For this objective I used the following resources:

• VMware View Administration documentation

Identify Required Folders

The only “required” folder for View is the ‘root’ folder (or ‘/’). The root folder by default is where all desktop pools are created:

Create View Folders for Delegated Administration and Roles

Set Permissions on a Folder

Step 1 – Connect and login into the VMware View Administrator console:

Step 2 – Under “View Configuration” select “Administrators”. In the right hand pane click the “Folders” tab and click the “Add Folder” button:

Step 3 – Provide a folder name:

Step 4 – Select the newly created folder and click “Add Permission”:

Step 5 – On the “Add Permission” dialog click “Add”:

Step 6 – Locate the user or group you want to add:

Step 7 – Click “Next”:

Step 8 – Select the role you want to provide to user or group:

Step 9 – When finished you can see the role you added as well those being inherited:

Create the Administrator Roles

Step 1 – Connect and login into the VMware View Administrator console:

Step 2 – Under “View Configuration” select “Administrators”. In the right hand pane click the “Roles” tab and click the “Add Role” button:

Step 3 – In the “Add Role” dialog provide a Name and Description for the new role. Select the desired privileges to be configured for the role:

The available privileges are highlighted in the charts below:

Global Privileges

Object Specify Privileges

-Jason

For this objective I used the following resources:

• VMware View Administration guide
• VMware KB Article 1008705 – Guidelines for generating and importing an SSL certificate for the View Connection Server for View 5.0.1 and earlier
• VMware KB Article 2021537 – Requesting an SSL Certificate for VMware using Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS)

Knowledge

Import Certificates

This is probably the most challenging section of any of the objectives so far. This topic alone could fill pages of information. Currently my lab environment is not configured to give this section the proper detail needed, in the future I may revisit for a more step by step process. What is described below is taken from a very well written VMware KB Article, “Guidelines for generating and importing an SSL certificate for the View Connection Server for View 5.0.1 and earlier”. Picking up from Step 4 in that KB article:

Import the Signed Certificate into a keystore file, open a command prompt and run this command using keytool:

• pkcs key – keytool –import –keystore <keys.p12> –storetype pkcs12 –storepass <secret> –keyalg “RSA” –trustcacerts –file <certificate.p7>
• jks key – keytool – importcert –keystore <keys.jks> –storepass <secret> –keyalg “RSA” –trustcacerts –file <certificate.p7>

If you try this in your on lab I would also suggest taking a look at VMware KB Article 2021537, “Requesting an SSL Certificate for VMware View Using Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS)”.

Turn on Certificate Based Authentication

By default certificate based authentication is enabled in View. The steps below show were to enable/disable this feature.

Step 1 – Connect and login into the VMware View Administrator console:

Step 2 – Under “View Configuration” select “Global Settings”, in the right hand pane click “Edit” under “Global Settings”:

Step 3 – As mentioned before “Require SSL for client connections and View Administrator” is enabled by default:

Step 4 – If you are going to enable/disable feature, the “More Information” dialog makes note of having to restart the View Connection Server service to enable the new configuration:

Identify RSA Instance

Within the View Administrator interface I was not able to locate a location that named the “RSA Instance”. The steps outlined below will walk you through how to enable RSA SecurID authentication for your View environment. During the configuration process you would provide an “agent configuration file” that would specify RSA Authentication Manager server.

Step 1 – Connect and login into the VMware View Administrator console:

Step 2 – Under “View Configuration” select “Servers”. In the right hand pane under “View Connection Servers” click “Edit”:

Step 3 – From the settings dialog click the “Authentication” tab. Check the box to enable “RSA SecurID 2-Factor Authentication”:

Step 4 – Click “Upload Files” to upload the sdconf.rec file:

Identify Authentication Requirements for RSA and Smart Cards

RSA SecurID Authentication

• RSA Authentication Manager
• RSA SecurID token

Smart Card Requirements (software/hardware)

• View Client
• Windows compatible smart card reader
• Smart card middleware
• Product specific application drivers
• Cards and readers use either PKCS#11 or Microsoft CyrptoAPI provider
• Key size of either 1024-bit or 2048-bit

-Jason

For this objective I used the following resources:

• VMware View Administration guide
• VMware View Installation guide

Knowledge

Reference GPO Templates

The GPO Templates that come with view are discussed in Objective 1.5 Prepare Active Directory for Installation located HERE. Section titled “Identify and Describe GPO Template Files”.

