by William Lam // 10 Comments
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
by William Lam // 3 Comments
Below are just a few of the new vSphere 6.7 SOAP and REST APIs that have been added or enhanced which I think will be quite useful for customers to be aware of while they start to plan for their vSphere 6.7 upgrades. For a complete list of new vSphere 6.7 (SOAP based) APIs, check out the vSphere 6.7 API Reference Guide which will include a "What's New" section on all the new Managed Objects, Methods, Properties, etc. For a complete list of new vSphere 6.7 REST based APIs, check out vSphere Automation API 6.7 Reference which you can identify new operations and properties which will be marked with "Added in vSphere 6.7".
AlarmManager->ClearTriggeredAlarms() - This method finally provides a way for customers to clear an alarm like you can using the vSphere UI. Historically, customers only had the ability to acknowledge an alarm using the API but not a way to reset alarms.
VirtualMachine->ApplyEvcModeVM_Task() - This method can be used to enable the new Per-VM Enhanced vMotion Capability (EVC) feature that has been introduced in vSphere 6.7
VirtualMachine->InstantClone_Task() - This method simplifies the deployment of new version of Instant Clone that has been added into vSphere 6.7. For more details on how the new Instant Clone feature works, please take a look at this blog post here.
HostNvdimmSystem - This new Managed Object and its respective methods can can be used to manage the new NVDIMM (Persistent Memory) capability that has been added into vSphere 6.7
VirtualMachine->Config->createDate - This new property finally includes the creation date of a VM that has been created in vSphere 6.7 and will be persisted with the lifecycle of the VM itself. I will provide a more detailed blog post on how to consume this new property as well as the expected behaviors, especially around upgrades. I know many of you have been asking for this property and I am glad to see this finally available for all on-premises customers!
VirtualMachine->Flags->vbsEnabled - This new property allows customers to easily enable the new Microsoft Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) feature which was added in vSphere 6.7. This single property (UI/API) behind the scenes actually enables a number of other VM settings required for VBS to properly run such as Virtual Hardware Virtualization (VHV), vIOMMU, EFI Firmware & Secure Boot, which is nice as customers do not have to worry about the underlying settings and simply toggle a simple boolean property.
VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier - These are all the new GuestOS Ids that have been added into vSphere 6.7 to enable new GuestOS support, you can find the mapping of the OS type by taking a look at the vSphere API Reference Guide
/appliance/backup/schedules - This endpoint provides management and configuration of the new VCSA scheduled backup feature
/appliance/backup/system_name - This endpoint allows you to list all existing backups that have been taken for your VCSA
/appliance/local_accounts - This endpoint provides management of all local users
/appliance/local_accounts/policy - This endpoint provides global password policy management for all local users
/appliance/logging/forwarding - This endpoint provides external syslog configuration for the VCSA
/appliance/networking/proxy - This endpoint provides HTTP(S) proxy configurations for the VCSA
/appliance/ntp - This endpoint provides NTP configuration for the VCSA
/vcenter/deployment - This endpoint enables the ability to automate both Install/Upgrade of the Stage2 installer for VCSA/PSC. Stage 1 deployment of the appliance is currently not part of the REST API but can be automated using existing methods such as OVFTool or PowerCLI as an example.
/vcenter/vm/guest/{identity,local_filesystem} - This endpoint provides guestOS details such as the configured OS along with some basic networking (e.g. Hostname and IP Address) which is retrieved as part of the VMware Tools service running inside of the GuestOS. In addition, you can also get visibility into the guest filesystem including capacity and freespace.
/vcenter/vm/storage/policy - This endpoint provides details about the current configured VM Storage Policy for individual VMDKs of a VM
by William Lam // 1 Comment
In this article, we will begin our PKS installation by deploying Pivotal Ops Manager which provides a management interface (UI/API) for Cloud/Platform Operators to manage the complete lifecycle of both BOSH and PKS from install, patch and upgrade. In addition, you can also deploy new application services using Ops Manager Tiles like adding an Enterprise-class Container Registry like VMware Harbor which can then be configured to work with PKS or any other solution that you may have deployed using Ops Manager.
As part of the the Ops Manager deployment, we will also install the BOSH Tile which is responsible for managing, provisioning, monitoring and self-healing of the VMs that make up a Kubernetes (K8S) Cluster deployment within PKS. BOSH supports a number of IaaS platforms which includes vSphere and through their Cloud Provider Interface (CPI), it will ensure the VMs are always up and in some cases, it may even delete and simply re-deploy VMs if they become unresponsive. This is all done completely automated without any interaction from the Cloud/Platform Operator which means for Developers, they can rest assure whatever SLA or High Availability options that have been defined as part of their application deployment, the underlying platform will ensure those requirements will always be met.
If you missed any of the previous articles, you can find the complete list here: