Deploying VDP 5.5 Advanced

In this post I'm going to show you how to deploy the VMware VDP (VMware Data Protection) 5.5 virtual appliance.  Some of the features of the VDP appliance include:

• Virtual appliance deployment
• vSphere Web Client Integration
• Simplified backup policies
• One-step recovery
• Self-service file-level recovery
• Deduplication
• Agents for mission-critical apps (Microsoft SQL, Exchange and Sharepoint)
• Network-efficient, secure backup replication

Prior to deploying the .ova file you need to ensure you add both forward and reverse DNS entries otherwise you may receive the following error message during the configuration:

Ensure you've downloaded the latest version from vmware.com and saved the .ova file to your local disk.  Now we are going to deploy the .ova into your environment.  Open the web client interface, select your cluster and then right click and Deploy OVF Template:

Click Allow if prompted:

Browse your local file system and locate the .ova file and click Next:

Once it has been validated review the details and click Next:

Accept the license agreement and click Next:

Give the appliance the same name as the DNS record you added earlier, select its location and click Next:

Select your desired disk format and datastore and click Next:

Assign it to the correct portgroup and click Next:

Enter the correct IP address and network information for the portgroup and click Next:

Review your setting and optionally tick the Power on after deployment if you so wish.  Finally click Finish and wait for the .ova to deploy and power on:

Once the appliance has been powered on you should be able to browse to the following URL in order to start configuring:

https://FQDN:8543/vdp-configure

Username - root

Password - changeme

Once logged in click Next:

Verify the network settings are correct and click Next:

Select your timezone and click Next:

Enter a suitable password ensuring the password complexity requirements are met and click Next:

Enter valid credentials that have permission to your vCenter server and test the credential to ensure they are correct and can successfully connect.  If you can successfully connect then click Next to continue:

Select the size of the storage you wish to create and click Next:

Specify the device allocation how you wish to provision the storage and click Next:

Finally click Next:

Click Yes when prompted:

Once the process has completed the appliance will automatically reboot:

It may take a while for the appliance to complete it's configuration but you can monitor this in the Recent Tasks pane of the web client.  Once it has finished in order for the VDP plugin to become visible you may need to log out and back into the web client.  If you experience any issues with it not being visible check out the following link which helped me out.  The VDP plugin should now be visible:

I had issues connecting into the VDP appliance and received the following error message:

I verified that the time was identical on both the SSO and VDP servers as per the following blog entry but this failed to resolve the issue.  I ended up restarting the vCenter server (Or in my case, the VCSA) and hey presto, I could access the VDP server:

In the next article I will show you how to configure backup jobs and also perform a restore.

New Job, New Role

After 5 years working for Nexus within multiple roles I've decided it was time for a change and a new challenge.  Throughout my IT career I've always worked within operations, climbing the progression ladder from 1st Line support through the ranks and then up to my current role as a Systems Architect.  I've enjoyed these roles as you get exposure to a multitude of technologies and it can be a fast paced environment.  I will be sad to leave Nexus as I've met some great people and I'm very thankful for the opportunities they have given me over the last 5 years.

After numerous interviews and a trip to lovely Frimley I've gladly accepted a role as a Pre-Sales Systems Engineer within VMware covering the UK North.  I am extremely excited to start this role as the VMware software portfolio is something that I 100% believe in.  The role is completely new to me and I'm expecting a steep learning curve but I'm excited and looking forward to all the challenges this role brings with it.  I'm especially looking forward to getting out and meeting customers and VAR's and gaining more experience and knowledge with the entire VMware software suites   I'll post an update once I've been at VMware for a few months to see how the move has been.

Kielder Marathon Completed

For those of you who don't know me I'm a keen runner for both fitness and enjoyment.  I've completed the Great North Run twice now which is a half marathon with my best time being 1h 32m 10s.  I've always wanted to complete a marathon and this year I decided to train and hopefully complete the Kielder Marathon which is knows as as Britain's most beautiful marathon.

I trained solid for 3 months increasing the distance on my Sunday long runs until I knew I could complete the distance.  Race day was Sunday 6th October but unfortunately I had a gum infection on the Friday before and was on both antibiotics and pain killers for the weekend which completely wiped me out and it would have been stupid to attempt the distance the way I was feeling.  I was extremely disappointed not being able to complete the marathon and get my medal and T-shirt so I though I'd email the organisers and see if I can complete the run the Saturday afterwards and prove that I completed the distance with a GPS watch.  They were more than happy and agreed to send the medal and T-shirt to the reception where I could collect upon finishing.

So, today I completed the full 26.2 miles in 4h 9m 7s which was one of the hardest runs I've completed not due to the distance but the elevation.  I've included my report for the Garmin website and a few photo's from the run below.  It's safe to say that now I've checked this off the list I think I'll be sticking to half marathons and trying to get my time under 1h 30m.

