How to Change CVM Memory in Nutanix CE Platform

By | 15/12/2018
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In last post of this series, I covered installation of Nutanix CE single-node cluster. In this post i will walk through steps of reducing CVM memory.

By default when you deploy Nutanix CE, CVM is configured with 16 GB RAM. You can verify this by logging into Prism and navigating to Home > VM view.

cvm-mem-1.PNG

Or you can SSH to AHV host and type command : virsh dominfo

Now suppose you allocated 20 GB RAM to the VM where Nutanix CE is installed, CVM will consume 16 GB out of it, leaving only 4 GB for the AHV host. But we can reduce CVM memory to 12G or 8G for lab purpose. read more

My HCI Lab with Nutanix Community Edition-Part 3: Deploy Single Node Cluster

By | 15/12/2018
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In last post of this series we discussed about lab setup that is needed to deploy the Nutanix CE platform. In this post we will learn about how to deploy a single node cluster.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Nutanix Community Edition Introduction

2: Lab Setup

In last post we converted our centos VM to a template to save deployment time. I deployed a new VM from the template and booted it. 

Once the “init image” is loaded at the login, type “install” command to proceed. read more

My HCI Lab with Nutanix Community Edition: Part 2: Lab Setup

By | 14/12/2018
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In last post of this series we discussed about what Nutanix CE is what does it offer and we talked about limitation of the product. In this post I will walk through my lab setup which I used to deploy the Nutanix CE.

Recommended Hardware

Before planning your deployment, make sure to refer to below spreadsheet which lists all necessary piece of hardware you need to have in place. 

Nutanix CE-HW Specs.png

In my lab, I don’t have a dedicated hardware server for deployment, so I went ahead with Nested virtualization technique. But if you are interested in deploying CE on dedicated piece of hardware then I would recommend reading this article. read more

My HCI Lab with Nutanix Community Edition: Part 1: Introduction

By | 14/12/2018
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Till the time I was working majorly on VMware products, I thought there can’t be a better piece of technology than this. But since the time I started learning Nutanix, my thoughts changed and I must admit that I am in awe of this product.

To learn any new product, home lab is the best place where you can learn things from scratch. Since I don’t have dedicated hardware pieces to deploy Nutanix, I tried my hands on Nutanix Community Edition.

In this post I will outline some basic considerations which you should keep in mind when when planning to go with Nutanix CE and will walk through the steps needed to create lab. Also I will discuss possibilities and limits of using this product. read more

Learning vRNI 3.9: Part 3:User Management in vRNI

By | 14/11/2018
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In last post of this series we learnt how to change default retention period for events etc in vRNI. In this post we will learn how about user management.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Adding Data Sources in vRNI

2: Changing Default Data Management Policy

Default installation of vRNI allows you to login with admin@local user and this user can add new users (local and LDAP) and configure memberships and other settings of existing users. In this post we will learn how to add a local and LDAP user to vRNI. read more

Learning vRNI 3.9: Part 2:Changing Default Data Management Policy

By | 13/11/2018
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By default the data retention policy in vRNI is one month. However if you have an enterprise license, then you can change this policy.  The data is divided into the following categories:

vrni-data retention

We can change the value of any category and can set it to maximum value specified in above table.

To change the default data retention policy, login to vRNI and navigate to Home > Settings > Data Management. 

Click on configure button to change the values.

vrni-dm-1

From the drop down menu, select the new value for each category which you want to change and hit submit button. read more

Learning vRNI 3.9: Part 1:Adding Data Sources in vRNI

By | 10/11/2018
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By default when vRNI 3.9 is installed, it starts in the NSX assessment mode and in this mode you will only see option to add vCenter server as data source.

vrni-ds-1

If you click on Add Data Source, the only option available to you is to add vCenter, Infoblox and Netflow Collector.

vrni-ds-2

In order to add different data sources like NSX Manager or Cisco devices, you need to change the evaluation license and then click on “Switch to Full Product Evaluation” button available in the bottom right corner of vRNI homepage. read more

vCloud Extender-Part 4: Cloud Provider Registration and VM Migration

By | 01/10/2018
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In last post of this series, I covered the steps needed to configure on-prem environment to connect it to a cloud provider site. In this post I will demonstrate how to register cloud provider and initiate vm migration using vCloud Extender.

