VMware

VMware Explore & Signapore 2022 – Highlights & Recap

VMware Explore & Signapore 2022 – Highlights & Recap

Intro VMware Explore Singapore has ended, and while I’m on the plane typing, I can look back to an awesome 4 days. Since recently, I’m finally getting back into my Blogging & GTD mode. ...
Recap of VMware Explore Day 2 – Invention vs Innovation

Recap of VMware Explore Day 2 – Invention vs Innovation

Intro The second day of VMware Explore Singapore has passed, and what a blast it was. For me it was also a different type of day then the first day. The first day of VMware Explore I went into a lot ...
VMware Explore Singapore 2022: First Day & First Impressions

VMware Explore Singapore 2022: First Day & First Impressions

Intro VMware Explore Singapore Day 1 has just ended and wow. I’m so grateful to be here again. Having joined VMworld Barcelona several times in the past, I was happy to finally being able attend the ...
4 Most Common Permission Problems & Mistakes within VMware vSphere and the Content Libary

4 Most Common Permission Problems & Mistakes within VMware vSphere and the Content Libary

Intro For one of my customers I looked at a content library (permissions) problem which they have been dealing with for some time. The problem that the customer had was that the vCenter reported ...
VPN ISSUE – VMware Fusion 12 & Big Sur (Mac OS X)

VPN ISSUE – VMware Fusion 12 & Big Sur (Mac OS X)

Intro So almost after a year, I finally updated my macbook pro to Big Sur. I came from Catalina and was postponing this upgrade for some time. For my work, I often do upgrades and updates for ...
Mental Note to My Self: PLZ check these 3 things first, when troubleshooting VUM (VMware)

Mental Note to My Self: PLZ check these 3 things first, when troubleshooting VUM (VMware)

Intro So this is going to be a quick blogpost. I often find myself in the situation that I need to update something within VMware. VMware Update Manager (VUM) of course seems to be the best solution ...
SDDC-Manager Doesn’t want to start or retry an update (VCF 3.10)

SDDC-Manager Doesn’t want to start or retry an update (VCF 3.10)

I had a weird problem, where my SDDC-Manager of my VCF environment didn’t want to start any update. I had this in 2 different scenario’s. In one case I had a failed ESXi upgrade according to the- ...
vCF Upgrade 3.9.1. to 3.10 – vCenter Upgrade errors & issues

vCF Upgrade 3.9.1. to 3.10 – vCenter Upgrade errors & issues

Intro During the upgrade of the vCenters of one of my customers, I stumbled several times upon the issue down below. It suggest to check the logs, and to check if the ‘service-control –start ...
How to fix Expired Password issues for vCenters & PSCs (Also for vCF environments)

How to fix Expired Password issues for vCenters & PSCs (Also for vCF environments)

So a frequently upcomming issue at customers, is the password expiration of the root password. This is set by default for 90 days, and after 90 days, well people figure out that they cannot login. ...
How to get fully (root) access to NSX-v appliances (Manager & Edge) & NSX Intelligence

How to get fully (root) access to NSX-v appliances (Manager & Edge) & NSX Intelligence

If you have ever tried to troubleshoot an NSX-v Management Appliance or Edge, you probably noticed that you are quite limited in the execution of your controls. That’s because in NSX-v you are ...
Password Expired for vCenters & PSCs (Solution also for vCF)

Password Expired for vCenters & PSCs (Solution also for vCF)

So a frequently upcomming issue at customers, is the password expiration of the root password. This is set by default for 90 days, and after 90 days, well people figure out that they cannot login. ...
VMware vRealize Orchestrator Log Integration with Log Insight

VMware vRealize Orchestrator Log Integration with Log Insight

Intro For a customer I created a work-around after an update of vRO 7.5 to 7.6 removed the read roles for its users that are managed directly through the vRO client. The workaround is simple, ...
vRO update from 7.5 to 7.6 or higher removes simple Read-Rigths Consumer Role

vRO update from 7.5 to 7.6 or higher removes simple Read-Rigths Consumer Role

90% of the time, VMware has updates that really bring value and give something to look forward to. The upgrade from vRO 7.5 to 7.6 however, does not. vRO has 3 roles, and the consumer role access in ...
Check if the Replication is working between PSCs

Check if the Replication is working between PSCs

For a customer I was replacing the SSO/STS certificates, after the change wanted to make sure if the PSCs were still replicating the information between each other. To simply check this Type the ...
vRLI Webgui doesn’t start up: Config Folder Lost & “Keystore was tampered with or Password was incorrect”

vRLI Webgui doesn’t start up: Config Folder Lost & “Keystore was tampered with or Password was incorrect”

