vSphere 7.0 – Page 3

Integrated NSX-T deployment in vSphere 7.0 Update 3 fails with timeout

10.11.2021 by William Lam // 2 Comments

One of the new features highlighted in the latest vSphere 7.0 Update 3 release is the integrated NSX-T deployment and configuration workflow found directly within the vSphere UI as shown in the screenshot below.

After you click on the the "Install NSX" button, it will prompt for the NSX-T OVA and then take users through a guided wizard to on deploying and configuring NSX-T. I noticed that a few users were reporting a timeout issue after running through the workflow:

Cannot complete the operation: See the event log for details. Timeout: The task did not complete within the expected time span

I have not used this plugin before, so I was not sure what the issue was until I came across this Tweet from Validimir Velikov, a vSphere UI Engineer who had worked on the integrated NSX-T plugin and shared the reason for this error. A newer version of NSX-T will be needed to use this feature as the vSphere UI expects a "callback" from NSX-T Manager when the deployment and configuration is complete, which the current released version of NSX-T (3.1.3.1) does not support.

As discussed, current released versions of NSX-T don't support the vSphere integrated flow. A new NSX-T version should come shortly.
Otherwise, the flow expects a callback from the NSX Manager after deployment which never comes for old versions - hence, the timeout error. 😉

— Vladimir Velikov (@vladi_velikov) October 9, 2021

I think we could have provided a better user experience by first checking the NSX-T OVA version and ensuring that it meets the minimum version that supports this capability. Hopefully this is something we can improve upon in the future.

How to programmatically retrieve vCenter Server Patch & Update History?

10.08.2021 by William Lam // 3 Comments

Homelab just upgraded successfully to vSphere 7.0 Update 3!

I really appreciate the “History” view to be able to see all the updates/patches that have been applied for your vCenter Server. Its the little things pic.twitter.com/Go9eicpeSp

— William Lam (@lamw) October 7, 2021

After upgrading my homelab to the latest vSphere 7.0 Update 3 release, I was just looking at the "History" tab within the Virtual Machine Management Interface (VAMI), which gives you a historical view of all the patches and updates that have been applied to your vCenter Server since its initial deployment. I am not exactly sure when this was feature was introduced, but it can definitely be useful for both auditing but also debugging/troubleshooting purposes.

Of course, I was curious about this information and wanted to see if I could retrieve it using something like PowerCLI. However when I started to look for the API, I realized that there may not be a public API for this ... but that did not stopped me and taking a look at Chrome Developer, I quickly saw the endpoint which was /rest/appliance/update/history and I was able to figure out a workaround giving the same data.

Below are two examples on accessing this data using either PowerShell or cURL

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New vCenter Events for vSphere 7.0 Update 3

10.07.2021 by William Lam // 1 Comment

With the release of vSphere (7.0 Update 3), brings new vCenter Server Events which can immediately benefit users of the VMware Event Broker Appliance (VEBA), especially with the latest VEBA v0.7 release!

In vSphere 7.0 Update 2, there was a total of 1,861 events in a default installation of the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) and with vSphere 7.0 Update 3, there is now a total of 1,926 events. An increase of 65 new events which spans the recently released Data Persistent Platform (DPp), VM Encryption, TLS Trust Management, vSAN and many others.

Below is a summarized view of the 65 new vCenter Server Events, for more details including descriptions, please refer to my vCenter Event Mapping Github Repo

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