Describe RDP Requirements

• Windows XP and Windows XP Embedded systems, you should use Microsoft RDC 6.x
• Windows Vista comes with RDC 6.x installed, though RDC 7 is recommended
• Windows 7 comes with RDC 7 installed. Windows 7 SP1 comes with RDC 7.1 installed
• You must have RDC 6.0 or later to use multiple monitors
• Windows XP virtual machines must have the RDP patches listed in Microsoft KB article 323497 & 884020 installed
• The View Agent installer configures the local firewall rule for inbound RDP connections to match the current RDP port

See page 18 of the VMware View Installation guide for additional information

Locate ADM Template Files

Comes with six ADM Template files that you can leverage in your environment (see Objective 1.5 for a full listing). These ADM Templates are located on View Connection servers in the install_directory\VMware\VMware View\Server\extras\GroupPolicyFiles:

Explain GPO Settings

• Describe “build to lossless”

The PCoIP display protocol uses an encoding approach called progressive build, which works to provide the optimal overall user experience even under constrained network conditions. Progressive build provides a highly compressed initial image, called a lossy image, that is then progressively built to a full lossless state. A lossless state means that the image appears with the full fidelity intended.

The build-to-lossless feature provides the following characteristics:

• Dynamically adjusts image quality
• Reduces image quality on congested networks
• Maintains responsiveness by reducing screen update latency
• Resumes maximum image quality when the network is no longer congested

See pages 166 thru 167 of the VMware View Administration guide for additional information

• Describe how to configure cache size

This setting is configured in the View PCoIP Session Variable ADM template (pcoip.adm):

As described on page 158 of the VMware View Administration guide:

Configure PCoIP client image cache size policy – Controls the size of the PCoIP client image cache. The client uses image caching to store portions of the display that were previously transmitted. Image caching reduces the amount of data that is retransmitted. This setting applies only to Windows and Linux clients when View Client, View Agent, and View Connection Server are a View 5.0 or later release. When this setting is not configured or disabled, PCoIP uses a default client image cache size of 250MB. When you enable this setting, you can configure a client image cache size from a minimum of 50MB to a maximum of 300MB. The default value is 250MB.

Identify maximum number of monitors and resolution

• The use of multiple monitors is supported. VMware View supports up to four monitors and with a maximum resolution per monitor of 2560 x 1600.
• If utilizing Windows 7 3D Rendering View supports a maximum of two monitors and the resolution is set to 1920 x 1200 (This value cannot be changed).

Configure Flash quality and throttling

These options can be configured during the desktop pool creation process or modified after creation:

The Adobe Flash quality option has for settings:

• Do not control – Quality is determined by Web page settings
• Low – This setting results in the most bandwidth savings. If no quality level is specified, the system defaults to Low
• Medium – This setting results in moderate bandwidth saings
• High – This setting results in the least bandwidth savings

The Adobe Flash throttling option has for settings:

• Disabled – No throttling is performed. The timer interval is not modified
• Conservative – Timer interval is 100 milliseconds. This setting results in the lowest number of dropped frames
• Moderate – Timer interval is 500 milliseconds
• Aggressive – Timer interval is 2500 milliseconds. This setting results in the highest number of dropped frames

Configure software 3D rendering capabilities

This option can be configured during the desktop pool creation process or modified after creation:

To enable 3D graphics the desktop pool must bee the following requirements:

• The desktops must run on ESXi 5.0 or later hosts and be managed by vCenter Server 5.0 or later
• The desktops must be Windows 7 or later
• The desktops must have virtual hardware v8 or later
• The pool must use the PCoIP as the default display protocol
• User must not be allowed to choose their own protocol

-Jason

For this objective I used the following resources:

• VMware View Administration guide

Adding the View Transfer Server

Alright, so this isn’t a real objective called out in the VCP5-DT blue print. Bought nowhere does it cover actually adding the Transfer Server in to View Administrator to cover the other objectives in this section, so I thought I would add it.