Intro One of my customers had problems with their vRLI environment, the most obvious one was that the webgui wasn’t available or even started. The following post is a more general approach of how I ...
Check & Renew the expiration of the Machine Certificate of the PSCs & vCenter (vCenter 6.5/6.7)

Check & Renew the expiration of the Machine Certificate of the PSCs & vCenter (vCenter 6.5/6.7)

Intro At a customer we got the notification in the vCenter that the certificate was almost expiring. This was about the SSO/STS certificate. Later we found out that also the machine certificates ...
NSX-T Passwords Expired for default accounts

NSX-T Passwords Expired for default accounts

A colleague of my, had some troubles making an API call to the NSX-T Managers in a particular site. Looking closer into vRA we saw the following message: So we decided to log into one of the NSX-T ...
Can’t access the NSX-T managers with SSH in vCF?

Can’t access the NSX-T managers with SSH in vCF?

When trying to connect to a NSX-T manager node with SSH, it is possible that you get this message. That is because during the deployment of NSX-T, the SDDC-Manager doesn’t turn on SSH for the VMs. ...
Renewing the default STS (SSO) Certificate of vCenter/PSC in a vCF Environment

Renewing the default STS (SSO) Certificate of vCenter/PSC in a vCF Environment

At a customer we got the notification in the vCenter that the certificate was almost expiring. However, the vCenter with version 6.7 was part of a vCF Deployment. Almost all the certificates are ...
Warning: SSL Certificate almost Expired

Warning: SSL Certificate almost Expired

SSL Certificate almost Expired At a customer we got the notification in the vCenter that the certificate was almost expiring. When I checked the HTML client, I couldn’t find the SSL ...
Error when trying to access VMware PSC with WinSCP (6.7)

Error when trying to access VMware PSC with WinSCP (6.7)

For a customer, I needed to upload a script towards the PSC, and my favourite tool for that is WinSCP. However, when trying to access, I got the following Error. The reason for this is that the ...
Upgrading / Patching vRSLCM 2.1.0.x to Patch 2

Upgrading / Patching vRSLCM 2.1.0.x to Patch 2

  For a customer I needed to patch the vRSLCM suite. Which is quite easy if you know where to look for. Before you start, just make sure that you have made a snapshot of the vRSLCM. First Go: ...
vCF 3.x – SDDC-Manager Precheck Fails: LCM Directories Permission Check

vCF 3.x – SDDC-Manager Precheck Fails: LCM Directories Permission Check

Problem Summary For a customer, I was doing the prechecks for his VCF environments, since we wanted to upgrade the environments from 3.9.1. to 3.10. Unfortunately the following error appeared on all ...
Deployment of a OVF / OVA is stuck with Validating…

Deployment of a OVF / OVA is stuck with Validating…

Issue At one customer I was deploying vRNI. For some reason, every time when I selected the ova file that I downloaded from VMware, it stayed stuck in the “Validating” screen. This could take a long ...
vRealize Network Insight 5.1 – Install & Config

vRealize Network Insight 5.1 – Install & Config

Intro For a customer we deployed vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) 5.1 on their VMware Cloud Foundation Platform (vcf). Currently vRNI is not part of the automatic deployment of vcf or even part of ...
VMware Cloud on AWS (2/3): Review Your Application Landscape

VMware Cloud on AWS (2/3): Review Your Application Landscape

Intro Last blogpost we started with the question “should we move towards VMC on AWS, or not”. We made a quick recap of what VMC on AWS can offer, and some of the considerations you should have ...
VMware Cloud on AWS: To Move or Not (Part 1/3)

VMware Cloud on AWS: To Move or Not (Part 1/3)

Intro The past few years, cloud platforms and cloud services have been intensely hyped as the best next thing. With a diverse and growing number of cloud offerings, we got more options than ever ...
vCF 3.x – SDDC Manager UI issue after upgrade to 3.8 – failed to poll or fetch info

vCF 3.x – SDDC Manager UI issue after upgrade to 3.8 – failed to poll or fetch info

Intro So I made a separate post here, that lists up all the different reasons why this issue could arise. However, the issue described here is more and less a known issue for the upgrade of the SDDC ...
vCF 3.x – SDDC Manager fails to poll or fetch info within the webUI

vCF 3.x – SDDC Manager fails to poll or fetch info within the webUI

Intro During the different upgrades of vCF, one issues came several times back within the SDDC Manager. Which is that the SDDC Manager is unable to show any kind of information or data within the ...
vCF 3.x – vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager Environment Page is Blank after Upgrade

vCF 3.x – vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager Environment Page is Blank after Upgrade

