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vsan

Upgrading vSphere 7.0.3 to vSphere 8.0

by Tommy Grot October 12, 2022

written by Tommy Grot 6 minutes read

vSphere 8 Update 1 – Released!! If you want to see how to upgrade go here to new blog post!

I will be going over on how to upgrade your vSphere 7 to vSphere 8! I will be doing step by step screenshots to walk anyone through, keep in mind that this is upgrading from vSphere 7.0.3 going to vSphere 8.0.

Exciting news! vSphere 8 is (IA) Yes, there is a new release model. Below I have some information below from VMware’s website but if you want to get more in-depth information go to the link below!

New IA/GA model (Information from VMware)

Our intent going forward is that all major and update vSphere releases will be delivered first with an IA designation. An IA release is a production-quality release that meets all GA quality gates and is fully partner certified. IA releases will be available during the IA phase to all customers for production deployments.
Changing to this IA/GA model is motivated by several factors. Most importantly, feedback from customers who want us to be more explicit when a release has achieved strong traction and usage without having to wait for the next update release, which they sometimes use as a proxy. By switching the designation from IA to GA, we’ll be making it clear when the release has gained wide adoption. We think this is a better model than waiting for a 6-month update, particularly as these updates now include feature enhancements as well as net new features.

DISCLAIMER:
– Everything I document here is on my lab, do not try this on a production system if you do not have backups or a way to restore if something goes wrong.
– This Walkthrough is only for a vSphere Cluster upgrade
Before you start the upgrde ensure you have a backup of your vCenter Server Appliance.

We will be upgrading a vSphere 7.0.3 Cluster to vSphere 8.0! Below is the vSphere 7 snippet

Download you ISO from VMware’s website and copy the iso to your local workstation

Once you get your ISO ready mount it to your local computer and drill down into the

vcsa-ui-installer -> win32 -> then execute installer.exe

Go to Upgrade ->

Once you are ready to upgrade your environment you will go Next

Once you get to this window, you will want to fill in your Source Appliance which is the vSphere 7 Cluster you want to upgrade. For Example: lab-vcsa-m01.virtualbytes.io

Then -> Click Connect to Source

Once it connects to the source server, you will get this detail specific page during the deployment asking to fill in the vCenter Server Appliance SSO Username and Password along with the Appliance (OS) root password along with the ESXi Host or vCenter Server that manages the source appliance

Accept the Certificate Warning which you will have your Source and Destination servers where the appliance will get deployed

Input your vCenter Server deployment target, where the new vCenter Server Appliance will get deployed

If you are installing this select your current datacenter object where the vCSA appliance will be stored in

This is creating the new vCSA on the target server, you will want to make sure that the two vCenter Server Appliances do not collide with the same naming convention or you will get any error saying this name for the VM exists.

Fill in your network information for the upgraded preparation

After ~15 minutes, you will get to the Phase 2 of the Upgrade Process, Click -> Next

I purposly did not enable SSH on my source vCenter Server, this way if anyone encounters the same issue, this will guide you to make sure you have SSH enabled on the Source vCenter Server Applaince or you will get this error below 🙂

After you enabled SSH and re-try the task you will go into the Pre-Upgrade Checks state

Below is a Pre-Upgrade check result which has some Warnings to let you know

Here at this step we are about to upgrade the data for our vCSA! Select your requirment, i only did the Configuration and Inventory.

Select – > I have backed up the source vCenter Server and all the required data from the database.

WARNING!! – Make sure you have your source vCenter backed up and/or snapshot to revert too if something does not upgrade properly.

This process will take ~ 15 – 20 minutes max, but this also depends on how large your environment is, the more objects in the data base the longer it will take.

Next snippet, will show you that we have copied the data from the source vCenter Server to the Targer vCenter Server

Now, that we have finalized the migration and the import to the target vCenter Server is done, we will log into the new vCSA appliance.

Now, you shall see that our vCenter Server is at vSphere 8. Next we will be creating a Baseline within vSphere Life Cycle Manager to upgrade our Hosts.

