By default, when you install vCenter, a SSO domain is deployed. When you authenticate on vCenter, you use an identity from this SSO Domain. vCenter can also use identities from other identity sources such as Active Directory and LDAP. Thanks to Active Directory, you can create groups, assign them to vCenter roles and then manage accesss from Active Directory. In ...
Read More »Connect vSphere 6.5 to iSCSI storage NAS
When you implement ESXi cluster, you need also a shared storage to store the virtual machine files. It can be a NAS, a SAN or vSAN. When using NAS or SAN, you can connect vSphere by using Fibre Channel (FC), FC over Ethernet (FCoE) or iSCSI. In this topic, I’d like to share with you how to connect vSphere to ...
Read More »Deploy a converged network with vSphere 6.5
With the increased network card rates, we are now able to let several flows pass on the same network links. We can find on the market network adapters with 10gb/s, 25Gb/s, or 100Gb/s! So, there is no reason to dedicate a network adapter for a specific traffic. Thanks to converged networks, we can deploy VMware ESXi nodes with less network ...
Read More »Real case: Storage Spaces Direct physical disk replacement
This week I was in Stockholm to build a Storage Spaces Direct cluster (hyperconverged model). When implementing the cluster, I have seen that a physical disk was failing. I’ve written this topic to show you how I have replaced this disk. Identify the failed physical disk I was deploying VMFleet when I saw the both virtual disks in a degraded ...
Read More »Specialize Windows Server Hyper-V guest OS automatically
If you have not SC Virtual Machine Manager, you have no access to VM Template to deploy standard virtual machines. But SC Virtual Machine Manager leverages existing mechanisms to deploy and specialize Windows Server such as unattend file, custom scripts or PowerShell. The specialization of the operating system enables to configure the license key, the computer name, the IP address, ...
Read More »Make a Veeam backup copy to Microsoft Azure
Veeam can make a backup copy from On-Premise to Microsoft Azure. This is possible thanks to an appliance available on Microsoft Azure called Veeam Cloud Connect. Thanks to Veeam Cloud Connect you can make a backup copy to Microsoft Azure. This enables to follow easily the 3-2-1 backup rule (3 copies on 2 different medias and on 1 remote site). ...
Read More »Deploy ESXi 6.5 from USB stick and unattended file
VMware ESXi 6.5 has been released last month and I decide to share with you how I have deployed ESXi 6.5 from a USB stick and with an unattend file. There is no major new feature with ESXi 6.5 related to deployment from unattended file. But I decide to build a vSphere lab and deploy ESXi node without a click. ...
Read More »Restore a Hyper-V 2016 VM with Veeam instant VM recovery
Instant VM Recovery is a Veeam feature that enable to recover immediately a virtual machine. This feature enables to run the virtual machine from the backup repositories. When you have checked that the VM is running from a backup, you can migrate the VM in the production storage volume. Thanks to this powerful feature, the RTO is small. Moreover, you ...
Read More »Choose properly your CPU for Storage Spaces Direct
When building a hyperconverged solution, the CPU is the most important part. This component defines the number of vCPU supported by your infrastructure and so, defined the number of servers to deploy. Today we can install hundreds of RAM in GB, and dozens of storage in TB. Compared to these components the number of CPU is small. So, a bigger ...
Read More »Step-by-Step: Deploy vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 6.5
VMware vCenter is a management software for your vSphere environment. It enables to manage from a single pane of glass all your VMware virtual infrastructure. Last month, VMware has released the vSphere 6.5 version which includes the vCenter. vCenter comes in two versions: A Software to be deployed on a Windows Server (physical or virtual) A virtual appliance that is ...
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