VSI 7.3.3 with vSphere 6.7 support

Only 3 days ago I wrote about VMware's new vSphere 6.7 release and cautioned that the current VSI release did not support it but a release was on the way...and today it has arrived. VSI 7.3.3. is now available for download. Just a couple things to know about this release. First, the release will supplant...

vSphere 6.7 automated UNMAP enhancements

Continuing from vSphere 6.7 post... So in vSphere 6.5 VMware introduced automated UNMAP for datastores. In so doing they offered users two option: on (default) or off. Rather than a checkbox, however, VMware has what appears to be a scale which would allow the user to decide how aggressive UNMAP should be. It didn't work...

VMAX Plugin for vRO Walkthroughs

I put together a few videos for the VMAX Plugin. The first one here steps through installing the plugin in the vRealize Orchestrator Control Center. Be sure the service for this is started before attempting since by default it is disabled. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mPcLJrsIXM The second video demonstrates how to add a new vCenter to vRO and...

VSI 7.3

Happy New Year everyone. It's been a bit since I've posted but we do have a new VSI release to talk about. This one comes late as we do normally release quarterly, but seeing as it wasn't expected at all, I suppose a month late isn't bad. So last time I wrote about VSI, I mentioned 7.2 was most...

Down Protection Site: VMware SRM TestFailover with the SRDF SRA

One of the great features of VMware SRM is the ability to run a test failover without impacting either the protection or recovery site. When using the SRDF SRA this means the replication between the R1 and the R2, whether asynchronous or synchronous, will not be broken. The SRA uses TimeFinder technology to accomplish this,...

VSI 7.2 – vSphere 6.5 support

VSI 7.2 is available today for download here. This is quite a minor release, though not unimportant because it adds support for vSphere 6.5. Now you might say, wait I thought you introduced vSphere 6.5 support In VSI 7.1. Yeah, well we did kind of, but it was only support for the 6.5 Web Client...

vSphere Integrated Containers with VMAX

Containers have been around for years at this point, but honestly it wasn't until Dell EMC World this year that someone asked us if we were doing anything with them on VMAX. Cue the new project, or investigation anyway. I've probably mentioned I tend to have my hands full with normal VMAX/VMware stuff but when...

vRA and VVols redux

About a year ago I published a post on integrating vRealize Automation 7 (vRA) with VVols. At that time the implementation was really a manual process because VMware had not created a Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) package for vRA 7, only version 6. In September of last year VMware finally updated the SPBM package...

SRDF Adapter Utilities End of Life

The SRDF Adapter Utilities (SRDF-AU) is a free, optional plug-in that provides a GUI interface to modify the XML files that are part of the SRDF SRA for VMware SRM and used primarily in testing. The SRDF-AU only runs on Windows and therefore requires that one of the vCenters in an SRM configuration is running on Windows....

Uninstall the VSI plug-in

I mean who wants to do that? Well turns out lots of people. I've had my share of battling with the VSI plug-in but I expect it with all my development environments. It has come to my attention, though, that many customers also experience the joy of trying to uninstall the plug-in. This is a typical, frustrated...