Click on the top right hamburger menu -> Life Cycle Manager

Go to Imported ISOs ->

Now we will upload our vSphere 8 ISO – > VMware-VMvisor-Installer-8.0-20513097.x86_64.iso

Once it is uploaded, we will go and create a Baseline for our new Image to upgrade the ESXi hosts from ESXi 7 to 8

Then go “Baselines” -> New -> Baseline

Now we will create a name for our baseline -> vSphere 8 Upgrade

Attach the vSphere 8.0 iso we just uploaded earlier to this baseline.

Finalize the Creation of the vSphere 8 Upgrade baseline

Then go back to the ESXi host object, and go to Updates tab

Here we will attach the vSphere 8 Upgrade Baseline we created

Once the ESXi host has the new vSphere 8 baseline attached, you can now Remediate the host, and then repeat the vLCM (vSphere Life Cycle Manager) Baseline attach to the rest of your hosts and then follow the traditional Remediation process that way your ESXi hosts properly migrate workloads off to other ESXi hosts during this process to ensure that you won’t have any downtime.

Web console view of our ESXi host that just got upgraded!!

Our first ESXi host has been upgraded to vSphere 8!

Next, after all our ESXi hosts are on vSphere 8, we will want to make sure that our vSAN version is upgraded so you will want to upgrade it.

Go to your vSAN Cluster -> Configure -> Services

Once you get to vSAN Services, you will see Pre-Check vSAN upgrade and Upgrade vSAN. A proper best practice is to do a pre-check of your vSAN cluster to ensure that all the objects are healthy and synchronized and there are not disk issues before doing a vSAN upgrade.

After vSAN upgrade – Your vSphere Cluster is now officially upgraded to vSphere 8! with vSAN 8! This walkthrough was able to walk you through any issues that you may encounter. Next blog post will be on how to convert a vSAN (OSA) Datastore to vSAN (ESA) – Express Storage Architecture

October 12, 2022 0 comments 28.8K views

VMware Troubleshooting

Unregister vCSA Plugin or Extension via vCenter MOB

by Tommy Grot October 11, 2022

written by Tommy Grot 1 minutes read

Have you had an issue with vCenter Server Appliance? Well there is a way to fix and remove a plugin or extension. Open up your browser to https://<your-vcenter-ip>/mob and login with your credentials, if you do not have any other identity source you will need to login with your [email protected] SSO account.

Go to Content ->

Go to Exetension Manager ->

Go to More -> look for your extension that has been registered.

Copy the file name from “com.xxx.xxxx.xxxxxx.xxxx”

Go to Unregister -> and paste in the value and execute Invoke Method

October 11, 2022 0 comments 1.6K views

VMware ESXi

TrueNAS Scale – iSCSI & VMware vSphere 7.x

by Tommy Grot September 27, 2022

written by Tommy Grot 3 minutes read

Tonight’s topic is about TrueNAS Scale and VMware vSphere 7.x integration and setup for iSCSI. I have been reading lots of topics and support forums where not many posts have the correct tuning / settings.

The issue: When you try to mount a iSCSI LUN to vSphere 7, it will try to format that new iSCSI LUN and it will error out – ATP, error – check VMkernel logs, the interesting thing is that VMFS 5 was able to format the new LUN i created, so i did that as a test to know that I have network connectivtity along with being able to ping the iSCSI Server on the dedicated network. After that I started doing troubleshooting to pin point the issue, after some trial and error I found the issue! Below I will walk you through configuration from TrueNAS Scale side.

Disclaimer! – All tweaks and steps here I have done on a fresh TrueNAS Unit, do not try if you don’t have anything backed up. This is solely under your own risk!

So, first things first! Let’s create our zVol and create an allocated space for your iSCSI LUN.

Versions

TrueNAS-SCALE-22.02.3
VMware ESXi, 7.0.3, 20036589

Then change the Record Size to 16K, under the whole pool. This is required for VMFS 6!

