Category Archives: VMware

vSphere IaaS Control Plane or vSphere Kubernetes Service: Installation of a new TKG Service version

Reading Time 3 Minutes

With the release of vSphere 8U3, vSphere with Tanzu was not only renamed (multiple times) but also a step was taken to “decouple” TKGs from the vCenter version.

Until then, TKGs and vSphere with Tanzu were considered a single entity and thus synonymous with each other.
One disadvantage of this was that the available Kubernetes versions for the Tanzu Kubernetes clusters (i.e., the “child” clusters of the Supervisor Cluster) depended on the version of the vCenter Server.

If you wanted to use a current k8s release, the first step was inevitably to update the vCenter.

Since vSphere 8U3, in addition to the IaaS Control Plane vSphere Kubernetes Service, which provides the Supervisor, there is now also a TKGs Service responsible for the Tanzu Kubernetes Clusters (TKC). Since this can be updated independently, it allows quicker and easier access to current k8s releases 🥳🥳🥳

In the following, I’ll briefly show how to update this crazy thing .

Continue reading →

ESXi Host Updates with HPE OneView for VMware vCenter

Reading Time 3 Minutes

The vSphere Lifecycle Manager has been accompanying us since vSphere 7, which not only allows us to equip hosts with the latest ESXi and vendor add-ons, but also to update hardware to be VSAN-compliant and equip it with fresh firmware.

Hardware manufacturers such as HPE, Dell, Lenovo, Fujitsu, etc. have continuously improved their support and expanded their Hardware Support Managers.

For administrators, it’s definitely worth using these tools. The manual firmware update process becomes as simple as a host update.

Here, we’ll discuss how to configure and use the Hardware Support Manager, specifically the HPE OneView for VMware vCenter, which we’ll refer to as OV4VC from now on.

Continue reading →

Replacing the vCenter Machine Certificate …and don’t forget the VxRail Manager!

Reading Time 3 Minutes

The topic of certificates seems to be haunting me at the moment.
Anyway, I want to briefly show here how easy it is nowadays to replace the SSL certificate of the vCenter with an Enterprise CA-signed one.

If you look at the KB article from VMware (Replacing a vSphere 6.x /7.x Machine SSL certificate with a Custom Certificate Authority Signed Certificate), the “certificate-manager” is still quoted here on the command line.

Create CSR in vSphere Client

But it is also very easy via the vSphere Client. In my case, there are a couple of VxRail clusters connected to this vCenter, here you also have to do something in the VxRail Manager (in this case still via CLI), but it’s also easy, see below.
To the Demo!

Continue reading →

vSphere+ – Installation and First Impressions

Reading Time 4 Minutes

Everyone has been talking about vSphere+ for a few weeks now, so I wanted to get a (technical) impression of what’s behind all the marketing-heavy blog articles and announcements.

A short diagram in advance so that it is clear what we are dealing with:

Traditional vSphere Environment converted to vSphere+ Subscription, graphic courtesy of VMware

In a classic vSphere environment, there are one to many vCenters that need to be managed. With vSphere+, a vCenter Cloud Gateway is introduced which acts as a relay between the VMware Cloud and the on-premises vCenters. This allows services from the VMware Cloud to be used with the on-premises datacenter. Sounds pretty easy!

Continue reading →

Creating a Microsoft CA Template for vSphere 6.x/7.x

Reading Time 2 Minutes

In order to be able to create uniform certificates that are signed by a Microsoft CA in our lab environment in a meaningful and “VMware compliant” way, it was necessary to create a Certificate Template in advance.

The following instructions are based on the VMware KB article Creating a Microsoft Certificate Authority Template for SSL certificate creation in vSphere 6.x/7.x

Continue reading →