VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 has introduced a number of enhancements when consuming vGPU and DirectPath Profiles, which are available in both the vSphere UI and vSphere API for automation purposes. While answering some vSphere API questions from a colleague regarding vGPU and DirectPath Profiles, I figured it would be useful to share the vSphere API specifics in how to use the API to retrieve these resources and better yet, some code that you can use immediately!
[Read more...]
Auditing vGPU Profile Reconfigurations in vSphere
vCenter Server Events are extremely powerful and contains a ton of useful information, especially for auditing and compliance purposes. As of vSphere 8.0 Update 3, there are over 2.1K+ out of the box events with many more through 2nd and 3rd party integrations.
One of my favorite vCenter Server Event is the VmReconfiguredEvent as it provides complete visibility into every VM reconfiguration change as shared in this blog post back in 2015.
I recently saw an interesting inquiry about being able to audit and track vGPU profile reconfigurations for a VM and of course, vCenter Server Events to the rescue!
Quick Tip - How to enable vGPU vMotion in vSphere 6.7 Update 1
Since this question has come up a few times this week, I thought it is worth a quick blog post on how to enable the new vGPU vMotion feature which is now available in latest vSphere 6.7 Update 1 release. If you try to vMotion a VM that has been configured with a vGPU, you see the following message stating vGPU hot migration is not enabled.
To enable vGPU vMotion, you just need to update the following vCenter Server Advanced Setting vgpu.hotmigrate.enabled to true using the vSphere UI. The change will go into effect immediately and you will now be able to vMotion a VM configured with vGPU. This setting is actually documented in the official vSphere documentation here, but from all the folks I spoke with, it looks like it never came up or it must have been missed.
In addition to vMotion support, you can also perform Storage vMotion & Cross vMotion (Compute & Storage) for vGPU enabled VMs. Make sure that both your vCenter Server and ESXi hosts have been upgraded to vSphere 6.7 Update 1 and that you have NVIDIA GRID hardware and VIB installed on ESXi host. For folks interested in learning more about the new vMotion features in vSphere 6.7 Update 1, be sure to check out the VMworld 2018 session What's New in vMotion Technical Deep Dive.
Lastly, for those that prefer to automate this configuration change, here is a quick PowerCLI snippet for enabling vGPU vMotion:
Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $global:DefaultVIServer -Name vgpu.hotmigrate.enabled | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value $true -Confirm:$false