Then we will go to Sharing page – Click Add for Block (iSCSI) Shares Target

Setup the settings for Base Name (usually this come by default, buti if you need to change you can)

I have dedicated 2 x 40Gb Bonded (LACP) Mellanox Connect X3 and my backbone is a Arista DCS-7050QX-32S-F, so for the iSCSI Portal I have a dedicated isolated subnet that is Layer 2 only no routing and Jumbo Frames (9214)

Add your multiple hosts and their IQNs from your software iSCSI adapter or hardware iSCSI adapter if you have one.

Since I have an isolated subnet I skipped Authorized Access.

Now, we will setup the iSCSI Target, you will need to add name and the iSCSI group make sure you have your Portal setup and all the IQNs populated in a group

Next we will add an extent and map the device after you have created the previous pre-reqs

Name: (your Extent Name)

Extent Type: Device

Device: (zvol/yournasname)

Logical Block Size 512 – this is important your VMFS 6 wont like it along with the other sector and record sizes

Check Disable Physical Block Size Reporting

Then associate your target to your LUN ID, by default it will use the next available one. Then map that to your extent name

After you finshed, your creation of the iSCSI portion on TrueNAS, then go back to you vCenter Server or ESXi and re-scan HBA and Storage and you should see TrueNAS iSCSI pop up!

Then right click on the Data Center object- Storage – New Datastore

VMFS

Select the Storage Pool that is presented in the window, once you do, click next and select all storage capacity for the next window and then hit finish! Below you should see your new iSCSI LUN! 🙂

September 27, 2022 4 comments 6.2K views

Events

VMware Explore 2022 – My Journey!

by Tommy Grot September 14, 2022

written by Tommy Grot 2 minutes read

An early morning on August 28th, 2022, I got ready and drove toward Denver International Airport. Got there at 3AM. Then went on my way to the gate and was ready and excited to be at VMware Explore! When I was on my flight, I met two guys on my flight that were as well attending VMware Explore as they were local to Denver.

When we arrived at San Francisco it was a busy day with lots of exploration and adventures, the two guys I met on the plane we all got to explore San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge and check out the Pier! We were all patiently waiting to get to our hotels and get our VMware Explore badges that Sunday we arrived!

Monday came around the corner, I was so excited to go to the Moscone Convention Center and start exploring! I met even more people and even tagged along with many VMware employees! I have attended so many breakout sessions, and HOL events. It was hard to keep track of time. The General Session at Explore was amazing with the creativity and intros and how everything was laid out and well-presented it was amazing to experience it in person!

Picture of General Session – thousands of people were coming in!

I had the pleasure of meeting lots of other people and being able to collab and exchange knowledge and experiences. During my week with all the busy events, breakout sessions, I had meetings setup with a lot of the Vice Presidents & Management members of many of the Business Units within VMware (VMware Cloud Foundation, R&D Engineering, NSX ALB Team, VP of Products, Engineers and even the creator of VMware Cloud Director himself! ) It was a blast! and being able to exchange information and show case what I have been architecting and engineering a solution for my work. As with all those meetings going on, my most favorite was meeting Mark Gabryjelski #23 VCDX! He is Polish! just as I am, he and I got to geek out and show him my home lab! I even started the thought and goal I want to achieve, of being a VMware Certified Design Expert myself! Here I come for the VCDX!

(Me on Left, Mark Gabryjelski, VCDX#23 on right Right)

Overall, my experience at VMware Explore was amazing with the 41 Miles of walking I did, I can go on with so much more detail and keep talking about it but it might become a book! The VMware Party at the Chase Center Arena was awesome, tons of yummy food and tons of people! Local bands and DJ were playing live music!

THE PARTY!

VMware Explore 2023 – Here I come!

September 14, 2022 0 comments 667 views

Cloud

VMware Cloud Director – Customization & Branding w/ API

by Tommy Grot September 9, 2022

written by Tommy Grot 3 minutes read

A in depth post on how to customize your VMware Cloud Director! If your organization has a specific theme and logo, well tonight’s post will guide you through the steps to get it all configured and looking all spiffy!

