How to disable DRS for a single host in the cluster

I saw a question today which was interesting, how do I disable DRS for a single host in the cluster? I thought about it, and you cannot do this within the UI, at least… there is no “disable DRS” option on a host level. You can enable/disable it on a cluster level but that is it. But there are of course ways to ensure a host is not considered by DRS:

1. Place the host in maintenance mode
   This will result in the host not being used by DRS. However it also means the host won’t be used by HA and you cannot run any workloads on it.
2. Create “VM/Host” affinity rules and exclude the host that needs to be DRS disabled. That way all current workloads will not run, or be considered to run, on that particular host. If you create “must” rules this is guaranteed, if you create “should” rules then at least HA can still use the host for restarts but unless there is severe memory pressure or you hit 100 CPU utilization it will not be used by DRS either.
3. Disable the vMotion VMkernel interface
   This will result in not being able to vMotion any VMs to the host (and not from the host either). However, HA will still consider it for restarts and you can run workloads on the host, and the host will be considered for “initial placement” during a power-on of a VM.

I will file a feature request for a “disable drs” on a particular host option in the UI, I guess it could be useful for some in certain scenarios.

Original post by Duncan Epping from yellow-bricks.com
http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2017/01/17/disable-drs-single-host-cluster/

VMware VCSA 6.5 Backup and Restore How-to

VMware VCSA 6.5 Backup and Restore How-to.

Note that it is an “out-of-the-box” feature which does a file level backup. It’s “built-in” within the appliance itself, and it allows users to backup not only the vCenter Server but also Platform Services Controller (PSC) appliances directly. VCSA with embedded or external Platform Services Controller (PSC) is supported.

As you might imagine, the restore has to be launched from somewhere. When you’re in a situation when your VCSA is broken, you’ll have to first deploy clean VCSA via the Installation/deployment ISO, but you do that within the restore operation.

 

What is backed up?

The minimum set of data needed is backed up by default. Those are for example the OS, vCenter services and Inventory. You can additionally backup also Inventory, configuration, and historical data (Statistics, events, and tasks) in vCenter server database

So during the restore operation, you deploy a clean VCSA (phase 1) and you restore from backup (phase 2).  The vCenter Server UUID and all configuration settings are restored. The backup file is stored elsewhere, not on the VCSA itself. VCSA backup can be backed and sent up to different location via different protocols:

• FTP
• FTPS
• HTTP
• HTTPS
• SCP

VMware VCSA 6.5 Backup and Restore How-To

Browse to https://VCSA:5480 >

Log in with the password you entered when you have deployed the solution. You’ll see this nice new UI….

After you log in, then you can hit the big Backup button. A wizard will start….

There you’ll be presented with a nice wizard which will allow you to specify where you want to send this backup. The location must be an empty folder. Note the option to encrypt your backup data, a simple check box.

Note the option to encrypt your backup data, a simple check box……

NOTE:  If you use HTTP or HTTPS, you must enable WebDAV on the backup Web server.

The Encrypt Backup Data checkbox, when checked, a new section appears inviting you to put login/password combination. The password form is intelligently checking if you enter twice the same password. If not, you have a small notification telling you that your passwords do not match.
And then I entered the backup setting, such as protocol, login/password combination (make sure to give read/write rights on the folder where you’re backing up) > and finish the wizard.

Note: To check which services are not running you go SSH to the VCSA 6.5 appliance and run

    service-control — status

which gives you services which run on one line, and also services which are not running. The “vmware-stsd” service should be normally running.

To start the service:

    service-control  — start vmware-stsd

Restore operation

Well, from then it is very straightforward. Just quickly…

Launch the setup application of the VCSA 6.5 (from the ISO)

1. Click the Restore button
2. Deploy a new appliance using the wizard.
3. Accept EULA
4. Enter Backup details
5. Review backup information
6. Enter appliance deployment target (ESXi host) ….. from them it is pretty similar to a clean deployment…

vSphere 6.5, Important items 2 months after Official Release

What you should know now that vSphere 6.5 has been out a couple of months...

UPDATE: It figures, as soon as I click Publish on this article, I found out that Veeam released Update 1 for all their 9.5 products on 1/24/2017 making them all compatible with vSphere 6.5!

Well, vSphere 6.5 has brought hundreds of major and minors updates to the venerable virtualization platform from VMware.   Many of the changes are significant.

Realistically, for the small to medium vSphere organization, many of these changes will go unnoticed or unused.  But, there are goodies that need to be considered by all.

The most significant change has to be the re-energized focus on moving to the VCSA or vCenter Server Appliance.  In vSphere 6.5, this appliance now runs on VMware's own Photon OS, a Linux distro that they own & maintain in-house.  The first major advantage this appliance has over the previous ones is speed.  Having eschewed SUSE Linux provides VMware the opportunity to tune & tweak their Linux to provide the best performance possible for their specific needs.

The VCSA 6.5 gains significant speed advantages over its predecessor as well as the current Windows based vCenter Server 6.5, just because of this change to the underlying appliance OS.

As with the previous appliance in 6.0, VMware has parity with sizing and maximums between the VCSA 6.5 & the Windows vCenter Server 6.5.  A monumental change comes in the fact that the current VCSA 6.5 ONLY supports the embedded PostgreSQL database from VMware.  They no longer support an external Oracle database for vCenter!  

A major focus for VCSA 6.5, following the initial introduction of vSphere 6.0 Update 2M, is the ability to migrate from previous versions of Windows vCenter Server and VCSA to the current version, pulling in the database information from any of those previous platforms.  This current design obviates the need for an external database from previous designs.

This practice of embedding the database is followed up with the brand new inclusion of Update Manager 6.5 as part of the appliance as well.  In other words, the new VCSA 6.5 is a complete solution for vCenter and Update Manager and their databases in a single VM.  That design allows for the other major feature introduced in 6.5 of High Availability for the VCSA (VCHA) without the need to use a host based HA cluster solution.  No more worries about losing your vCenter.  There is a 2nd VCSA copy that is passive and up to date with a 3rd witness VM, all of which are cloned from the original.

The final VCSA 6.5 addition that benefits all organizations, is the ability to backup the appliance from within the appliance, no dependency on 3rd party or VDP backup solutions... more on that in another post.

So what do we need to be wary of before upgrading to the latest and greatest vSphere?

Compatibility of 3rd party products is the most important for many organizations.  Many are using Veeam Backup & Replication, which in its current (1/25/2017) version of 9.5 has not released support for vSphere 6.5 yet.  It is rumored on their site to be forthcoming in an Update 1 release for 9.5.  For many, that's the deal breaker for now, but all your linked or dependent 3rd party apps need to be checked.

Currently, NSX is not supported on vSphere 6.5 either.  If you are currently running a 6.x version of Horizon View, that needs to be updated to at least 7.0.  So make sure you carefully plan your upgrades to all 3rd party products designed to support vSphere 6.5 before you jump to upgrade your base virtualization platform...