The highly anticipated vSphere 6.7 Update has officially GA'ed! Below is an aggregation of all the related release notes and downloads for this vSphere release. I have also created a short URL which you can use to access this exact same page using vmwa.re/vsphere67u1
The downloads are currently being staged, so please be patient.
vCenter Server 6.7u1
ESXi 6.7u1
vSAN 6.7u1
Cloud Motion with vSphere Replication is the newest migration type that has been added to the Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) solution, which was also demonstrated during the VMworld US 2018 keynote (watch here). Unlike the traditional Bulk Migration, which also uses vSphere Replication to perform the initial replication, Cloud Motion with VR does not incur any downtime during the VM switch over. This is possible with our most beloved vSphere feature, vMotion!
With Bulk Migration, the VM on the source vCenter Server must be shutdown before the newly replicated VM on the destination vCenter Server can be powered on or else a network conflict will occur. Using Cloud Motion with VR, the VM is simply vMotion'ed from the source vCenter Server to the destination vCenter Server and because the VM's storage has already been replicated, the only thing that needs to transfer is the memory state of the VM.
All three HCX Migration Types can be scheduled from the HCX UI using the vSphere Client or automated using the HCX API. The latter option is definitely ideal for customers with large number of migrations but it can also help with smaller migrations as it reduces the amount of user input required when using the UI and ultimately, this reduces user errors.
To help demonstrate the HCX Migration APIs, I have updated my VMware HCX PowerShell Module to include the following two new functions:
Feedback on my recent Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) Automation articles has been very positive, thanks to those who have reached out. One area that I have not had a chance to spend much time on which a few of you have pinged me about is the automating the actual deployment of the HCX Manager, which is provided to customers as an OVA image. In this article, I have created a basic PowerCLI script called deploy_hcx_manager_ova.ps1 that demonstrates using the Import-VApp and Get-OVFConfiguration cmdlets to import the OVA along with specifying the required OVF properties. The script will also wait for the HCX Manager to be ready by checking the VAMI URL located at https://[HCX-MANAGER]:9443
Lastly, for those of you who are new to HCX or would like a step by step walk through of setting up HCX, Emad Younis just kicked off a new blog series on learning about HCX, which I highly recommend folks check out here.
Here are the instructions on using the PowerCLI script to automate the HCX OVA deployment:
Step 1 - Download the latest HCX Manager OVA from HCX Cloud (you will need to login with your cloudadmin credentials)
Step 2- Download the PowerCLI HCX deployment script here.
Step 3 - Edit the script with your HCX configuration and deployment details
Step 4 - You will need to connect to your vCenter Server by using the Connect-VIServer cmdlet and then run the deployment script using the following command:
.\deploy_hcx_manager.ova.ps1
Once the deployment is successful, you can now open a browser to https://[HCX-MANAGER]:9443 and login using the admin credentials that you had specified in the script. I also plan to do a follow-up to this blog post on automating the initial configuration using the HCX VAMI APIs, so stay tuned.