By default, installation Cloud Director offers two types of themes, the default white mode and dark mode. You can manage, create, and add your own themes to VCD. The steps we will be following through will be done system level so all Tenants and the Provider will see the updated VCD UI!

First connect to VCD Cell appliance via SSH –

Change Directory to

cd /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin

Run the Cell Management Tool

./cell-management-tool manage-config -n backend.branding.requireAuthForBranding -v false

Next we will utilize Postman to do the next few tasks

Access Token Authentications

You will want to get your Access Token and API Version, below I will explain on how to do that to get your API version

Get -> https://<Your-IP-Here>/api/versions

Authorization Tab

Basic Auth – Username: “administrator@system” & Password: <your password>

Headers Tab

Key: Accept Value: application/*;version=37.0

Below is the supported version I utilized, I did not used the beta version.

</VersionInfo>
<VersionInfo deprecated="false">
    <Version>37.0</Version>
    <LoginUrl>https://172.16.204.120/cloudapi/1.0.0/sessions</LoginUrl>
    <ProviderLoginUrl>https://172.16.204.120/cloudapi/1.0.0/sessions/provider</ProviderLoginUrl>
</VersionInfo>

POST API Sessions

Now we will create a POST within Postman.

POST https://172.16.204.120/api/sessions

Authorization Tab

Basic Auth – Username: “administrator@system” & Password: <your password>

NOTE -> Once you execute the POST, make sure you get a 200 OK status before proceeding futher.

Next you will want to save the token above as sampled in the image, you will need it for the Beare Token.

Headers

KEY: x-vcloud-authorization VALUE: e31a8bd0d1244282bed8b4b809ba9e1f
KEY: X-VMWARE-VCLOUD-ACCESS-TOKEN VALUE: <eyJ….>

Cloud Director Web Portal Customization

For this next section you will need to execute GET calls to get the current portal configuration with the above Bearer Token KEYS and VALUES

GET https://172.16.204.120/cloudapi/branding

Once you execute the call you will want to go to the Body section and you will see something like this, but a fresh installation of VCD – Portal Name will be ” VMware Cloud Director” and the theme name would be “Default” Which mine is set to Dark mode.

Sample Body Configuration

{
    "portalName": "Virtual Bytes Cloud",
    "portalColor": null,
    "selectedTheme": {
        "themeType": "BUILT_IN",
        "name": "Dark"
    },
    "customLinks": [
        {
            "name": "help",
            "menuItemType": "override",
            "url": null
        },
        {
            "name": "imprint",
            "menuItemType": "override",
            "url": null
        },
        {
            "name": "about",
            "menuItemType": "override",
            "url": null
        },
        {
            "name": "vmrc",
            "menuItemType": "override",
            "url": null
        }
    ]
}

Then once you get your custom configuration ready you will want to do a PUT Call via Postman

Once you POST your Branding configuration, go back to Web UI of VCD and hit refresh! You should see something like below 🙂

Cloud Director Web Portal Logo Customization

Now. for our logo we will do another API call via Postman to PUT a png file for the system level logo.

Authorization Tab

Bearer Token from previous API call we did

Headers

KEY: Accept VALUE: application/*;version=37.0
KEY: x-vcloud-authorization VALUE: “e31a8bd0d1244282bed8b4b809ba9e1f” <- Put your value for the call not mine 🙂
KEY: X-VMWARE-VCLOUD-ACCESS-TOKEN VALUE: “eyJhbGciOiJSUzI…..” <- I shorted the Bearer Token

Go to Body – Change it to binary and find your logo.png file to upload and then hit Send.

Top right corner you will see the logo I uploaded to Cloud Director!

September 9, 2022 0 comments 1.7K views

Cloud VMware Cloud Foundation

VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4.0 Offline Bundle Walkthrough

by Tommy Grot September 4, 2022

written by Tommy Grot 1 minutes read

Hey there tech enthusiasts! Are you ready to dive into the nitty-gritty details of upgrading your VMware Cloud Foundation offline bundle? Well, you’ve come to the right place! In this blog post, we’ll be breaking down everything you need to know about upgrading your VMware Cloud Foundation offline bundle, step by step.

