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Quick Tip - How to quickly find the release & build number on VCSA

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I have been spending quite a bit of time in the lab lately (researching, prototyping, breaking things, etc.) and one of the challenges I have is figuring out which environment I am actually logged into. I literally have a dozen VCSA (vCenter Server Appliances) deployed for various testing and I always forget the build and release the system I am currently logged into. A quick way to get this information on your VCSA is to run the following command:

vpxd -v

Note: There is also vpxd.exe for vCenter Server running on Windows which you can also use.

I also noticed in the VCSA 5.1 it used to provide the vCenter Server build and release number when SSH into the host but it looks like this has now changed with the VCSA 5.5 release. I suspect this might be related to some of the security hardening that has been done by VMware on our appliances (which is great) and I assume there maybe an issue by providing the build and version info as part of the SSH banner.

If you wish to re-enable this feature, you can just edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config and specify the banner to point to /etc/ssh/banner which will includes both the release and build information. In any case, if you are in a pinch and need to quickly figure out the version, you can use the command above.

Would you like MSSQL (Microsoft SQL Server) support for the VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance)?

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Many of you know that I am a huge fan of the VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance), especially when it comes to a new deployment and how easy it is compared to the Windows version. I especially like how upgrades work for the VCSA by deploying a new VCSA and then performing a migration based upgrade to the new appliance. This provides a nice roll-back mechanism in case something happens and all I need to do is just power on the original VCSA to get the original environment up and running again.

Having said all this, I know the VCSA is still currently lacking a few features which may prevent customers from fully adopting the solution for their production workload. However, if you take a look a how far the VCSA has come from its initial release in vSphere 5.0 release, it has greatly improved and we continue to enhance it with every release. With release of vSphere 5.5, we now support the following configurations maximums:

ESXi Hosts Virtual Machines
Embedded vPostgres DB 100 3,000
External Oracle DB 1000 10,000

Even before vSphere 5.5 release, VMware has internally pushed the boundaries of the VCSA (vSphere 5.1) and the embedded vPostgres database by running one of the most dynamic and demanding workload in a very short amount of time which is the VMworld's Hands On Lab. This really goes to show the type of scale and performance the VCSA and the embedded vPostgres database can support.

One of the most frequent piece of feedback that I have heard from customers regarding the VCSA is to provide support for Microsoft SQL Server database. This request is quite understandable, especially for a Windows shop where you may already have a team of Database Administrators who are quite familiar with the operational and management aspects of maintaining a MSSQL database.

VMware is actually not opposed to supporting MSSQL for the VCSA which runs on SuSE Linux but the challenge in the past was the lack of a Microsoft ODBC driver for SLES. Well it turns out last year Mircosoft released a Community Tech Preview Microsoft ODBC Driver for SQL Server on SLES, however the driver is currently only a Tech Preview and to do justice for VMware customers, we would want to use a GA (General Available) driver which means that there would be full support from Microsoft.

If you would like the VCSA to have MSSQL support, you can help by providing this feedback to your local Microsoft representative or filing a feature request. The more customer demand we have for this, the more likelihood MSSQL DB support can become a reality.

In addition to providing feedback to Microsoft, I think it would also be useful to let our PMs know how important MSSQL DB support & the VCSA is to you which will also help with the prioritization of features. If you can help fill out this quick survey below, that would also be great.

Quick Tip - Minimum amount of memory to run the vCenter Server Appliance

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I thought this might have been common knowledge, but after chatting with a VMware colleague who recently rebuilt his home lab, I realized it may not be the case. The vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) is distributed as a virtual appliance and by default it is configured for 8GB of memory. However, this is definitely NOT the "minimum" amount of memory required to have a fully functional vCenter Server.

It looks like some people are just downloading the vCenter Server appliance and just sticking with the defaults of 8GB of memory which for a home lab is quite a large footprint, especially given you will probably want to install other virtual machines. The actual minimum for vCenter Server (Windows or Linux) is just 4GB and technically speaking, you can even get away with just 3GB for the vCenter Server Appliance (anything less, the system is extremely slow and unusable).

Here is a quick screenshot showing vCenter Server Appliance running with only 3GB of memory:

VMware also has a KB article detailing the minimum requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance based on the number of virtual machines and hosts you plan on running. For my home lab, I normally stick with the 4GB of memory and I have not had any issues. Hopefully this tip will help you save some memory for either your lab or even production environment for other workloads.