finally a Powershell module that configured the Veeam server with a number of configuration items ready for first use.

The goal of the project was to release a PowerShell script that fully deployed and configured a Veeam platform on vSphere with backup repositories, vCenter server and default policy based jobs automatically configured and ready for use. This could then be adapted for customer installs, used on SDDC platforms such as VMware Cloud on AWS, or for POCs or lab use.

While we are close to releasing the final code on GitHub for the project, I thought I would branch out the last section of the code and release it separately. As I was creating this script, it became apparent to me that it would be useful for others to use as is or as an example from which to simplify manual and repetitive tasks that go along with configuring Backup & Replication after installation.

Script Overview:

The PowerShell script (found here on GitHub) performs a number of configuration actions against any Veeam Backup & Replication Server as per the included functions.

All of the variables are configured in a config.json file meaning nothing is required to be modified in the main PowerShell script. There are a number of parameters that can be called to trigger or exclude certain functions.

There are some pre-requisites that need to be in place before the script can be executed…most importantly the PowerShell needs to be executed on a system where the Backup & Replication Console is installed to allow access to the Veeam PowerShell Snap-in. From there you just need a new Veeam Backup & Replication server and a vCenter server plus their login credentials. If you want to add a Cloud Connect Provider offering Cloud Connect Backup or/and Replication you enter in all the details in the config.json file as well. Finally, if you want to add a Linux Repository you will need the details of that plus have it configured for key based authentication.

You can combine any of the parameters listed above. An example is shown above where -ClearVBRConfig has been used to reverse the -RunVBRConfigure parameter that was executed first to do an end to end configure. For Cloud Connect Replication, if you want to configure and deploy an NEA there is a specific parameter for that. If you didn’t want to configure Cloud Connect or the Linux Repository the parameters can be used individually, or together. If those two parameters are used, the Default Backup Repository will be used for the jobs that are created.

Automating Policy Based Backup Jobs:

Part of the automation that we where keen to include was the automatic creation of default backup jobs based on vSphere Tags. The idea was to have everything in place to ensure that once the script had been run, VMs could be backed up dependant on them being added to vSphere Tags. Once done the backup jobs would protect those VMs based on the policies set in the config.json.

The corresponding jobs are all using the vSphere Tags. From here the jobs don’t need to be modified when VMs are added…VMs assigned those Tags will be included in the job.

Conclusion:

Once the script has been run you are left with a fully configured Backup & Replication server that’s connected to vCenter and if desired (by default) has local and Cloud Connect repositories added with a set of default policy based jobs ready to go using vSphere Tags.

There are a number of improvements that I want to implement and I am looking out for Contributors on GitHub to help develop this further. At its base it is functional…but not perfect. However it highlights the power of the automation that is possible with Veeam’s PowerShell Snap-In and PowerCLI. One of the use-cases for this was for repeatable deployments of Veeam Backup & Replication into POCs or labs and for those looking to standup those environments, this is a perfect companion.

Look out for the full Veeam SDDC Deploy Toolkit being released to GitHub shortly.

References:

https://github.com/anthonyspiteri/powershell/tree/master/BR-Configure-Veeam

Quick Fix – Backing up vCenter Content Library Content with Veeam

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A question came up in the Veeam Forums this week about how you would backup the contents of a Content Library. As a refresher, content libraries are container objects for VM templates, vApp templates, and other types of files. Administrators can use the templates in the library to deploy virtual machines and vApps via vCenter. Using Content libraries results in consistency, compliance, efficiency, and automation when deploying workloads at scale.

Content Libraries are created and managed from a single vCenter, but can be shared to other vCenter Server instances. VM templates and vApps templates are stored as OVF file formats in the content library. You can also upload other file types, such as ISO images, text files, and so on, in a content library. It’s possible to create content libraries that are 3rd party hosted, such as the example here by William Lam looking at how to create and manage an AWS S3 based content library.

For those looking to store them locally on an ESXi datastore there is a way to backup the contents of the content library with a Veeam Backup & Replication File Copy job. This is a basic solution to the question posed in the Veeam Forums however it does work. With the File Copy, you can choose any file or folder contained in any connected infrastructure in Backup & Replication. For a Content Library stored on an ESXi datastore you just need to browse to the location as shown below.