This Offline Walkthrough is valid for any VMware Cloud Foundation – Offline Upgrade, ensure you have at lease the most up-to-date bundle utility to proceed

Go to Drivers & Tools

Download Bundle Transfer Utility

Upload the Bundle Utility tool to SDDC Manager appliance via WINSCP or SCP.

Change Director to

/opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-tools/bin

Then run the command below to generate a marker file (This lets the bundle utility know what is needed to be downloaded)

./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --generateMarker

Then open up WINSCP and connect to SDDC Manager (Login as VCF user)

Once you copeid them from the /root/ directory to your home/vcf directory, then refresh your WinSCP window and you shall see the marker file.

If you do run into permission issues, elevate from vcf to root via ” su ” , type in password and then once your as root, run these commands.

chmod 777 markerFile

chmod 777 markerFile.md5

chown vcf:vcf markerFile

chown vcf:vcf markerFile.md5

Then copy the two maker files into your vcf directory on C:\

Run the command, you will see a long list of bundles-(xxxxx) to download, some will be patches, and installs, but you want the correct version for your VCF Bill of Materials.

Run the command below

./lcm-bundle-transfer-util -upload -bundleDirectory /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/offlinebundle

Thats all! Now let the bundles keep getting ingested, this will take a bit depending on the amount of bundles.

September 4, 2022 1 comment 2.1K views

VMware NSX

VMware NSX 4.0.0.1 Upgrade from NSX-T 3.2.1

by Tommy Grot August 7, 2022

written by Tommy Grot 2 minutes read

Want to upgrade to VMware NSX? Yes, thats the new name for VMware NSX-T Datacenter. It has been renamed. More information from VMware.

Product Name Change: With the release of 4.0.0.1 the product name changes from “VMware NSX-T Data Center” to “VMware NSX.” This new name better reflects the multi-faceted value that NSX brings to customers. This update is apparent in the product graphical user interface as well as documentation. This change has no impact to the functionality of the product or changes to the API that impacts compatibility with previous releases. Want More info? Check out VMware’s site

First things first! Lets log into your NSX-T primary node. Then go to System and Upgrade.

Upload the VMware-NSX-upgrade-bundle-4.0.0.1.0.20159689.mub file.

This will take few min to upload, depending on your connection speeds.

This will verify the matrix and other settings prior to upgrading.

Once, the compatibility has been checked. Next you will need to accept the EULA.

Now, lets fire up the upgrade! This will upload the required files to each of the NSX-T Managers.

Continuation of the Upgrade Preperation

Run a Pre-Check before you execute the upgrade!

After, everything has passed the pre-checks. You may start the upgrades, but make sure you have backups if something happens and you need to restore! If you need to know how to setup backups check out my other post.

This will take few minutes, you may step away and come back, you should see the progress go through, starting from the NSX Edge Nodes, then ESXi Hosts, then VMware NSX Managers.

This will start the upgrade of the NSX Managers. Make sure again, that you have backups configured!!

After 15-20 minutes, depending on the environment your upgrade should be done! And that is it! Very simple way to upgrade NSX without any downtime!

August 7, 2022 0 comments 5.4K views

Hardware Reviews Home-Labs

DellEMC PowerEdge R750 – Review & Benchmarks

by Tommy Grot July 21, 2022

written by Tommy Grot 8 minutes read

I have gotten my hands on a DellEMC PowerEdge R750. I have been grateful to collaborate with Express Computer Systems to get access to try out and create an awesome review of this hardware. This enterprise rack mount server is a powerful workhorse being powered by the 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors, is a dual socket/2U rack mount server. Of course, I have racked and installed it in my Home Lab 😊. During the initial unboxing, I was amazed on how this server is built from DellEMC, I mean all DellEMC Servers are built to be tough and reliable and a cool feature to see within Dell line up of servers is Water Cooling!! Yes, the DellEMC PowerEdge R750 support an optional Direct Liquid Cooling for keeping up with the increasing power and thermal workloads.

