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Identifying ESXi boot method & boot device

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There was an interesting discussion on our internal Socialcast platform last week on figuring out how an ESXi host is booted up whether it is from local device like a disk or USB device, Auto Deploy or even boot from SAN along with its respective boot device? Although I had answered the question, I was not confident that we actually had a reliable and programmatic method for identifying all the different ESXi boot methods, which of course piqued my interest.

With a bit of trial and error in the lab, I believe I have found a method in which we can identify the ESXi boot type (Local, Stateless, Stateless Caching, Stateful or Boot from SAN) along with some additional details pertaining to the boot device. To demonstrate this, I have created the following PowerCLI script ESXiBootDevice.ps1 which contains a function called Get-ESXiBootDevice.

The function can be called without any parameters, in which it will query all ESXi hosts for a given vCenter Server and/or standalone ESXi host. You can also specify a specific ESXi host by simply passing in the -VMHostname option.

Here is an example output for one of my lab environments which shows several ESXi hosts and their different boot methods from local disk to Auto Deploy which can include stateless, stateless caching and stateful deployments. Depending on the BootType, the boot device shown in the Device column will either be the MAC Address of the NIC used to network boot the ESXi host or the identifier of a disk device. I have also included some additional details such as vendor/model along with the media type (SAS, SSD or USB) which is available as part of ESXCLI.


This script also supports ESXi environments that boot from SAN (FC, FCoE or iSCSI) and you can easily identify that with the word "remote" for the BootType. I would like to give a huge thanks to David Stamen who helped me out with the boot from SAN testing.

Cross vCenter Clone with vSphere 6.0+

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Similar to the Cross vCenter vMotion (xVC-vMotion) feature that was introduced in vSphere 6.0, Virtual Machine cloning can also be performed across two different vCenter Servers, regardless of their deployment type or SSO configurations. If vCenter Servers are part of an Enhanced Linked Mode (ELM), then a xVC-Clone operation can be initiated using the vSphere Web Client. However, if the vCenter Servers are not part of the same SSO Domain, then you will need to use the vSphere API to perform the operation similar to an xVC-vMotion.

Right before the holiday break, I had a few inquiries on providing some sample code that could demonstrate the Cross vCenter Clone (xVC-Clone) operation using the vSphere API. With that, I have created a new PowerCLI script called xNew-VM.ps1 which does exactly that and should feel familiar for anyone who has used my xMove-VM.ps1 script before. Before getting started, be sure to familiarize yourself with the requirements and supported configurations for xVC-Clone operations, which can be found here and here.

The script contains a number of variables that will need to be defined based on your specific environment. The following variables below pertain to the "source" vCenter Server from where you wish to initiate the clone operation from:

$sourcevmname = "PhotonOS-02"
$sourceVC = "vcenter65-1.primp-industries.com"
$sourceVCUsername = "*protected email*"
$sourceVCPassword = "VMware1!"

The following variables below pertain to the "destination" vCenter Server from where the cloned VM will be deployed to:

$destvmname= "PhotonOS-02-Clone"
$destVC = "vcenter65-3.primp-industries.com"
$destVCUsername = "*protected email*"
$destVCpassword = "VMware1!"
$datastorename = "vsanDatastore"
$datacenter = "Datacenter-SiteB"
$cluster = "Santa-Barbara"
$resourcepool = "MyRP" # cluster property not needed if you are using RP, useful for VMware Cloud on AWS
$vmhostname = "vesxi65-4.primp-industries.com"
$vmnetworkname = "VM Network"
$foldername = "Discovered virtual machine"
$switchtype = "vss"
$poweron = $false #optional
$snapshotname = "pristine" #optional

The last two variables are optional which merely controls whether the cloned VM is powered on and whether the source VM is being cloned while running, in which case, a snapshot is required.

