Virtualization Team

Configuring vCloud Director Provider SSO Federation

Eiad Al-Aqqad — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:53:02 +0000

If you have already took the effort to build your vCenter Single Sign On server while upgrading to vSphere 5.1, then it might be worth while to benefit of it to unify your login to vCloud Director. Wouldn’t be nice if you don’t have to enter your credential separately for vCloud Director after you have already logged on to your vSphere Web Client or the opposite. Is not this the idea behind including SSO in vSphere 5.1. In this blog post, I will share with you the exact instructions on how to configure your vCloud Director to utilize vCenter SSO to login vCloud Admins to the system.

To configure vCloud … Read More

How to get Redhat 6.2 Linux Second NIC to Ping

Eiad Al-Aqqad — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:56:10 +0000

While trying to setup the Redhat Linux machine with two interfaces to install vCloud Director into it, I had some funny problem with my network cards configuration. I have not installed vCloud Director yet at that time, so I was sure it is some Redhat Linux or networking problem rather than vCloud Director in specific. The problem I had, that I was able to ping one of the two NICs IPs from a different subnet, where I could not get the second NIC which I was planning to use for vCloud Director Remote Console to ping. Other machines within the same subnet were able to ping both NICs IPs, while … Read More

VIB module for agent is not installed on host (vShield-VXLAN-service)

Eiad Al-Aqqad — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:47:36 +0000

While delivering a vCloud engagement to one of our enterprise customers using the latest vCloud Director 5.1.2 and vCloud Networking & Security 5.1.2a, my VXLAN configuration where failing at the stage where its preparing the hosts. I followed the same steps I have used for other customers and in my lab with previous versions, which is as well confirmed by different colleague to work and posted on other blogs.

For reference, the installation steps published by Rawlinson at http://www.punchingclouds.com/2012/09/09/vcloud-director-5-1-vxlan-configuration/ are almost identical to the installation step I have followed, though I kept getting the following error while the vCloud Networking & Security Manager is trying to prepare my hosts for … Read More

Changing vCloud Networking & Security Console Password

Eiad Al-Aqqad — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 18:40:50 +0000

While Changing the vCloud Networking & Security or vShield Manager Web Interface password is well documented at: Hardening vCloud Networking and Security 5.1.x virtual appliances, changing the console password of vCloud Network & Security or vShield Manager does not seems to be as well documented. Actually I have read in few places that its not possible to change the console password and enable password for vCloud Networking & Security Manager & Appliances. While that is partially true, you can actually recreate the admin account with the desired password which give you a similar effect to changing the password of the console admin account. The below procedure shows how to … Read More

PHD Virtual ReliableDR is SLA focused

Eiad Al-Aqqad — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:48:20 +0000

I have just been shown a demo by PHD Virtual of their latest version of ReliableDR, & the first thing I have noticed as the title stated that it is fully business SLAs focused. With the shift today to models like ITaas & IaaS where the availability of the full application from a business perspective is becoming more critical each day, more organizations will be looking for solutions that ensure they are meeting these SLAs. ReliableDR does a great job at this, as it does not only allow a user to configure protection groups based on your business SLAs from a Disaster recovery perspective, but will do the auditing of … Read More

Please Vote for my #VMworld 2013 Sessions

Eiad Al-Aqqad — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 23:50:37 +0000

I have came up with four sessions that I would like to present at VMworld 2013, but I need your help to make it reality. As you know VMworld sessions are chosen based on the community voting, so I need every vote I can get specially when many of the other sessions are done by commercial contributors who got an army of employees and partners who would vote for them. I would appreciate your vote on the sessions you would like to see at VMworld 2013. Please find my sessions information below:

4795 vCenter & Single Sign On 5.1 Best Practices

This session will discuss the various design considerations when … Read More

VMware ADP (Application Dependency Planner)

Eiad Al-Aqqad — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 04:46:44 +0000

I have recently been delivering a Virtualization Assessment engagement for an Enterprise customer, where they have benefited of the recently introduced VMware Application Dependency Planner(ADP). I thought many enterprises & consultants out there would be interested to find out the what, why, when & how they can benefit of this new offering. Below I will try to give a brief of the answers:

What is Application Dependency Planner (ADP)?

VMware Application Dependency Planner is a consulting tool that provides automated, real-time application discovery and dependency mapping to accelerate datacenter migration, precisely plan infrastructure consolidations, and confidently virtualize business critical applications. VMware and partner consultants can use this agentless, non-intrusive, … Read More

How to replace vCenter 5.1, SSO, Web Client, vCO Certificates

Eiad Al-Aqqad — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:34:04 +0000

With the release of vSphere 5.1 certificates started to play a much more vital role, where having invalid certificates in your environment is not an option anymore as it could break the operation of your environment as well forbid you from logging in. This change has been done to increase the security of your Virtual Infrastructure Management Components (vCenter Service, Inventory Services, SSO, Web Client, vCO, Update Manager, & vCenter Log Browser) & to compact the possibilities of man in the middle attacks. This change has brought a lot of challenges to many VMware customers who had invalid and expired certificates in their environment without even noticing it. The tedious … Read More

Two opportunities for Free VMworld Passes

Eiad Al-Aqqad — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:21:54 +0000

Yop, it is that time of the year again where all of us are looking for a way to get free VMworld Passes. Below is not one opportunity, but two of them & I will update it as soon I hear of more.

1- VMworld Calls for Papers: As with every year VMware is calling Employees, Partners, Alliance, Customers & everyone interested in presenting at VMware to submit their requests before April 12, 2013 for consideration. If your paper is accepted, you will be offered to present and a free pass to VMworld. Check out the following link for more details : https://www.vmworld.com/cfp.jspa

2- Veeam VMworld 2013 Pass Drawing: All … Read More

vCenter Single Sign On 5.1 best practices

Eiad Al-Aqqad — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:53:48 +0000

Since vCenter Single Sign On was introduced in vSphere 5.1, many questions have been rising around it. There seems to be a very limited amount of resources out there that document best practices related to vCenter Single Sign On, which is the reason for me to develop this post where I will try to combine as many best practices and answers related to vCenter 5.1 Single Sign On as possible.

I have been one of the lucky consultants who has already got to design/implement vSphere 5.1 for quite few enterprise customers where I have got to debate and drive best practices that I used across those implementations. I am sharing … Read More