Need Enterprise Hardware? Contact Parker at Express Computer Systems

Parker Ware – 949-553-6445
[email protected] or [email protected]

Now, lets get into the deep dive of the DellEMC PowerEdge R750!

When I first opened the top cover of the chassis, I was amazed. The modular architecture that DellEMC is implementing into their new 15th Generation Servers. PCIe Risers are now much more modular than before, the tool less design – allows the riser card to be removed and install your choice of PCIe card and install it back into the server without any tools.

Specifications

2x Intel® Xeon Gold 6342 2.80GHz 24 Core
4x Dell 2.5” U.3 1.92TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD
2x Dell PERC H755n NVMe RAID Controllers
8x Hynix 128GB DDR4 PC4-3200AA DIMMs
2x Dell 1400W Hot swap EPP PSU
1x Dell/Intel E810 Quad Port 10/25

Picture of the DellEMC PowerEdge R750 next to my DellEMC PowerEdge R740.

Now, we will start breaking down the review and we will get into all aspects of the server.

Processors

Intel® Xeon® Gold 6342 Processor (36M Cache- 2.80 GHz)

The Processors installed within the DellEMC PowerEdge R750XD, consist of 2 Intel® Xeon® Gold 6342 Processor (36M Cache- 2.80 GHz). These CPUs are very efficient power consumption for the core/watt ratio. We will get in more depth on the Power Usage in the Power / Efficiency section of the blog. Below are the Specifications from Intel’s Website, there are more features these CPUs offer, if interested check Intel’s website – here.

Status Launched – Launch Date Q2’21
Lithography 10 nm
Total Cores 24
Total Threads 48
Max Turbo Frequency 3.50GHz
Processor Base Frequecny 2.80GHz
Cache 36MB
Intel® UPI Speed 11.2GT/s
Max # of UPS Links 3
TDP – 230W
Max Memory Size – 6TB
Memory Types DDR4-3200
Maximum Memory Speed – 3200MHz
Max # of Memory Channels 8
ECC Memory Supported – Yes
Intel® Optane™ Persistent Memory Supported – Yes
Sockets Supported – FCLGA4189
TCASE 81°C
Intel® Speed Select Technology – Core Power – Yes
Intel® Speed Select Technology – Turbo Frequency – Yes
Intel® Deep Learning Boost (Intel® DL Boost) – Yes
Intel® Speed Select Technology – Base Frequency – Yes
Intel® Resource Director Technology (Intel® RDT) – Yes
Intel® Speed Shift Technology – Yes
Intel® Turbo Boost Technology ‡ 2
Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology ‡ + Yes
Intel® Transactional Synchronization Extensions – Yes
Intel® 64 ‡ – Yes
Instruction Set Extensions – Intel® SSE4.2 | Intel® AVX | Intel® AVX2 | Intel® AVX-512

CPU Benchmarks – pulled from CPUBenchmark.net

CPU Average Results

Integer Math
Floating Point Math
Find Prime Numbers
Random String Sorting
Data Encryption
Data Compression
Physics
Extended Instructions
Single Thread

193,556 MOps/Sec
111,134 MOps/Sec
233 Million Primes/Sec
87 Thousand Strings/Sec
37,043 MBytes/Sec
666.5 MBytes/Sec
3,820 Frames/Sec
52,433 Million Matrices/Sec
2,453 MOps/Sec

Memory Features

The memory, that is installed is SK Hynix 128GB DDR4 PC4-3200AA DIMM, total of 8 DIMMS. I have attached below a table of the memory specifications.