Below is a screenshot of my two vCenter Servers, where vcenter65-1 is my "Source" and vcenter65-3 is my "Destination. I have a VM called PhotonOS-02 which is powered on and I have already taken a snapshot which I have named "pristine". I will then perform a xVC-Clone of the VM to the "Destination" vCenter Server and the new VM will be called "PhotonOS-02-Clone".


Once you have updated the script, you can simply execute it as shown in the screenshot below.


If we now head back over to our vSphere Web/H5 Client, we should now see the xVC-Clone operation start and shortly after (depending on the size of the VM being cloned), it should eventually appear on the destination vCenter Server that was specified in the script.


For quick and small deployments of a few VMs, the xVC-Clone feature can be quite handy. However, if you plan to deploy more than a couple of VMs, it would be more efficient to setup a vSphere Content Library which can configured to automatically sync all or specific content to the destination vCenter Server(s), which will help speed up deployment. I should also point out that cloning from vSphere 6.5+ from onPrem to VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) also works and is fully supported in both direction which the vMotion/Provisioning PM had just shared with me. For VMC usage, you will need to ensure you specify the Compute-ResourcePool as the permission model in VMC is restrictive and you can not deploy directly to the vSphere Cluster and/or ESXi host.

Lastly, as mentioned earlier, the script I have provided is merely an example demonstrating the use of the xVC-Clone operation using the vSphere API and consuming it through PowerCLI. Unlike the Move-VM cmdlet which supports xVC operation natively, the New-VM does not currently support xVC-Clone. If you would like to see this natively supported as part of PowerCLI's New-VM cmdlet, be sure to add a +1 to PowerCLI Feature Request here.

Bulk VM Migration using new Cross vCenter vMotion Utility Fling

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Over the last few years, I have spoken to a number of customers who have greatly benefited from the ability to live migrate Virtual Machines across different vCenter Servers that are NOT part of the same vCenter Single Sign-On (SSO) Domain, which I had first shared back in 2015 here and here. This extended capability of the Cross vCenter vMotion feature enabled customers to solve new use cases that were challenging, especially for scenarios such as Datacenter migration, consolidation or even migrating existing workloads from their current environment into new SDDC deployments such as VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) as an example.

Although customers could initiate Cross vCenter vMotions using the vSphere API which included PowerCLI (Move-VM cmdlet was enhanced in 6.5, more details here), the overall experience was still not as friendly. This was especially true for customers who may only have a small number of VMs to migrate and prefer a UI-based interface rather than an API/CLI only option. In addition, for large number of VM migrations, there was not an easy way to perform "batch" VM migrations that was easily consumable for folks who may not have a strong background in Automation or the vSphere APIs.

Today, I am pleased to share a new VMware Fling called the Cross vCenter Migration Utility that will help simplify the consumption of initiating VM migration(s) across different vCenter Servers, especially between dispart SSO Domains where a graphical interface was not available. This solution was developed out of our VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Engineering group which is part of the Integrated Systems Business Unit at VMware. I had spoken to a number of folks within the group about the extended Cross vCenter vMotion capability and I was super excited when I heard they were planning to release this tool as a Fling and make it available to all customers. I was fortunately to have been involved in the project alongside the Engineering lead Vishal Gupta and we are excited that we can finally talk about this project and see how customers will be using this new tool.

UPDATE (05/07/18) - The Fling has just been updated to 2.0 with the following new features:

  • Added support to select individual host as the placement target
  • Added support for migrating VMs with shared datastore
  • Added clone functionality in addition to relocate
  • Added resource summary details for placement targets
  • Added a prompt to verify site thumbprint during SSL verification
  • Added a link to refresh vm list in the inventory view
  • Updated REST APIs to add operation type parameter

Cross vCenter Migration Utility Fling

Cross vCenter vMotion Requirements: KB 2106952

Download Fling here


Features

  • Completely UI-driven workflow for VM migration
  • Provides REST API for managing migration operations
  • Works with vCenter not part of the same SSO domain
  • Supports both live/cold migration of VMs
  • Batch migration of multiple VMs in parallel
  • Flexible network mappings b/w source and destination sites

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