vSphere 6: Guest User Mappings

Guest User Mappings is a new feature in vSphere 6.

Enabling SSO accounts to login to guest OS provides users with additional capabilities to perform administrative tasks on guest virtual machines, such as, installing or upgrading the VMware Tools or configuring apps.

In order to configure the mapping, you will need to know the Guest administrative account. This new feature allows your vSphere Administrators to access the Virtual Machines and do certain tasks.

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Limit IOPs Per VMDK

One of the many features in VMware vSphere, which I didn’t know, is the capability, to limit IOPs per VMDK without setting any limitations on the underlying storage system or for the whole Virtual Machine.

LimitIOPerVM

As you can see on the image above, it is easy to limit the IOPs per VMDK within the vSphere web-client.
Just browse to your Virtual Machine and go to edit settings. Select the “Hard drive”, which you would limit on IOPs and expand it.

Note: By default, all VMDKs are set to unlimited IOPs.

Part 4 – vCloud Air OnDemand – Use Cases & Thoughts

In Part 1 of the vCloud Air Series, I have covered how to get started. Part 2, covered how to get your first VM set-up with vCloud Air OnDemand and Part 3 covered how to make use of vCloud Connector to get your vCloud Air OnDemand environment connected with your local vSphere setup.

Screen Shot 2015-05-11 at 10.38.19 PM

Part 4 of the vCloud Air Series will be the last post in this series. Today, I want to cover some of the most common use cases for cloud solutions:

  • Flexible resources for peak-hours
    • If you have certain hours of the day where you need more resources to process data or run some application, often it is reasonable to consider services like VMware’s vCloud Air OnDemand service. With its integration in your local vSphere environment, it is an easy process to move applications into the cloud and add resources.
      The ROI for adding physical servers for certain peak hours is often much less than utilizing the flexibility of on-demand cloud environments.
  • DR solution
    • vCloud AirOnDemand provides perfect capabilities for disaster recoveries.
      • Scale up potential for local applications
      • vCloud Air Disaster Recovery is build on vSphere Replication and provides proper failover capabilities. Fail over to your cloud environment within minutes.
  • Test and development
    • QA and development can now test their applications in the cloud and avoid incpompatibilies due to the feature-rich integration with VMware vSphere.
    • Allow QA teams to run tests in production-like environments. You could clone your production environment and let them test it there while cutting your costs for traditional physical hardware.
    • Quickly scale-up your test and development infrastructure. vCloud Air allows you to quickly scale up your test infrastructure to achieve more accurate and accelerated test cycles.

 

 

Part 3 – vCloud Air OnDemand – vCloud Connector

In Part 1 – vCloud Air OnDemand – Special Promo, I have covered the sign-up process including some special promo. Part 2 – vCloud Air OnDemand – Deploy your first VM, covered the deployment of VMs and how easy it is to use.

Today, I will cover how to make use of the vCloud Connector. vCloud Connector links your local cloud/private cloud with vCloud Air and provides you with an easy-to-use interface. vCloud Connector is fully integrated into vSphere vCenter and once configured, you’ll be able to manage all your clouds through it.

vmw-dgrm-vcloud-connector-one-cloud-lg

Note: Only vCloud Air and local vClouds are supported. No AWS, Azure etc.

 

The following steps will cover the steps to get your private and public cloud connected.
Before we get started, make sure you have downloaded the vCC Server and vCC Node from here.

  1. Deploy both OVFS to your local vCenter instance and power them on.Capture3
    Capture4
    Capture5
  2. Connect to the vCloud Connector Node . The default credentials are admin/vmware.Screen Shot 2015-04-29 at 11.25.45 AM
  3. Click on the “Node” tab and go to “Cloud”. Select vSphere as your Cloud Type and specify your local vCenter Server.Screen Shot 2015-04-29 at 11.37.06 AM
  4. Once the Cloud Registration was successful, go to your vCloud Connector Server . The default credentials are admin/vmware.Screen Shot 2015-04-29 at 11.23.57 AM
  5. Click on the “Server” tab and go to “vSphere Client”. Specify your local vCenter credentials and click on “Register”. This will register the vCloud Connector extension to your vCenter.Screen Shot 2015-04-29 at 11.25.10 AM
  6. Once the registration has completed, go to the “Nodes” tab and click on “Register Node”. Fill in all the details your local vSphere environment and click “Update”. You should now see two Nodes configured. The Local Content Library of your vCC Server and your local vCenter instance.Screen Shot 2015-04-29 at 11.38.16 AMScreen Shot 2015-04-29 at 11.38.21 AM
  7. Next, let’s add your vCloud Air OnDemand to the mix. Click on “Register Node” again. The Node URL will depend on the location of your vCloud Air OnDemand setup. You can find the URLs listed here.Screen Shot 2015-04-29 at 11.48.20 AM
    Note: Your VCD Org Name can be found when you login to https://vca.vmware.com and open the vCloud Director -> Administration -> General. It’s a little hidden.Screen Shot 2015-04-29 at 11.47.51 AM
  8. Once your local vSphere environment and your vCloud Air OnDemand setup are configured, go to your local vCenter and open the vCloud Connector.Screen Shot 2015-04-29 at 12.29.22 PM
  9. You should now be able to see both setups and manage them from here.Screen Shot 2015-04-29 at 11.50.07 AM

Screen Shot 2015-04-29 at 11.50.17 AM

 

Part 2 – vCloud Air OnDemand – Deploy your first VM

In Part 1 – vCloud Air OnDemand – Special Promo, I have covered the registration process and a special promo code which gives you $500 instead of $300.

This part will cover the installation of your first Virtual Machine with VMware vCloud Air OnDemand.

Get your first VM installed in just 9 steps:

  1. Login to https://vca.vmware.com
  2. Select Virtual Private Cloud OnDemand.Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 3.55.00 PM
  3. Select where you would like to host your first VM.
    Currently Australia, Germany, UK and US are available locations.Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 3.56.24 PM 1
  4. Once you’ve selected your location, vCloud Air will set-up a virtual data center, gateway and a routed network. This will take a few minutes.Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 3.57.17 PM
  5. Click on Create your first virtual machine.Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 4.36.24 PM
  6. Select a VM template or create the VM from scratch. In this article, I have chosen a Ubuntu Server template.Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 4.48.40 PM
  7. Next, set the hardware settings for your VM and see the costs per day or per months for it.
    SSD-Accelerated storage is double the price of the Standard storage.Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 4.50.02 PM
  8. After the VM has been created, it will automatically be powered-on.Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 5.03.47 PM
  9. Click on the VM name and open the remote console.

Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 5.07.39 PM

 

That’s it with Part 2 of my vCloud Air OnDemand series..

Note: Do not forget to use promo code “Influencer2015” for a free $500 instead of $300. This promo code works only for new vCloud Air users.