Capacity	128GB
Speed	DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600)
CAS Latency	13
Voltage	1.20 Volts
Load Reduced	Load Reduced
Rank	4Rx4

Storage

The server has 4 Dell 2.5” U.3 1.92TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD. These NVMe PCIe disks have shown outstanding performance runs. I have compiled some benchmark tests with Crystal Disk Mark, below are few pictures I have taken of the Disks. The Controller that is backing these NVMe U.3 Gen4 SSDs are two PERC H755N Front NVMe.

Crystal Disk Mark – Benchmark Tests.

The speeds that are shown below are tested on a virtual machine on VMware ESXi 7.03f with specifications 6vCPUs, 16GB Memory, 90GB VMDK Disk.

I was shocked, when I saw these results of a single server being able to offer these kind of speeds. I cant imagine having a RDMA setup with a vSAN Cluster with 4 of these Dell PowerEdge R750 servers. RDMA = Remote Direct Memory Access

Test on the left – 9 x 1GB Temp Files

Test on the right -9 x 8GB Temp Files

There are few configurations of the DellEMC PowerEdge R750 Series –

Front bays:
- Up to 12 x 3.5-inch SAS/SATA (HDD/SSD) max 192 TB
- Up to 8 x 2.5-inch NVMe (SSD) max 122.88 TB
- Up to 16 x 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 245.76 TB
- Up to 24 x 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 368.84 TB
Rear bays:
- Up to 2 x 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 30.72 TB
- Up to 4 x 2.5-inch SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 61.44 TB

PERC H755N Front NVMe

If you would like to read up more on the Storage Controller, here is the website to DellEMC’s website.

Power

I was shocked on the power consumption, at peak I have seen 503 watts consumed, where at idle workloads the server sits around 360-390 watts with two beefy Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs and 1TB of Memory and 4 NVMe SSDs.

Below is the current power reading as the server is operational and there is workload running on it.

I have pulled a snippet of the Historical Trends from iDRAC. As you can see the power usage for the performance per watt is a great ROI on any investment where datacenters need consolidated designs where power and space are limitations.

This DellEMC PowerEdge R750 that I have up and running has two 1400watt power supplies. I have both of these connected n two seperate PDUs with Eaton UPS Systems.

Detailed Info about the Power Supplies (DellEMC)

Power Supply Units(PSU) portfolio	Dell’s PSU portfolio includes intelligent features such as dynamically optimizing efficiency while maintaining availability and redundancy. Find additional information in the Power supply units section.
Industry Compliance	Dell’s servers are compliant with all relevant industry certifications and guidelines, including 80 PLUS, Climate Savers, and ENERGY STAR
Power monitoring accuracy	PSU power monitoring improvements include: ● Dell’s power monitoring accuracy is currently 1%, whereas the industry standard is 5% ● More accurate reporting of power ● Better performance under a power cap
Power capping	Use Dell’s systems management to set the power cap limit for your systems to limit the output of a PSU and reduce system power consumption.
Systems Management	iDRAC Enterprise provides server- level management that monitors, reports, and controls power consumption at the processor, memory, and system level. Dell OpenManage Power Center delivers group power management at the rack, row, and data center level for servers, power distribution units, and uninterruptible power supplies.
Rack infrastructure	Dell offers some of the industry’s highest- efficiency power infrastructure solutions, including: ● Power distribution units (PDUs) ● Uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) ● Energy Smart containment rack enclosures

Cooling & Acoustics

I have pulled Temperature statistics, as of writing this review. The CPUs are staying very cool, which the new “T” shape cooler design spreads the heat out evenly and which allows the CPUs to cool down quicker than the older traditional tower heat sinks where the heat had to rise up through the copper pipes.

Direct Liquid Cooling – New 15G PowerEdge platforms will offer CPUs with higher power than ever before. Dell is introducing new Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) solutions to effectively manage these growing thermal challenges. Dell DLC solutions cool the CPU with warm liquid which has much greater (~4x) heat capacity versus air. Thus, DLC is a higher performance cooling solution for managing the CPU temperature while also enabling higher performance and better reliability more info at (DellEMC)

Thermal Statistics & Fans

High-performance fan (Gold grade) fans – Power Specifications 6.50A 12 Volts.