Issue For my customer I upgraded the vRSLCM from version 1.2 to version 2.0 which is in the BOM of vCF 3.5. During the upgrade I had several issues, but we solved it. However, after a successful ...
vCF 3.x – vRrealize Log Insight, Manual upgrade Procedure to v4.7 (vCF BOM 3.5)

vCF 3.x – vRrealize Log Insight, Manual upgrade Procedure to v4.7 (vCF BOM 3.5)

Intro Within vCF, you can deploy the components of the vRealize Suite. In vCF 3.0.1, vRLI 4.6.1 is deployed. When moving from the vCF 3.0.1(or 3.0.1.1) towards vCF 3.5, all the vRealize Suite ...
vCF 3.x – ESXi upgrade Procedure for Custom Vendor ISO (vCF 3.5.1 & Higher)

vCF 3.x – ESXi upgrade Procedure for Custom Vendor ISO (vCF 3.5.1 & Higher)

Intro ESXi hosts that uses Vendor specific ISO’s need a bit of extra care when you want to use them for vCF upgrades. In this document we’re going to do a step by step tutorial for upgrading ESXi ...
vCF 3.x – ESXi upgrade Procedure for Custom Vendor ISO (vCF 3.5.)

vCF 3.x – ESXi upgrade Procedure for Custom Vendor ISO (vCF 3.5.)

Intro ESXi hosts that uses Vendor specific ISO’s need a bit of extra care when you want to use them for vCF upgrades. In this document we’re going to do a step by step tutorial for upgrading ESXi ...
vCF 3.x – Upgrade Precheck fails at ESXi hosts

vCF 3.x – Upgrade Precheck fails at ESXi hosts

Problem Recap When starting a vCF upgrade, it is always wise to start the precheck. At one of our customers, the precheck failes quite often on the ESXi hosts. The most common reason for this was ...
vCF 3.x – Web GUI looks weird after RPM upgrade of SDDC-Manager-UI-app.service

vCF 3.x – Web GUI looks weird after RPM upgrade of SDDC-Manager-UI-app.service

Intro In one of my posts I explained that we had a problem with the upgrade of the SDDC Manager, especially with the SDDC-Manager-UI component. It once again failed and I needed to do an upgrade of ...
vCF 3.x – vRSLCM 2.x upgrade fails after deployment

vCF 3.x – vRSLCM 2.x upgrade fails after deployment

Intro At one of my customers, we had a problem that the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) didn’t want to upgrade. We already faced quite some problems with the vCF upgrades, so this one was ...
vCF 3.x – SDDC Manager Upgrade fails at SDDC-Manager-UI Component

vCF 3.x – SDDC Manager Upgrade fails at SDDC-Manager-UI Component

Problem Recap At a customer we had an issue that came back every SDDC-Manager upgrade within the 3.x versions. The SDDC-Manager doesn’t seem to start the upgrade of the SDDC-Manager-UI.app service. ...
vCF 3.x – No bundles available in the SDDC Manager

vCF 3.x – No bundles available in the SDDC Manager

Problem Recap After a successful upgrade of the SDDC Manager to version 3.7.1, the UI of the SDDC Manager doesn’t show me any new bundles that can be downloaded. This issue is commonly known for ...
VMworld Day 4 & Recap

VMworld Day 4 & Recap

Day 4, it was the last day of VMworld. After having a great VMworld Fest and a relaxt evening with my colleagues the night before, it was time to pack my last stuff and to get back to the. ...
VMworld Day 3 – Great People, Great Conversations, Great ses… wait?

VMworld Day 3 – Great People, Great Conversations, Great ses… wait?

Day 3 was a really cool day and maybe even one of the best. I planned lots of cool sessions and wanted to know more about NSX-T & vCF. So, in the morning I put on our “AJAX #ITQlife” shirt, with ...
VMworld Day 2 – Great Sessions & Great Parties

VMworld Day 2 – Great Sessions & Great Parties

Day 2 was even quicker over then Day 1. It is abnormal of how much cool new stuff I’ve learned that day. This was not only because of all the sessions, but also because of the amazing talks I had ...
VMworld Day 1 – Partner Forum

VMworld Day 1 – Partner Forum

As the first day slowly has come to its end, a lot of great impressions has stayed with me. In fact, for me this is already one of the best Partner Days in comparison with previous editions. As I ...
VMworld USA 2019 – VMware is going next level in the Digital Transformation (Part 2/2)

