WilliamLam.com

Enhancements to Hybrid Linked Mode (HLM) in VMC using the new vCenter Cloud Gateway

by // Leave a Comment

It has been almost a year since VMware introduced the Hybrid Linked Mode (HLM) capability, which provides customers with a consistent operating experience for managing and consuming resources from both their on-premises and VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) environments. Feedback from customers on HLM has been fantastic, especially when new or prospective VMC customers learn about HLM for the very first time. Customers were pleasantly surprised at how seamless the experience was when consuming VMC resources, using a familiar interface, the vSphere UI.

Here is a quick recap of what HLM provides today:

  • HLM allows customers to link a single VMC instance to a single on-prem SSO Domain which can contain one or more vCenter Servers (Enhanced Linked Mode) while maintaining separate administrative domains (e.g. on-prem user is Administrator while VMC user is CloudAdmin only)
  • SSO Domains will be different between on-prem and VMC, however it is a 1:1 relationship
  • A trust is established where the on-prem vCenter Server trusts the incoming connections from VMC as they share the same Active Directory identity source. Data is sync'ed uni-directionally from on-prem to VMC
  • Can be configured at any point in the on-prem vCenter Server lifecycle, no restrictions to initial install and can easily be un-linked unlike ELM
  • Both Embedded & External vCenter Server deployments are supported
  • HLM supports different versions of vCenter Server between on-prem (6.5d+) and VMC, especially as VMC will almost always run a newer version of vSphere
  • Users MUST login to VMC vCenter Server for single-pane of glass management (H5 Client supported only), logging into on-prem vCenter Server will NOT show VMC vCenter Server
  • Roles are NOT replicated due to the restrictive access model in VMC

[Read more...]

Useful M.2 NVMe accessories for vSphere (VSAN/VMFS) Home Labs

by // 9 Comments

I recently acquired a new toy for the home lab thanks to Timo Sugliani who shared an article on Twitter a few weeks back for a new USB-based enclosure that supports an NVMe SSD device using the M.2 form factor.

I was excited to give the accessory a try, especially as the M.2 devices are used regularly for  vSphere home labs running on either the Intel NUCs or Supermicro E200-8D. Most of these platforms only support a single M.2 slot and this is an easy way to add additional high performance storage capacity with a small footprint. The other benefit with an external enclosure is that you now have a portable and reliable storage solution that can easily be moved from system to system, especially for those that have asked about running VMFS on USB-based device.

[Read more...]

Nested ESXi on VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC)

by // 5 Comments

I have had a few folks ask about Nested ESXi support on VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC), so lets get that out of the way first. Nested ESXi is NOT supported by VMware on any of our platforms, whether that is an on-premises or a cloud environment like VMC or any 3rd party vendors that maybe using VMware software. For those wanting an "official" statement on Nested ESXi support, you can refer to KB 2009916.

UPDATE (02/10/20) - Updated my Automated vSphere Lab Deployment Script to support "basic" Nested vSphere environment running on VMC.

Now, we all know Nested ESXi works and it runs extremely well on vSphere. In fact, vSphere is the best platform for running any Hypervisor in a VM. This is also true for VMC, you can run a Nested ESXi VM in an SDDC, however there are some caveats compared to what you would experience in an on-prem environment. Below are some of the caveats to be aware of if you are considering running Nested ESXi on VMC.


[Read more...]