The one caveat is that the destination can’t be a Veeam Repository. There is no versioning or incremental copy so every time the job is executed a full backup of the files is performed.   

One way to work around this is to set the destination to a location that is being backed up in a Veeam Job or an Agent Job. However if the intention is to just protect the immediate contents of the library than have a full once off backup shouldn’t be an issue.

You can also create/add to a File Copy job from the Files view as shown above.

In terms of recovery, The File Copy job is doing a basic file copy and doesn’t know about the fact the files are part of a Content Library and as you can see, the folder structure that vCenter creates uses UIDs for identification. Because of this, if there was a situation where a whole Content Library was lost, it would have to be recreated in vCenter and then the imported back in directly from the File Copy Job destination folder location.

Again, this is a quick and nasty solution and it would be a nice feature addition to have this backed up natively…naming and structure in place. For the moment, this is a great way of utilizing a cool feature of Veeam Backup & Replication to achieve the goal.

Veeam on the VMware Cloud Marketplace Protecting VMware Cloud on AWS Workloads

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At VMworld 2018, myself and Michael Cade gave a session on automating and orchestrating Veeam on VMware Cloud on AWS. The premise of the session was to showcase the art of the possible with Veeam and VMware that resulted in a fully deployed and configured Veeam platform. We chose VMware Cloud on AWS for the demo to showcase the power of the Software Defined Datacenter with Veeam, however our solution can be deployed onto any vSphere platform.

Why Veeam with VMware Cloud on AWS:

I’ve have spent a lot of time over the past couple of months looking into VMware Cloud on AWS and working out just where Veeam fits in terms of a backup and recovery solution for it. I’ve also spent time talking to VMware sales people as well as solution providers looking to wrap managed services around VMC and the question of data protection is often raised as a key concern. There is a good article here that talks about the need for backup and how application HA or stretched clustering is not a suitable alternative.

Without prejudice, I truly believe that Veeam is the best solution for the backup and recovery of workloads hosted on VMware Cloud on AWS SDDCs. Not only do we offer a solution that’s 100% software defines it’s self, but we can extend protection of all workloads from on-premises, through to the SDDC and also natively in AWS covering both backup, replication as well as offering the ability to use Cloud Connect to backup out to a Veeam Cloud and Service Provider. I’ll go into this in greater detail in a future post.

Veeam on the VMware Cloud on AWS Marketplace:

At the same time as our session on the Monday there was another session that introduced the VMware Cloud Marketplace that was announced in Technical Preview. As part of that launch, Veeam was announced as an initial software partner. This allows for the automated deployment and configuration of a Veeam Backup & Replication instance directly into a deployed SDDC and also configures an AWS EC2 EBS backed instance to be used as a Veeam Repository.

The VMware Cloud Marketplace will offer the ability to browse and filter validated third-party products and solutions, view technical and operational details, facilitate Bring Your Own License (BYOL) deployments, support commercial transactions, and deliver unified invoices. We plan to open Cloud Marketplace to a limited Beta audience following VMworld and are working on additional features and capabilities for future releases. We envision the Cloud Marketplace will quickly expand, introducing new third-party vendors and products over time and becoming the de-facto source for customers to extend the capabilities of VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud Provider Partner environments.

Compared to what Michael and I showcased in our session, this is a more targeted vanilla deployment of Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 with Update 3a into the SDDC. At the end of the process, you will be able to access the Veeam Console, have it connected to the VMC vSphere endpoint and have the EC2 Veeam repository added.

This is done via CloudFormation templates and a little bit of PowerShell embedded into the Windows Image.

Being embedded directly into the VMware Cloud Marketplace is advantageous for customers looking to get started quick with their data protection for workloads running on VMware Cloud o AWs. Look out for more collateral from myself, Veeam and VMware on protecting VMC with Veeam as well as a deeper look at our VMworld session which digs into the automation and orchestration of Veeam on VMware Cloud on AWS using Chef, Terraform, PowerShell and PowerCLI.

References:

Introducing VMware Cloud Marketplace

https://cloud.vmware.com/cloud-marketplace

https://marketplace.vmware.com/vsx/solutions/veeam-availability-suite-for-vmware-cloud-on-aws-9-5?ref=search#summary

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