VMworld USA 2019 – VMware is going next level in the Digital Transformation (Part 2/2)

Check out my guest post at the itq website Where I talk all about the latest annoucements of #VMware and how #VMware is taking some serious steps in creating a #HybridCloudPlatform that embraces ...
VMworld USA 2019 – VMware is going next level in the Digital Transformation (Part 1/2)

VMworld USA 2019 – VMware is going next level in the Digital Transformation (Part 1/2)

Check out my guest post at the itq website Where I talk all about the latest annoucements of #VMware and how they are taking some big steps in creating a #HybridCloudPlatform that embraces multiple ...
BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades: <br> Phase 6 – Defining the Soll & Roadmap

BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades:
Phase 6 – Defining the Soll & Roadmap

Intro We covered quite some topics in the previous blogposts. We talked about how important the assessment phase is, which Technical & Common vSphere Challenges you could expect, and what the ...
BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades: <br> Phase 5.3 – Solving vSphere Compatibility Challenges with VVD

BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades:
Phase 5.3 – Solving vSphere Compatibility Challenges with VVD

Intro VMware its product portfolio has grown immensely in the last several years. Most VMware products are designed to integrate & enhance each other but also to be compatible with one and ...
BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades: <br> Phase 5.2 – Common vSphere Challenges

BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades:
Phase 5.2 – Common vSphere Challenges

Intro Upgrading and maintaining a vSphere environment is a broad topic that also can be difficult. As you probably have noticed already in the blogpost series, there are numerous ways of doing a ...
Troubleshooting: Cannot Add host “Authenticity of the host’s SSL certificate is not verified”.

Troubleshooting: Cannot Add host “Authenticity of the host’s SSL certificate is not verified”.

Intro One of my customers wanted to change the hostname of the ESXi host. In this case, the ESXi hostname stayed the same, but it needed to become part of  a subdomain. Changing an ESXi hostname ...
BlogPost Series: LCM of VMware vSphere & HPE Hardware – Final Conclusion (Part 5)

BlogPost Series: LCM of VMware vSphere & HPE Hardware – Final Conclusion (Part 5)

Final Conclusion Like I said in the beginning of the blogpost series, Life Cycle & Patch Management is a difficult topic. Which can become a big headache when there are so many dependencies ...
BlogPost Series: LCM of VMware vSphere & HPE Hardware – Global LCM Plan & Order of Upgrading (Part 4)

BlogPost Series: LCM of VMware vSphere & HPE Hardware – Global LCM Plan & Order of Upgrading (Part 4)

Intro We’ve viewed the different tools that help to manage a HPE stack and if and how we could integrate VUM with this. We also discussed that consistency with virtualization & infrastructure is ...
BlogPost Series: LCM of VMware vSphere & HPE Hardware – Scripts & Reporting Tools (Part 3)

BlogPost Series: LCM of VMware vSphere & HPE Hardware – Scripts & Reporting Tools (Part 3)

Intro We’ve viewed the different tools that help to manage a HPE stack and if and how we could integrate VUM with this. During the project and our research, we found out that it is really difficult ...
BlogPost Series: LCM of VMware vSphere & HPE Hardware – LCM Tools Comparison & Review (Part 2)

BlogPost Series: LCM of VMware vSphere & HPE Hardware – LCM Tools Comparison & Review (Part 2)

Intro Life Cycle & Patch Management, can be achieved with different tools and methods with HPE and VMware. However, the number of available tools that can be used for LCM, can make it quite ...
BlogPost Series: LCM of VMware vSphere & HPE Hardware – Basics (Part 1)

BlogPost Series: LCM of VMware vSphere & HPE Hardware – Basics (Part 1)

Intro Life Cycle & Patch Management within organizations can be a difficult topic. Mostly because of the broad set of software and hardware that can and should be included in a Life Cycle & ...
VUM Error: Host cannot download files from VMware vSphere Update Manager patch store

VUM Error: Host cannot download files from VMware vSphere Update Manager patch store

Setup: vCSA 6.5 with embedded VUM Intro: At one of my customers, I had a weird problem that one of the hosts couldn’t updated through VUM. Time to investigate. Error: “Host cannot ...
How to Rollback an ESXi host after an update

How to Rollback an ESXi host after an update

Upgrading and updating your ESXi hosts is necessary. Updates contain bug fixes, security updates, new features or improvements, and drivers. With VUM this can be quite easy. However, sometimes you ...
vCenter doesn’t start up – Failed to start File System Check on /dev/dis..

vCenter doesn’t start up – Failed to start File System Check on /dev/dis..