Disclaimer! Mixing of STD, HPR SLVR, or HPR GOLD fan is not supported.

Front & Rear I/O

In the front, the Dell PowerEdge R750 offers:

1x USB
1x VGA
1x Maintaince port
1x Power Button
1x iDRAC Locator & iDRAC Sync

In the rear, the Dell PowerEdge R750 offers:

2x DellEMC Boss Card Slots
2x 1Gb LOM
6x Large PCIe Slots
4x 10/25Gb NDC
1x iDRAC
2x USB 3.0
1x VGA

The Riser topology that DellEMC has started using within the Dell Line up of 15Generation servers is really neat, I like how easy and quick it is to take out a PCIe riser. No Tools are needed! Within minutes I was able to take apart the server and have all the risers out, there is two cables that are connected to Riser 1 which is the Dell Boss NVMe/SSD card which is labeled “0,1” once you disconnect those two cables it’s a breeze!

Dell BOSS S2 module – They are now hot swappable! Before when you needed to swap out a boss card, you had to migrate off your workloads, and shut down the server and pull the top cover, then pull out the PCIe Dell Boss card from the riser and unscrew the NVMe / SATA SSD from it. Which that would impact workloads to business continuity. Now, with Dell 15th Gen Dell PowerEdge R750. You can HOT SWAP! This will improve efficiency of replacing failed boot disk and bringing workloads back up in matter of minutes rather than hours!

Dell PowerEdge R750 – Racked and Powered on! Beautiful Lights!!

References to Websites – in direct links in each section with any content from DellEMC / VMware etc.

July 21, 2022 0 comments 4.1K views

Cloud Networking

Workspace One Access Integration with NSX-T

by Tommy Grot May 29, 2022

written by Tommy Grot 1 minutes read

Tonight’s quick walkthrough on how to integrate NSX-T and Workspace One Access (VIDM) This allows workspace one to create a OAuth connection with NSX-T where you can control user access via WSOA and leverage Active directory and instead of trying to manage local accounts and dealing with a mess!

User Managment -> Edit

Then Login into Workspace One Access ->Catalog ->Settings

Go to Remote App Access -> Click on Create Client

Fill in the Name of the Client ID, I chose nsx-mgr-OAuth-wsoa

Generate Shared Secret, copy it so then when we go back to Workspace One Access we can paste it in.

Now. that we are back in NSX-T, fill in your FQDN for your workspace one appliance if you have a load balancer setup then enable it but for this walk through we are doing a single Workspace One Appliance.

Now, that we have the few things filled out, Dont click Save Just yet!

SSH into your Workspace One Appliance. We will get the SSL Thumbprint.

Change directory to /usr/local/horizon/conf

If you are using a CA Signed Certificate you will need to follow the prompt below.

openssl s_client -servername workspace.yourfqdn.io -connect workspace.yourfqdn.io:443 | openssl x509 -fingerprint -sha256 -noout

There is our fingerprint! Now we copy and go back to NSX-T

After the Integration is complete, now go back to Workspace One and add the users / groups through Active Directory.

May 29, 2022 0 comments 2.4K views

Education Networking

VMware NSX Ninja Program

by Tommy Grot May 13, 2022

written by Tommy Grot 1 minutes read

So where to begin? My goal I have is to become a VCIX within DCV and NV, but it will come soon! I have been passionate about learning and progressing my skill sets within VMware Solutions and creating complex environments, but with coming along with few folks at VMware which invited me into VMware NSX Ninja Program for NSX-T and VCF Architecture. As this Program is geared toward the Intermediate / Expert level it does challenge you but I have managed to succeed! I have finished Week 1 of 3, the VMware Certified Instructors are amazing they teach and walk-through real-world solutions which let you get a good understanding of the many bells and whistles that NSX-T and VCF can offer! As i go through the journey of the NSX Ninja, I will be adding more great content to this post! Stay Tuned 🙂

NSX Ninja Week 1 – Overview

May 13, 2022 0 comments 1.5K views

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