Today’s blog post is all about vSAN. vSAN, according to VMware, is VMware’s hyper-converged software solution. In order to understand the differences between hyper-converged and software defined, let’s look at the definition for each. With all of the cool/hip buzz words, there is a lot of misunderstandings, and often times these words are interchangeably used without understanding the terminology correctly.
Author: spo0587
How to: Dell EMC Data Domain Virtual Edition Install on ESXi
Finalizing this month’s series on data protection, I wanted to follow up last week’s blog post on installing Avamar Virtual Edition with this one, which is installing Data Domain Virtual Edition. The two are often married together in Data Protection deployments. Simply put, Avamar is the front end backup engine that has all of backup software, and DataDomain is the landing spot for the backup data. DataDomain is Dell EMC’s appliance based deduplication device. It is the market leader in purpose-built backup appliances. Various workloads can be ingested, including data from Avamar, VEEAM, Networker, etc. Like the Avamar VE, DataDomain VE allows you fully take advantage of virtualization in one easy to manage package. The virtual edition is geared towards small-to-medium size environments and/or EDGE locations (ROBO). With that said, let’s get started!
Be sure to check out the system requirements before you proceed.
Dell EMC easily allows anyone to give DataDomain VE a try. To get started, first download the trial copy by heading over to Dell EMC’s website.
In the upper right hand corner, select download for the VMware 0.5TB Try and Buy.
Select download
The download file should start downloading
Continue reading “How to: Dell EMC Data Domain Virtual Edition Install on ESXi”
Troubleshooting Avamar: Failed to Communicate with vCenter
On yesterday’s blog, I was able to deploy Avamar Virtual Edition. One of the goals once deployed was to test integration with vCenter 6.5; however, when I attempted to add my test 6.5 vCenter server, I received an error. The error states “Failed to communicate to vCenter. Unable to find a valid certification path to the vCenter”.
This is caused since I don’t have a certificate installed on my test vCenter server. So, with that said, here’s what I did to resolve the issue.
Using WinSCP, connect to your Avamar node and navigate to the following directory.
/usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs then double click mcserver.xml
Locate vmware within the XML file. Within the entry keys, locate “ignore_vc_cert value=false”
Change the value from “false” to“true”. This resolves the issue by telling Avamar to ignore the requirement for a certificate.
Once the change has been made, click save in the upper left hand corner of WinSCP. Now we need to start/stop the MCS in order for the changes to take.
To do this, putty into the Avamar node as admin and run dpnctl stop mcs
Once the MCS is shutdown, start the MCS by running dpnctl start mcs
Now that the MCS has restarted successfully, you can login back into the Avamar GUI to add the vCenter server as a client.
In order to complete this, click on the Administration tab, then click the Account Management tab. Next, locate the top level domain, right click and select new client.
Enter the vCenter server credentials and click “OK“.
Once authenticated, the vCenter server is now seen as a client. You can now add VMs for backups.
How to: EMC Avamar Virtual Edition Install on ESXi
Dell EMC has provided a Virtual Edition of their flagship backup product Avamar for some time now. Avamar is an enterprise backup software that allows you to back just about anything, which includes full image based backups of VMs within VMware, physical Windows, Linux, Unix, Hyper-V, and application consistent backups (Exchange and SQL). I’ve known about Avamar Virtual Edition for a few years now, but i’ve just now had a chance go try it out! The Virtual Edition allows users to quickly provision a Virtual Edition of Avamar instead of utilizing physical hardware. The Virtual Edition comes in 0.5TB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities. This is intended for smaller workloads, remote branch offices, or Metadata only nodes. If you need something larger than this, look at getting one of their larger physical appliances. The virtual edition installs quickly, and in my opinion, is easier to maintain long term since you have a virtualized VM, which gives you all the benefits of virtualization. No longer do you have to worry about managing a physical appliance that has component failures and takes up power/cooling; rather, now you have a VM that can be migrated, backed up, and even deployed in the cloud! The download and install took me less than 1 hour, which is pretty quick considering how powerful a product Avamar is. First the requirements. According to Dell EMC’s website, here are the requirements for AVE.
Continue reading “How to: EMC Avamar Virtual Edition Install on ESXi”
VMworld Goodies from Letsv4Real!
VMworld 2017 has come and gone! While I haven’t been to attend VMworld yet, I was able to keep up with VMware’s announcements via Twitter and blogs. Thankfully the event is heavily covered, and I was able to follow along just as if I was there! Here’s one of the sessions (VMworld 2017 SER1143BU A Deep Dive into vSphere 6.5 Core Storage Features and Functionality) that caught my eye, since it had to do with Core Storage Features!
This was a very informative session with regards to core storage functionality, and thankfully VMware posted these sessions for those who couldn’t make it. Continue reading “VMworld Goodies from Letsv4Real!”
Veeam NFR Trial Key
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking regarding trial products, and one thing that is very frustrating is the lack of extended trial licences for bloggers, tech evangelist, and engineers, etc. There are many products I would like to try in order to demo the product and its features completely; however, most Vendors/Manufactures only want to give you a small trial window, which makes it difficult to truly get an accurate feel for the product and its features. Continue reading “Veeam NFR Trial Key”
Troubleshooting Cisco UCS Chassis: F0411 Thermal condition on chassis is upper-non-recoverable
Today I experienced an issue with a Cisco UCS chassis. The error in question was “F0411 Thermal condition on chassis is upper-non-recoverable”. F0411 Thermal condition would make the chassis go red within equipment under the Cisco Unified Computing System Manager, then from there it would go yellow, with the fans stating they were “inoperable” even though they weren’t. This process continually went back and fourth between yellow and red thousands of times. While the alert was concerning to see, it’s important to note the UCS Chassis itself was functioning normally with no issues. Concerning to the eye at the very least, and worth investigating. Upon inspection of the device, everything was working normally; however, the fans were running full blast. To resolve the issue I opened a ticket with Cisco TAC.
The Start of a new Journey: Becoming a vSAN Specialist
Yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to read that VMware has announced their first certification for vSAN, which comes in the form of a VMware Specialist Badge. The VMware Specialist Badge will be given to those who know how to successfully design, deploy, and administer vSAN environments. Since I have a great interest in vSAN, I have decided to make it a personal goal of mine to obtain this new VMware Certification, which will align perfectly with my passion for DataProtection and vSAN. Since I have already obtained my VCP, I will only need to lab, study, then take the test! Now, the fun part; plan, execute, and obtain! Continue reading “The Start of a new Journey: Becoming a vSAN Specialist”
New VSAN 6.6 Performance Diagnostics by Duncan Epping
Essential Virtual SAN (VSAN)
I recently purchased the “go-to” book regarding VSAN, which is Essential Virtual SAN (VSAN), Administrators Guide to VMware Virtual SAN. The book covers everything you need to know with regards to getting started with VSAN. Currently, I am on Chapter 6, with the hopes that I can finish the book within the next few weeks, then setup a lab to apply the knowledge obtained by reading the book. This is a great beginners guide to anyone interested in VSAN, and from what I’ve read so far, I would highly recommend it!
TheVirtualBoi 