VMware VVD 5.0 – BOM

David Ring VMware , , ,

Previous posts:
VMware VVD 4.2 – BOM
VMware VVD 4.3 – BOM

VMware Validated Design 5.0

The following is a list of all the components and their versions as per VMware Validated Design 5.0.

This new VVD 5.0 release includes for example vSphere 6.7 U1, NSX 6.4.4, vSAN 6.7 U1, vRealize Log Insight 4.7, vRealize Business 7.5, vRealize Operations 7.0 and vRealize Automation 7.5.

Note: the list below can be officially found @VMware VVD 5.0 Release Notes

‘vRealize Lifecycle Manager v1.2’ (vRSLCM) was introduced with VVD 4.3, as per VVD 5.0 vRSLCM 2.0.0 Patch2 is the latest certified version. vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) v2.0 is a centralized way to manage the vRealize suite of products from a single pane of glass, allowing users to perform tasks such as installation, configuration, content management, integrated market place, upgrades, patching, certificate management, support matrix lookup among other admin tasks.. more details can be found here on the What’s New video for vRSLCM 2.0.

In terms of ‘Whats New’ the biggest addition in this release is the introduction of VMware Cloud Builder (an automation tool leveraged to deploy the SDDC stack, such as the vRealize suite, vSphere, NSX and vSAN) and talking from experience this will save you ALOT of manual effort in terms of deploying the SDDC stack. Cloud Builder essentially cuts for example the Standard Deployment for Region A implementation doc to ~80 pages from ~400! @LifeOfBrianOC has written an excellent series of blog posts detailing VVD Cloudbuilder deployment process: VMware Validated Designs – Automated Deployment with Cloudbuilder

Continue reading →

VxRail – VVD 4.3 (Notes)

David Ring VxRAIL

VMware Validated Design for SDDC on VxRail

Dell EMC VxRail and VMware Validated Design (VVD) brief notes:

vvdonvxrail_vvdlogo

  • VxRail was the first HCI appliance certified to run VVD.
  • For a list of the VVD 4.3 BOM see here.
  • VxRail & VVD BOM alignment delivered by both VMware and Dell EMC.
  • VVD 4.3 includes vSphere 6.5U2 – requires VxRail code versions 4.5 which include 6.5U2.
  • VxRail 4.5.225 or later recommended (4.7 targeted for .next VVD release).
  • VVD certification offers documented guidance on how to deploy the vRealize Suite (vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations Manager, vRealize Business for Cloud and vRealize Log Insight) and NSX on VxRail.
  • VVD on VxRail arch includes two workload domains (wld’s) ‘management’ & ‘vi’ (includes shared edge and compute cluster) based on the VMware Standard VVD design.
  • VxRail E or P series are the recommended models for the management domains.
  • More detail for VVD on VxRail sizing here.
  • Recommend deploying VxRail Appliances with 4x 10Gbe (2 NICs used today with additional 2 NICs to cater for future VVD/VCF designs).
  • VxRail ESXi clusters remain fully life cycle managed by VxRail Manager (updates include ESXi, vSAN, Firmware, and the VIBs/Agents). vCenter and PSCs can be lcm leveraging VMware Update Manager (VUM).
  • vSAN is the primary storage used for both the Management domains.
  • 3x deployment options including DR and Stretch Clustering:
  • Dell switch configuration guidance for VVD can be found here.
  • Multi-AZ design with vSAN stretched cluster supported with up to 5ms RTT latency between Availability Zones and 10Gbps b/w.
  • Multi-Region design supports latency between regions up to 150ms.
  • vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) utilized for the automated deployment of the vRealize Suite products namely: vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations Manager, vRealize Business for Cloud and vRealize Log Insight.
  • vCenters and their associated PSCs reside in the management domain. VVD design requires that both the management & workload vCenters and PSCs must be deployed in the management domain VxRail.
  • VxRail Manager responsible for the deployment and LCM of ESXi, vSAN, cluster ops (create, add host, etc.) and ESRS.
  • DUAL Region VVD configurations have a single SSO Domain spanning 2 sites (consisting of 4X VxRails, 2 per site).
  • VVD supports a VADP compatible backup solution for integration with vSphere, for example Dell EMC Avamar or Networker.
  • VMware Site Recovery Manager and vSphere Replication to perform site protection and recovery of the Cloud Management Platform(CMP) that consists of vRealize Automation with embedded vRealize Orchestrator, vRealize Business, vRealize Operations Manager analytics cluster, and vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. VVD 4.3 Site Protection and Recovery guide can be found here.
  • Non-VVD vRealize Automation endpoints are supported natively by vRA, see VVD documentation guidance.
  • Dell EMC community VVD on VxRail landing page.
  • Useful reference: Dell EMC™ VxRail™ – Accelerating the Journey to VMware Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC)

 

 

 

 

 

VxRail – Visio Stencils

David Ring VxRAIL

Thanks to our prod marketing team for creating these VxRail stencils which can be used in Microsoft Visio. The zip download below contains images of all VxRail series appliances both 13&14G E|G|P|V| S, detailing front, rear, left and right elevations.

VxRail_Visios_13G_and_14G.zip

Note: these are the latest as of Dec 2018. Please refer to the VxRail enablement center to check for most recent dowloads. If you are working on VVD related solutions then it is also worth checking out these:  Visio Stencils for the VMware Validated Designs

List of VxRail stencils included:

vxrailstencils1 Continue reading →

vRSLCM – Add a vROps Remote Collector

David Ring VMware , , , , ,

One of the cool things about vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager is the capability to add components to an existing LCM configured vROps. In this example it is demonstrated how to add a Remote Collector (adding a data node is another option).

The versions used in this example are:

  • vRSLCM 2.0
  • vROps 6.7

Before proceeding with making any configuration changes it is best to validate the current setup. Check for things such as:

Continue reading →

VMware ESXi – How to Determine Build Number via CLI

David Ring Uncategorized

One quick method to discover your ESXi build number and version is to connect via ssh and run the following command from the ESXi console:

vmware -vl 

esxibuild

The output displays a build number 8294256 and also returns the Update level U2.

You may also lookup your ESXi build number and version from the following KB:

Build numbers and versions of VMware ESXi/ESX (2143832)

See also: VMware VCSA – How to Determine Build Number

VMware vRSLCM 2.0 – Import Brownfield Environment

David Ring Uncategorized

vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) v2.0 is a centralized way to manage the vRealize suite of products from a single pane of glass, allowing users to perform tasks such as installation, configuration, content management, integrated market place, upgrades, patching, certificate management, support matrix lookup among other admin tasks.. more details can be found here on the What’s New video for vRSLCM 2.0.

This post details how to import an existing brownfield installation of the vRealize Suite into vRSLCM 2.0, these products were originally deployed as per the VVD 4.3 architecture, namely:

  • vRealize Automation
  • vRealize Operations
  • vRealize Log Insight
  • vRealize Business for Cloud

The following steps detail how to onboard these vRealize products into LCM, allowing the user to leverage all these management capabilities that come with vRSLCM 2.0.

This example is based on logging into a newly deployed vRSLCM 2.0, begin by logging in with default username ‘admin@localhost’ and default password ‘vmware’:

vrslcm import brownfield1 Continue reading →