A customer of mine had some problems with a vCenter (vCSA 6.5) that didn’t want to boot up anymore. First thing I checked was if I could log in on the vCenter Appliance Management Interface (VAMI). ...
Changing the Display Preferences and Resolution for VMs in VMware Fusion

Changing the Display Preferences and Resolution for VMs in VMware Fusion

Intro For one issue (documented here), I had to reinstall the VMware tools on a Windows VM. After the reinstall, the screen resolution looked kinda weird. I had one of the highest Resolution on a ...
VM has No Network Connection, Windows 7 – VMware Fusion 10.1 (Workstation)

VM has No Network Connection, Windows 7 – VMware Fusion 10.1 (Workstation)

Recently I had a weird issue that a Windows 7 virtual machine on VMware Fusion (10.1) wasn’t able to make any network connections. After doing all the basic checks (NAT configured, Windows Firewall, ...
vSphere Troubleshooting: Hosts Disconnects  “Agent unable to save configuration to disk: Error syncing firmware configuration: vim.fault.TooManyWrites”

vSphere Troubleshooting: Hosts Disconnects “Agent unable to save configuration to disk: Error syncing firmware configuration: vim.fault.TooManyWrites”

During a deployment of several ESXi hosts at a customer, I noticed that the new hosts were disconnecting every few minutes. When I checked the event error, it showed a lot of different errors and ...
BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades: <br> Phase 5.1 – Technical vSphere Challenges

BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades:
Phase 5.1 – Technical vSphere Challenges

Intro Without knowledge, one cannot make reliable (technical) decisions. Quite simple right. That’s why it is so important that you do your research well and spend enough time gathering ...
BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades: <br> Phase 4 – Dependencies & Compatibility

BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades:
Phase 4 – Dependencies & Compatibility

Intro You have done the interviews, gained a lot of insight through tools, documentation and whatsoever, and with that you’ve created your first draft of the so-called IST. During the assessment ...
BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades: <br> Phase 3 – Defining the IST

BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades:
Phase 3 – Defining the IST

Intro With the GAP-Analysis we’ll try to create a clear overview of where we start and where we want to be, starting with defining the IST. The IST is so called starting point or baseline if ...
BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades: <br> Phase 2 – Assessment

BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades:
Phase 2 – Assessment

Intro One of the most important parts in projects (and also most of the time neglected) is the assessment phase. Creating an upgrade path and executing it, is no different. Some upgrade paths are ...
BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades: <br> Phase 1 – Kick-off

BlogPost Series – Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades:
Phase 1 – Kick-off

IntroThis is the beginning of the blogpost series “Creating a Roadmap for vSphere Upgrades”. As a consultant, I’ve seen quite some different type of customers, business environments, uses cases for ...
Troubleshooting: vSphere Sessions are constantly logging off –  Connection Timeout

Troubleshooting: vSphere Sessions are constantly logging off – Connection Timeout

I recently had a problem that one of my vCenters (vCSA 6.5) was constantly logging off any kind of user after a few minutes. Which would end up with the following error output: “Your vsphere Client ...
vCSA6.5 Installation Stuck at 80% and some other fun errors during Deployment.

vCSA6.5 Installation Stuck at 80% and some other fun errors during Deployment.

if you came across this post then you’ll probably had the problem that the vCenter installation became stuck around the 80%, with the text “Installing RPM This may take several minutes”. ...
How to prepare for VMworld – a few tips and tricks

How to prepare for VMworld – a few tips and tricks

It is Saturday morning 08:00. Sleep status = Zero. Only one day before I’m taking the plane to VMworld Barcelona. This is the first time that I’m attending, and I’ve been looking forward to this ...
Android 8.1 Virtualised on OS X with VMware Workstation / Fusion

Android 8.1 Virtualised on OS X with VMware Workstation / Fusion

Install Android 8.1 on VMware Fusion Tested on macOS High Sierra & VMware Fusion 10.1.2 So it started when I had to bring my phone back for repairs. I didn’t had any android phone, and some apps ...
Hyper-V to VMware Conversion (V2V)

Hyper-V to VMware Conversion (V2V)

A while ago I started to make also some video’s to help people with certain problems. One of them was changing the language settings in Windows 10, but now I also made a V2V conversion ...
ESXi Install 5.x & 6.x

ESXi Install 5.x & 6.x

How to Install ESXi 5.x & 6.x The screenshots are of 5.1. but the setup is almost the same, if not the same to all versions up till 6.5. When you are installing an ESXi host, it is best to use ...