Dispatches¶

Announcing the VMware Validated Design for Software-Defined Data Center 2.0

On behalf of the VMware Validated Design team, we are excited to announce the General Availability of the VMware Validated Design for Software-Defined Data Center 2.0.

What are the VMware Validated Designs?

A VMware Validated Design is a comprehensive set of documents that provide a prescriptive and extensively-tested blueprint to deploy and operate a Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) using VMware’s technology. VMware Validated Designs synthesize the full SDDC software stack: compute, storage, networking, and management into standardized, streamlined and scalable designs, and provide detailed guidance for an optimal deployment and efficient on-going operations.

Each design is developed by experts, and rigorously tested and validated to ensure successful deployment and efficient on-going operations. Interoperability testing ensures that a validated design stays valid as subsequent versions of component products are released.

What is vCenter Server Watchdog?

If you’ve done any research into the high-availability options available for vCenter Server 6.0, hopefully you have had a chance to read the VMware vCenter Server 6.0 Availability Guide written in collaboration with Technical Marketing and Global Support Services as well as KB 1024051. And you might have noticed particular sections that refer to the vCenter Server Watchdog. But what exactly is the vCenter Server Watchdog?

Enabled “out of the box” in 6.0, the vCenter Server Watchdog provides better availability by periodically verifying the status of vCenter Server.  It does this in two ways:

• The PID Watchdog monitors the processes running on vCenter Server
• The API Watchdog uses the vSphere API to monitor the functionality of vCenter Server.

If any services fail, the Watchdog attempts to restart them. If it cannot restart the service because of a host failure, vSphere HA restarts the virtual machine running the service on a new host.

That’s sounds slick, right? Well, let’s dive in and take a look at each of these watchdogs in detail.

Reconfiguring and Repointing Deployment Models in vCenter Server 6.0 Update 1

In my last blog post, we discussed some of the new features and capabilities found in vCenter Server 6.0 such as how you can quickly and easily update the vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 to Update 1.

Now, it’s time to focus our attention on a two key enhancements found in vCenter Server 6.0 Update 1 - both the appliance and Windows-based form factors:

• Reconfigure – You can now reconfigure an embedded deployment node to an external deployment model, also known as MxN.

• Repoint – Simplified repointing of a management node in an external deployment model from one external Platform Services Controller to another external Platform Services Controller.

Why is this important?

The reconfiguration enhancement enables you to take an existing embedded deployment and transition it to a more optimal external deployment model – MxN.  There is also the simplified ability to repoint a management node to another Platform Services Controller which enables you to quickly recover from an external Platform Services Controller failure and to distribute load to alternate nodes that are in the same SSO domain.

Before moving forward with either the reconfigure or repoint operations, there is a key set of requirements that you need to meet.

Introducing the Platform Services Controller Interface in vCenter Server 6.0 Update 1

Back in March, we introduced vSphere 6.0 and the new architecture for vCenter Server. With this new architecture you learned about the Platform Services Controller, a new functional component of vCenter that moves beyond just Single Sign-On to include additional platform services such as:

• Licensing Service
• Certificate Authority (VMCA)
• Certificate Store (VECS)
• Lookup Service for Component Registrations

In the 6.0 release, administration and configuration of the Platform Service Controller was primarily performed by an SSH session, the vSphere Web Client and selecting the node in System Configuration, or through the Direct Console User Interface of the appliance.

In vCenter Server 6.0 Update 1, we're excited to introduce the next stage of the administration with the Platform Services Controller Interface, a fully HTML5-based interface to administer and configure many of the services that run on the PSC.

Confessions of an Energy Consciousness Mind

I have a confession.

My data center kit has been using too much energy.

Having kit available at my disposable is great, but I have been wasting this resource when it's not required by my workloads. And if there's one thing I try to be conscious of, it's energy consumption. Just ask my kids who I chase from room to room turning off lights, screens, and the lot when they aren't using them.

But why not in the data center? Did you know that hosts typically use 60%+ of their peak power when idle?

Until recently, I had overlooked configuring my kit to use the vSphere Distributed Power Management ("DPM") feature to manage power consumption and save energy.

With the release of vSphere 6.0 it's a good time to review and take deeper look into the capabilities and benefits of this feature.