1: Introduction to vCloud Extender

2: vCloud Extender-Cloud Provider Setup

3: vCloud Extender-Tenant (On-Premise) Setup

Lets start with Cloud Provider registration.

Login to On-prem vCenter server webclient and click on vCloud Extender plugin and navigate to Provider Clouds tab. Click on Add a Provider Cloud button. read more

vCloud Extender-Part 3: Tenant (On-Premise) Setup

By | 30/09/2018
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In last post of this series we covered the deployment/configuration steps in the cloud provider side. In this post we will learn about how to configure the on-premise (tenant) environment.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Introduction to vCloud Extender

2: vCloud Extender-Cloud Provider Setup

To connect the Tenant environment with the cloud provider, we need to deploy an instance of vCloud Extender in the on-premise. Deployment is more or less same like service provider side, but with difference that we select deployment type as “cx-connector” a shown in below screenshot. read more

vCloud Extender-Part 2: Service Provider Setup

By | 29/09/2018
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In last post of this series, I discussed about vCloud Extender architecture and its capabilities. In this post I will walk through steps of configuring vCloud Extender in cloud provider side.

vCloud Extender is deployed as ova and deployment steps are straight forward as shown in below slide show. Just make sure to select deployment type as “cx-cloud-service” on customization template page.

Once appliance is deployed and boots up, it will show the browser link to access the appliance for further configuration. read more

vCloud Extender-Part 1:Introduction

By | 29/09/2018
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What is VMware vCloud Extender?

VMware vCloud Director Extender creates a hybrid cloud environment between an end-user on-premise data center, and a multi-tenant vCloud Director environment. vCloud Extender is replacement for vCloud Connector and this product was released soon after vCloud Director 9.0 was announced. 

What does vCloud Extender offers?

vCloud Extender allows customers to migrate workloads from On-prem vSphere environment to a vCloud Director based Public Cloud. The two migration methods that are available with vCloud Extender are the cold and warm migration and I will talk about these methods in detail in upcoming post of this series. read more

vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR-Part 4: Testing DR Operations

By | 26/09/2018
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In last post of this series we paired the two vCloud based cloud instances. Now its turn to test the DR capabilities offered by vCAV-C2C.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Introduction to vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR

2: vCAV-C2C-POC Deployment

3: Site Pairing

To start testing DR operations, connect to https://VCAV-FQDN:8443 and login with tenant credentials (uname@orgname) and navigate to Paired Clouds. read more

vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR-Part 3: Site Pairing

By | 25/09/2018
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In last post of this series we configured the vCAV-C2C appliance for both Site A & B. In this post we will learn how to perform site pairing so that tenants can start replicating workloads between 2 cloud instances.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Introduction to vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR

2: vCAV-C2C-POC Deployment

To perform site pairing, login to vCAV-C2C appliance of site A by connecting to https://VCAV-FQDN:8046 and navigating to Sites > New Site and enter IP/FQDN of VCAV appliance of Site B. read more

vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR-Part 2: POC Deployment

By | 24/09/2018
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As discussed in last post, we can configure all roles present in vCAV-C2C in a single appliance for Lab/POC deployment. In my lab I am going ahead with small deployment to have a general understanding of this product before doing distributed deployment.

In my lab I have 2 sites and each site is configured with following components:

1: vSphere/vCenter Server 6.5 U2

2: vCloud Director 9.0

3: VMware NSX 6.3.6

vSphere and vCD is fully configured and Org/Org vDC’s are in place n both sites with external network etc configured.  read more

vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR-Part 1:Introduction

By | 23/09/2018
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VMware vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR is the latest addition in VMware Cloud Provider Platform portfolio and it was first released in May 2018 and it brought joy for the service providers who wanted a VMware native Cloud to Cloud DR solution for vCloud Director based clouds from long time. 

What is vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR (vCAV-C2C)?

VMware vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud is a solution for DR between 2 instances of vCloud Director. Cloud to Cloud DR concept is not new but VMware did not had any solution for vCloud based cloud. vCAV-C2C fills this gap and helps VMware Cloud Providers to leverage existing vCloud Director environments to provide DR services, including replication and failover capabilities for workloads at both VM and vApp level. read more