Step 1 – Connect and login into the VMware View Administrator console:

Step 2 – Under “View Configuration” select “Servers”. In the right hand pane under “Transfer Servers” click the “Add” button:

Step 3 – Select the vCenter Server housing your View Transfer Server VM, click “Next”:

Step 4 – Select your configured View Transfer Server VM and click “Finish”:

Step 5 – At this time your Transfer Server will be reconfigured to add additional SCSI controllers to the VM, after that the VM will reboot. In View Manager under “Status” the Transfer Server will be listed as “Missing Transfer Server Repository”:

Step 6 – To configure/identify the Transfer Server Repository (next section) we need to place the Transfer Server into “Maintenance Mode”:

Configure/Identify Transfer Server Repository

Step 1 – Connect and login into the VMware View Administrator console:

Step 2 – Under “View Configuration” select “Transfer Server Repository”. In the right hand pane under “General” click the Edit” button:

Step 3 – You can either specify a network share or a local file system path that will be used as the repository. In the example pictured I used a local directory on the Transfer Server:

Step 4 – With the Transfer Server Repository configured the next step is to “Publish” the desktops. Click the “Publish” icon in the “Contents” section of View Administrator:

Step 5 – Select the View Composer Image and click “OK”:

Note – Prior to completing the Transfer Server configuration I had already created a new dedicated desktop pool with Local Mode enabled.

Step 6 – At this point it will take a few minutes as the image is copied to the repository:

Step 7 – Desktops are ready for use:

Identify vCenter Server that contains the Transfer Server

Identify the Transfer Server virtual machine

I am combing these two sections just for ease as the information for both is located in the same screen.

Step 1 – Connect and login into the VMware View Administrator console:

Step 2 – Under “View Configuration” select “Servers”. In the right hand pane under “Transfer Servers” view the list of Transfer Servers and the vCenter server they are associated with:

-Jason

For this objective I used the following resources:

• VMware View Administration guide

Knowledge

Configure View Connection Server Backup Settings

See section “Identify View Connection Server Backup Settings” in Objective 2.3 – Configure View Standard and Replica Connection Server(s)

Identify External URL Settings

See section “Configure External URL Settings” in Objective 2.3 – Configure View Standard and Replica Connection Server(s)

Identify PCoIP Secure Gateway

Step 1 – Connect and log into the VMware View Administrator console:

Step 2 – Under “View Configuration” select “Servers”. In the right hand pane under “View Connection Servers” select the Connection Server and click the “Edit” button:

Step 3 – The “Edit View Connection Server Settings” dialog will be displayed. From the “General” tab you can view/modify the PCoIP External URL and whether to “Use PCoIP Secure Gateway for PCoIP connections to desktop”:

Identify View Connection Server General Settings

Local Mode Tab

Edit View Security Server Settings

Step 1 – Connect and login into the VMware View Administrator console:

Step 2 – Under “View Configuration” select “Servers”. In the right hand pane under “Security Servers” select the Security Server and click the “Edit” button:

Step 3 – The “Edit Security Server” dialog will be displayed. From this dialog you can view/modify the “HTTP(s) Secure Tunnel” and PCoIP Secure Gateway” values:

Though the majority of my posts are centered around VMware blue print exam objectives, I have listed below the top 5 posts over the last year that are not exam objective related:

• SSD Performance in the vSphere Home Lab
• Installing vCenter Server Heartbeat 6.4.6 (Part 1)
• Migrating Portgroups from a vSS to a vDS
• Checking up on Multi-NIC vMotion
• Using ESXCLI to Mask a LUN from ESXi

Looking forward to 2013 and be sure to click HERE to cast your votes!