 

 

VMware Certified Associate Exams

VMware have recently released some new entry level exams call VMware Certified Associate or VCA.  There are currently three courses and exams available, soon to be four, and consist of:

• VMware Certified Associate – Cloud (VCA-Cloud)
• VMware Certified Associate – Data Center Virtualization (VCA-DCV)
• VMware Certified Associate - Workforce Mobility (VCA-WM)
• VMware Certified Associate – Network Virtualization (VCA-NV) (Comming Soon)

Each exam has an accompanying online course that is available for free from the VMware Certification Website.  You don't need to sit these courses before attempting the exam but obviously it is recommended.  These courses and exams are ideal for people want a good overview of the associated VMware products and gain a certification in them.  The cost of the exams are £80 plus VAT and can be booked via Pearson VUE once you have authorisation via the VMware Certification Website.  VMware have an offer on at the moment whereby if you book the exam before the end of 2013 you will receive a 50% discount.  If you also book the exam before the end of October and use the voucher code VCA13ICS you will be able to sit the exam for free.  I've sat a passed all currently available VCA exams and found them to be very fair.  I've never worked with Horizon or the vCloud Suite so I found the online training valuable and very informative.

vSphere 5.5 First Impressions

In my homelab I always like to keep it up to date with the latest VMware releases so when vSphere 5.5 went GA late Sunday evening (UK Time) I was quick to download all the necessary binaries.  In my currently lab I run vCenter on a Windows 2008 R2 VM with a dedicated SQL server for the required database.  I've dabbled in the vCenter Server Appliance for a few nested labs but it was time to migrate fully to the VCSA during the rebuild.  I've also dabbled in the web client (Not as much as I should have) so during my rebuild I forced myself to completely use the web client, which included working via a Windows 8 jumpbox VM using Microsoft Remote Desktop Gateway Services.  So, this post is about my first impressions using the vSphere 5.5 suite during my homelab rebuild

vCenter Server Appliance

This is the first time I'm using the VCSA for production in my homelab.  As mentioned, I've previously used it for nested test environments due to the simplicity of installation and configuration and the latest version is exactly the same.  I had absolutely no issues with the installation and configuration of the VCSA which included the newly re-written SSO.  The local admin credentials are now administrator@vsphere.local instead of the very strange admin@System-Domain.  One thing worth mentioning is that the root account password for the VCSA is only valid for 90 days.  Since this is a homelab I was quite happy disabling this but in production you may have this requirement so it's worth noting:

When configuring the VCSA to authenticate with my domain the options have also changed.  You can now use Active Directory (Integrated Windows Authentication) as long as you configured an account that can authenticate to the domain during the initial configuration of the VCSA:

Chris Wahl (Blog / Twitter) has a great article about the new configuration options here.

Web Client

The web client was always something that I dabbled with but would always retreat back to the C# client when things got tough.  The 5.1 version of the web client was very clunky and wasn't the easiest to work with over a remote RDP session via Remote Desktop Gateway services.  With the rebuild of my lab I forced myself to solely use the web client for all tasks which included all host and storage configurations.  It took a little longer than it would have using the C# client purely because most of my time was spent trying to find the correct location for the settings such as settings for the Path Selection Policy for a particular storage device.  Once I had invested the time in locating the settings it was smooth sailing from then on.  The new web client is definitely a lot smoother and more responsive which makes it a lot easier to work with both locally and remotely.  I'm a big fan of the recent items menu option that was added as part of 5.5:

So all in all the new web client definitely gets a thumbs up but you have to invest the time and force yourself to use it.

Network ACL's

New for 5.5 is the ability to add ACL's to port groups to filter packets based on the various parameters of the packet header.  This feature is only supported on the Virtual Distributed Switch (VDS) and can be based on the following three different qualifiers:

• MAC SA and DA qualifiers
• System traffic qualifiers - vMotion, Management, FT, NFS, VM, VSAN, iSCSI and Replication
• IP qualifiers

I've configured an ACL on a test port group that I have a SQL2012 server attached to .  The ACL blocks ICMP traffic from ANY IP address to the SQL2012 VM:

As I continue to explore the new vSphere 5.5 features I'll be sure to post anything interesting that I find.

North East VMUG - 03/10/2013

The next UK North East VMUG has been finalised and will be on Thursday 3rd October from 12:00 and take place at:

CastleGate
Simpson Room
Melbourne Street
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE1 2JQ

Direction Here

Once the full agenda with times has been confirmed I will update this page but here are some highlights of what we have planned:

• Joe Baguley, VMware – Keynote
• David Owen - Training & Certification
• Andrew Wood, Atlantis Computing – Delivering on the VDI Reality
• Dan Watson, VMware – NSX
• vBeers: We will adjourn at 5pm and reconvene at The Bridge Hotel for vBeers and a buffet courtesy of SITS Group

This time we have a diverse event including a keynote from Joe Baguely, VMware CTO for EMEA, an overview of VMware training and certification from one of our members along with some real world advice and a session on the new network virtualization technology NSX, which looks set to become key over the next couple of years. Finally, Atlantis are sponsoring our venue and will give a session on the benefits of their solutions, particularly in optimising IO and storage traffic for VDI.

Sign up and Register here

Big thanks go out to our Sponsors for the day, Atlantis Computing and SITS Group.  Without their help we wouldn't be able to put on these free events.

VMworld Barcelona Schedule

I've finished (I think) scheduling my VMworld Barcelona trip so I thought I'd post it up.  I'm hoping there will be a vExpert and / or vBeers meetup on one of the evenings but so far it's looking pretty stacked:

If anyone fancies meeting up on any of the evenings then get in touch.