Clearpath’s Blog on IT Infrastructure, Hybrid Clouds and IT Security

We recently implemented NSX in an existing vCenter/vSphere environment and ran across an interesting issue when attempting to prepare the hosts. SQL Server Reporting Services was co-installed with vCenter, so to prevent a conflict on TCP/80 the customer specified a custom HTTP port during vCenter installation. At this point we should have been conflict free on TCP/80 but as we soon found out, that was not the case.

Topics: VMware, vCenter, EAM, VMware NSX, ESXi

After months of running the vSphere 5.1 appliance in my lab, I decided to install the 5.5 appliance to see just how far this little gem has come.  So, I downloaded and deployed the OVA, and moved onto initial configuration.  After the initial configuration was completed, I decided to tweak some values in the interface.  First and foremost - the DHCP configuration had to go.  Followed by setting the host FQDN, which was strangely omitted from the initial configuration.  This made running AD authentication a little difficult since AD integration requires that the appliance have an FQDN before it will accept the configuration.

Topics: VMware, vSphere, vCenter

vCenter Server Heartbeat (vCSHB) is a great mechanism for protecting vCenter Server and related or supporting services, such as its Microsoft SQL database or Horizon View Composer. However, with any solution of this magnitude, there will be points in the design to which careful consideration needs to be applied.

Topics: VMware, Virtualization, vCenter

Migrating a vCenter Server instance from physical to virtual can be done in a couple of different ways:

Topics: VMware, vCenter

For the most part, the same group of admins will end up with a need for administrative access to both vCenter Server and ESXi hosts. To facilitate ease of administration, as well as to provide a clear audit trail, ESXi and vCenter Server should authenticate user access through the same identity source. This article will outline how to make ESXi 5.1 and vCenter Server 5.1 (with a little help from Single Sign-On) authenticate against the same identity source, as well as give a group of admins access to both.

Topics: VMware, vSphere, vCenter