-Jason

Step 1 – In NetApp OnCommand System Manager connected to your secondary VSA expand the ‘Storage’ tree and select ‘Volumes’:

Step 2 – Highlight the volume created in the previous posts in the right hand pane. Select the ‘Status’ button and scroll down to ‘Restrict’:

Step 3 – On the ‘Restrict Volume’ dialog click the ‘Restrict’ button:

Step 4 – Go to your primary VSA in System Manger. To allow the primary VSA to replicate to the secondary VSA in the navigation tree select the ‘SnapMirror’ node and click ‘Remote Access’ in the right side pane:

Step 5 – From the ‘Remote Access’ dialog click ‘Add’ and provide the DNS name or IP address of the secondary site VSA. With the VSA selected browse to the volume you wish to provide access to:

Step 6 – Select wether to provide access to all volumes or a specific volume. Click ‘Select’ when ready:

Step 7 – Click ‘OK’ to exit the ‘Remote Access’ dialog box:

Step 8 – Next click on ‘Create’ to setup a SnapMirror relationship:

Step 9 – Click ‘Next’ on the ‘Welcome’ dialog:

Step 10 – For the ‘System Selection’ select radial for ‘Source’. Click ‘Next’ to continue:

Step 11 – Click the ‘Browse’ button and highlight the source volume to replicate (in my example vol1_SRM_REP) and click ‘Select’. Verify the information and click ‘Next’:

Step 12 – In the ‘Destination System’ drop down select your secondary VSA. Click ‘Next’ to continue:

Step 13 – Choose the option for ‘Select existing volume’ and click ‘Browse’. Highlight the destination volume and click ‘Select’. Verify the configuration and click ‘Next’:

Step 14 – On the ‘Schedule and Initialize’ screen check the box ‘Initialize SnapMirror relationship’ and select the radial for ‘Create new schedule for SnapMirror relationship’ and click the ‘Create’ button. Create your custom schedule (example is set to run daily on 30 minute intervals) and click ‘Create’ when finished:

Step 15 – For the ‘Data Transfer Rate’ I left mine at ‘Unlimited bandwidth’ as this for lab/testing purposes. In a production environment throttle as appropriate:

Step 16 – Verify the summary is correct, click ‘Next’ to continue:

Step 17 – When the SnapMirror relationship has been created click ‘Finish’:

Step 18 – Once completed in the SnapMirror tab you can see the source and destination volumes for our replication:

A lot of screen shots to go through but at this point you should successfully setup replication between the two VSA’s. In the next post we will take a look at installing the VMware SRM SRA for Netapp.

Stay Tuned!

-Jason

Welcome to part II of how to deploy the NetApp Edge VSA. In part I (located HERE) we covered the deployment of the OVA template and the configuration of the Data ONTAP software. In this post I am going to cover adding your VSA(s) to NetApp’s web interface management utility, NetApp OnCommand System Manager. From there we will add the licenses you should have received from NetApp to enable additional functionality. Finally we will end with setting up an iSCSI iniator group and configuring our first LUN.

As mentioned in the first post, I am working towards setting up VMware SRM in my lab and leveraging array replication for testing. These first two posts however will walk your through getting the VSA up in running in your lab for whatever testing you would like to do with NetApp Edge VSA. Part III of this series will cover the implementation of SnapMirror for LUN replication.

For this post the assumption has been made that NetApp OnCommand System Manager has been installed somewhere on your network per the instructions provided by NetApp when you downloaded the Edge VSA.

Procedure

Step 1 – Launch NetApp OnCommand System Manager, from the initial screen on the ‘Home’ tab click the ‘Add’ button:

Step 2 – Enter the Host name or IP Address of the VSA system and click ‘Add’ (Make sure to add both VSA’s if you plan to use SnapMirror):

Step 3 – Select the “Primary Site” VSA and click the ‘Login’ icon in the upper left corner:

Step 4 – Enter the ‘root’ in the ‘User Name’ field and provide the ‘Password’. Click ‘Sign In’ when ready:

Step 5 – Once logged it is time to add the software licenses to activate Deduplication, iSCSI, and NFS (also add the license for SnapMirror and Flexclone if working with SRM). In the left hand pane expand the ‘System Tool’ section and select ‘Licenses’:

NOTE – You should have received an email from NetApp containing these keys.

