As I am preparing for my upgrade to vSphere 6.5, it is time once more to upgrade my HPE management tools, such as HPE Systems Insight Manager and HPE OneView for vCenter. Each has its own challenges and is not without issue.
vSphere Upgrade Saga: Migrating to External PSC
It is time to try out the external platform service controller (External PSC), for several reasons. The first is that I wish to keep my license and SSO information separate from vCenter. The reasons are myriad, so I will list them later. The main concern is to reinstall vCenter to try to eliminate the Deploy OVF problem.
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vSphere Upgrade Saga: OVFTool to the Rescue
Once I upgraded to vSphere 6.5A, I was no longer able to upload OVF or OVA files through vCenter using either of the web clients. It complains in both cases that I am not running vCenter 6.5. This is a known bug. For more information, see KB 2148007. However, there is a solution: use ovftool.
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Security Operations with VMware vRealize Log Insight
I have been creating a security operations center (SOC) specific to VMware vSphere using VMware vRealize Log Insight (vRLI). This SOC project shows the power of vRLI and the wealth of data available within vSphere 6.5. The original goal was to just gain visibility into my own environment. However, after showing the simple views to a few folks, it has grown from there and continues to grow.
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vSphere Upgrade Saga: vCenter 6.5 Fails – vDS/DRS Issues
The latest vSphere Upgrade Saga happened a week or so after my upgrade to vSphere 6.5. VMware vCenter just up and died on me. I looked at everything and eventually had to call in VMware Support. That is a rare action for me these days, but it is nearly impossible to debug vCenter without their help.
I had entered vNetwork Distributed Switch h-e-double hockey sticks! A broken vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) makes for a bad day for anyone.
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vSphere Upgrade Saga: Upgrading to vSphere 6.5A
This was a painful upgrade, but I had lots of help from various sources. The main element is to ensure you follow the vSphere Update Sequence. Update everything in that specific order: do not differentiate. This is important, as some things will not upgrade if they are out of order. This part of my vSphere Upgrade Saga upgrade was far from smooth.
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