Month April 2019

VMware vSAN 2017 Specialist Badge

Brian Owen 2 Comments

vmware-vsan-2017-specialist

I recently earned the VMware vSAN 2017 Specialist Badge. Despite the name, I did in fact pass the exam in 2019 with a score of 411. This is the latest version of the exam. I do not like how VMware is naming the exams after the year the exam was released. Makes sense for Microsoft to put a year in the exam title because the version of their software obviously has the year in it. I hope VMware goes back to naming the exams after the version of the product.

The latest version of vSAN is 6.7 U2, but the exam objectives are based on vSAN 6.6. The exam was fairly easy so I guess that is why it is for a badge and not a certification. The exam didn’t really have any surprises. It closely followed the exam objectives. I recommend to review the material in the two links below and know it very well. I had plenty of time to finish the exam.

https://xiaoxiaoke.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/how-to-understand-and-calculate-space-requirements-for-raid-1-with-vsan/

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/com.vmware.vsphere.virtualsan.doc/GUID-3863B640-3449-46A2-84E0-AC07E5A604FD.html

As you can see from the image below, the badge path is for VCP6 holders. The drop down also has expired VCP and no VCP. My VCP is active, but on 5.5. I have kept it active with taking VCAP exams during the past few years. Then it would have become active anyway since VMware changed their rules for certification expiration.

vSANSpecialistRequirements2

Anyway, there are actually many more certifications that meet the requirements for this badge. The screen shot below, from VMware’s certification manager, shows a long list that has VCAP 6, VCDX 6, and newer VCP exams. I earned the badge since I previously passed the VCAP6-DCV Design exam. I am not sure why it says vRealize Operations 2017 for 1.2. I am guessing it’s a mistake and should list the vSAN exam.

vSANSpecialistRequirements

 

 

Migrate resources to a new vCenter Server – Unregister old vCenter Servers (Part 4)

Brian Owen Leave a comment

Now that all resources have been migrated, verify that nothing was forgotten at the source vCenter Server. Refer back to part 1. Make sure all permissions have been set on the destination resources in case you need to go back to the source to double check. Would not be fun to roll back once the single command to unregister a vCenter Server is ran.

KB2106736 has the steps for the appliance and Windows versions to unregister a vCenter Server from a PSC. In the addition to the KB article, I have two suggestions. Take a snapshot of all PSCs before running the command just to be safe.  I did run into a small issue at first, but nothing negative happened because of it. The vCenter name in the cmsso-util unregister command is case sensitive. “Could not find a host id which maps to NAME INPUTTED in Component Manager, Failed!!!” was the error message I received. If the vCenter Server is not found when running the command, I suggest you instead use the IP address of the vCenter Server.

CaseError1

The unregister command went well for me after I entered the vCenter Server in the correct case. It took a few minutes to run before I received the success output.

CaseError2

That completed the major steps in my migrations. I spent time afterwards to put datastores back in datastores clusters, import host profiles, etc. Documentation is important to assist in making your clusters look how they did before.

Migrate Resources to a New vCenter Server (Part 1)
Migrate resources to a new vCenter Server – Methods for Migrations (Part 2)
Migrate resources to a new vCenter Server – Cross vCenter vMotion Utility (Part 3)
Migrate resources to a new vCenter Server – Unregister old vCenter Servers (Part 4)

 

Migrate resources to a new vCenter Server – Cross vCenter vMotion Utility (Part 3)

Brian Owen Leave a comment

I used a different method of migration for a cluster that was migrating to a new vCenter Server on a new SSO domain. The destination vCenter Server was using the vDS so I had the same limitation as the previous migration. Though, I had a different idea for this one. I had enough resources in one of the clusters to first bring over half of hosts to the destination vCenter Server. Having this configuration made the process of live migrating my VMs easy by using the Cross vCenter Workload Migration Utility.

vMotion is not bound by a SSO domain and vMotion does not even know the concept of an SSO domain. I heard this discussed on the Virtually Speaking Podcast with William Lam describing his work on the Cross vCenter Workload Migration Utility. vMotion appears to only be within the same SSO domain because of the limitation in the GUI. However, there are APIs to migrate a VM to a different SSO domain. The utility is a technically a fling, but I see no problem with using it in a production environment.  After all, the APIs are there and the utility is just giving an easy to use interface.

Here’s the process I went though for this migration.

  1. Export the vDS from the source vCenter Server
  2. Import the vDS on the destination vCenter Server
  3. Place host in maintenance mode
  4. Document and then remove VMkernel ports
    1. Of course, migrate the management VMkernel to a standard port if it is on the vDS.
    2. VMkernel ports need to be removed before a host can be removed from a vDS.
  5. Remove host from vDS
  6. Disconnect host and then remove host from source vCenter Server
  7. Add host to vCenter Server
  8. Add host to vDS
  9. Create and/or migrate  VMkernel ports that were previously deleted
  10. Exit maintenance mode
  11. Repeat steps 3-10 for additional hosts
  12. Use the Cross vCenter Workload Migration Utility to vMotion VMs

Migrate Resources to a New vCenter Server (Part 1)
Migrate resources to a new vCenter Server – Methods for Migrations (Part 2)
Migrate resources to a new vCenter Server – Cross vCenter vMotion Utility (Part 3)
Migrate resources to a new vCenter Server – Unregister old vCenter Servers (Part 4)