Step 6 – In the upper left corner of the right pane click the ‘Add’ icon:

Step 7 – Type in the license key for the function you wish to activate. Click ‘Add’ when ready. Complete this step for the remaining features you wish to activate:

Step 8 – With the license keys entered, expand the ‘Protocols’ tree and select ‘iSCSI’:

Step 9 – In the right pane click the ‘Start’ icon to start the iSCSI service:

Step 10  – Now to create our first LUN. Expand the ‘Storage’ tree and select ‘LUNs’:

Step 11 – In the right pane select the ‘Initiator Groups’ tab and click the ‘Create’ icon in the upper left. Using Initiator Groups will allow us to combine multiple ESX/ESXi hosts into a group and assign that group access to the LUN’s:

Step 12 – The ‘Create Initiator Group’ dialog will be displayed. From the ‘General’ tab provide a name for the Initiator Group and be sure to select ‘VMware’ from the ‘Operating System’ drop down:

Step 13 – Click the ‘Initiator’ tab and click the ‘Add’ button in the lower left. Add each of the IQN’s (iSCSI Qualified Name) for your ESX/ESXi hosts. Click ‘Create’ when finished:

Step 14 – Click the ‘LUN Management’ tab and click ‘Create’ in the upper left. The ‘Create LUN Wizard’ will be launched:

Step 15 (Pic15) – Click ‘Next’ on the ‘Welcome to Create LUN Wizard’ dialog:

Step 16 – Provide a ‘Name’ an optional ‘Description for the LUN. Specify ‘VMware’ as the LUN ‘Type’ and choose a size and if wish to enable Thin Provisioning. Click ‘Next’ when ready:

Step 17 – You can leave the defaults and click ‘Next’ or modify the ‘Volume Name’:

Step 18 – Select the Initiator Group we created in Step 12 and click ‘Next’ (Optionally you can set the LUN ID):

Step 19 – Verify the settings are correct on the ‘LUN Summary’ screen. Click ‘Next’ to continue:

Step 20 – With the ‘Completing the Create LUN wizard’ displayed click ‘Finish’ to exit:

And from the ‘LUN Management’ tab we can see our newly create LUN:

**After configuring the VSA for the Primary Site repeat the above steps to configure the Secondary Site VSA.

With the LUN created and access provided to your ESX/ESXi hosts through vCenter scan and create a new Datastore from the presented NetApp Edge VSA LUN.

Next up is configuring SnapMirror replication so stay tuned!

-Jason

 Objective 8.1 – Execute VMware Cmdlets and Customize Scripts Using PowerCLI 

Knowledge

Identify vSphere PowerCLI requirements

Directly from the vmware website for PowerCLI 5.1 release notes:
To use VMware vSphere PowerCLI, you need to have installed the following software:

• Windows PowerShell 2.0
• A supported version of .NET Framework
  • .NET Framework 2.0 with Service Pack 2
  • .NET Framework 3.0 or .NET Framework 3.0 with Service Pack 1, or Service Pack 2
  • .NET Framework 3.5 or .NET Framework 3.5 with Service Pack 1

Identify Cmdlet concepts

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms714395(v=vs.85).aspx

• A cmdlet is a lightweight command that is used in the Windows PowerShell environment. The Windows PowerShell runtime invokes these cmdlets within the context of automation scripts that are provided at the command line. The Windows PowerShell runtime also invokes them programmatically through Windows PowerShell APIs.
• Windows PowerShell uses a verb-and-noun name pair to name cmdlets. For example, the Get-Command cmdlet included in Windows PowerShell is used to get all the cmdlets that are registered in the command shell. The verb identifies the action that the cmdlet performs, and the noun identifies the resource on which the cmdlet performs its action.

Identify environment variables usage

•  Environment Variables are usually used as shortcuts to common paths that are found on a computer. Environment Variables are stored in the  PSDrive Env.
• To find which environment variables are available to use, at a powershell prompt type “Get-ChildItem Env:” To which the output will look similar to this:

• In order to use the listed Environement Variables “$env:” should be place in the front

For example

Skills and Abilities

Install and configure vSphere PowerCLI

• Download the latest version of vSphere PowerCLI from the VMware Web site.
• Navigate to the folder that contains the vSphere PowerCLI installer file you downloaded and double-click
• the executable file.
• If the installation wizard detects an earlier version of vSphere PowerCLI on your system, it will attempt
• to upgrade your existing installation.
• On the Welcome page, click Next.
• On the VMware Patents page, click Next.
• Accept the license agreement terms and click Next.
• On the Custom Setup page, select the components that you want to install.
• Option Description
  • vSphere PowerCLI Installs a set of cmdlets for managing vSphere features. This vSphere PowerCLI component is mandatory and selected by default.
  • vCloud Director PowerCLI Installs a set of cmdlets for managing vCloud Director features.
• (Optional) On the Custom Setup page, click Change to select a different location to install
• vSphere PowerCLI.
• Click Next.
• On the Ready to Install the Program page, click Install to proceed with the installation.
• Click Finish to complete the installation process.

