Technology¶

Using the VMware Cloud Foundation Async Patch Tool with PowerShell

The VMware Cloud Foundation Async Patch Tool is a command-line tool that enables you to perform asynchronous patching on a VMware Cloud Foundation instance. This enable you to apply patches that are not part of a VMware Cloud Foundation release but are required to address a specific issue, such as a security vulnerability.

Recently, I was asked to assist a couple customers with automating the process of applying async patches to their VMware Cloud Foundation instance. The customers were already using PowerShell to automate other tasks, including using some of our open source PowerShell modules and wanted to continue using PowerShell to automate the async patching process if possible.

This article provides examples of using the Async Patch Tool with PowerShell. The examples are based on the following:

• VMware Cloud Foundation with vSAN Ready Nodes (--SKU VCF).
• Downloading async patches to a jump host.
• Enabling and disabling async patches for a VMware Cloud Foundation instance.
• Enabling version upgrades for a VMware Cloud Foundation instance.
• Applying a hot patch for SDDC Manager.

Enabling Active Directory Federation Services for VMware Cloud Foundation

Ever wanted to have a true single sign-on experience with your on-premises VMware Cloud Foundation-based private cloud?

In the Summer of 2020 I spent quite a bit of my spare time digging in and learning adjacent product and cloud technologies. One of the products that landed in my view was Active Directory Federation Services with VMware products.

This blog post provides implementation guidance for integrating the following with Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) for Single Sign-On based on VMware Cloud Foundation 4.x and VMware Validated Design 6.x.

Reference Design for vRealize Network Insight on Cloud Foundation

In the Summer of 2020 I spent quite a bit of my spare time digging in and learning adjacent product and cloud technologies. One of the products that landed in my view was vRealize Network Insight. At the same time, my intent was to eventually include this in a VMware Validated Design / VMware Cloud Foundation general release. While the content that I authored during my exploration was not prioritized for an official release, the design was in an Early Access format for a Reference Design.

As a result, I'm happy to share the reference design that follows the same detailed design approach we use in the VMware Validated Design. The design is authored with the default design objective to support up to 10K virtual machines and 2M flows but can be scaled up, as needed. In addition, the design can support single-region and future expansion to multi-region (or multi-instance) Cloud Foundation.

Shutdown and Startup a vSphere with Kubernetes Workload Domain

In the last couple of days I've been doing some testing for a VMware Validated Design 6.0.x deployment which, of course, consumes VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0.x. By now, most have heard of vSphere 7 with Kubernetes and Tanzu Kubernetes Cluster which can be deployed in the design - but do you known how do you gracefully shutdown a workload domain and perform a graceful startup from a cold state?

After quite a bit of testing, I'm happy to share the process that I use to perform the processes.

vRealize Suite Account Expirations and Password Requirements

A quick post to share some handy content on the account expidations and password required across vRealize Suite 2019 based on some recent work I've done on the VMware Validated Design 6.0.x release. Enjoy!

Table: Users and Password Expirations