Install and configure Update Manager PowerShell Library

You can download the Update Manager PowerCLI installer package from the product landing page.

• To install the Update Manager PowerCLI
• Start the Update Manager PowerCLI installer.
• Click Next in the Welcome page to continue with the installation.
• Read and accept the license agreement terms.
• Click Install.
• Click Finish to complete the installation process.

Use basic and advanced Cmdlets to manage VMs and ESXi Hosts

• For more examples please refer to the PowerCLI User’s Guide
• After connecting to the vCenter Server with “connect-viserver $vcenterservername”, you can retrieve information about the vms and hosts by using the two basic commands “Get-VM and Get-VMHost”.
• Directly from the Get-Help of set-vm and set-vmhost

C:\PS>Get-VM -Location ResourcePool01 | Set-VM -MemoryGB 2 -NumCPU 2
-Upgrades the memory and CPU count of the virtual machines in ResourcePool01.

C:\PS>Set-VM $vm -Name “Web Server” -GuestID winNetStandardGuest -Description “Company’s web server”
-Changes the name, description, and guest ID of the specified virtual machine.

C:\PS>Set-VMHost -VMHost Host -State “Disconnected”
-Resets the state of the Host virtual host to disconnected.

Use Web Service Access Cmdlets

• The get-view and the get-viobjectbyviview are considered the Web Services Access Cmdlets
• Both of these cmdlets function to access/manipulate the underlying .Net objects or PowerCLI
• Get-View takes a Powershell VIObject and converts it to a vSphere .Net View Object. Get-VIObjectByVIView does just the opposite.
• “Using the Web Service Access cmdlets for low-level VMware vSphere management requires some knowledge of both PowerShell scripting and the VMware vSphere API.” quote

Get-View -viewtype “VirtualMachine”
-Returns the vSphere .Net view objects of all the virtual machines

$view=Get-View -viewtype “VirtualMachine”
Get-VIObjectByVIView $view
-Stores the previous example’s result in the variable $view, then converts it back to the standard PowerShell VIObject

Use Datastore and Inventory Providers

• The Datastore and Inventory Providers allow you to browse the  the default datastore drives
• Using the cmdlet Get-PSDrive you should see two psdrives listed, vmstore and vmstores
• VMstore is the last connected vCenter Server, and VMStores is the currently connected vCenter Server
• PSDrives are great because they operate much like one would navigate an operating system via commandline.(Case-Sensitive)

Given a sample script, modify the script to perform a given action

Let’s look at an example we used earlier

Get-VM -Location ResourcePool01 | Set-VM -MemoryGB 2

• This example is great if we only want to ever change the memory allocated to VMs in ResourcePool01, but if we know this will be something we are going to use over and over again to individual VMs, let make it a bit more usable.
• Put this into a txt file

Param($vm, [int]$value)
Get-VM $vm | Set-VM -MemoryGB $value

• Name the text file something easy like “setvmgb.ps1”  The ps1 extension denotes a powershell file. The param($vm) states that $vm will be our parameter for the vm used, and [int]$value will be the integer used. This makes the script much more usable and versile. So let’s try it out

./setvmgb.ps1 -vm myfirstvm -value 3
-Will set the vm “MyFirstVM” to have 3GB

./setvmgb.ps1 -vm “myfirstvm”,”mysecondvm” -value 2
-Will set “MyFirstVM” and “MySecondVM” to have 2gb

./setvmgb -vm (Get-vm -location ResourcePool01) -value 2
-With “Get-vm -location ResourcePool01” we grab all the VMs in that resource pool, and set them to 2GB