We had a strange issue that any time a VM was snapshotted it then forced a reboot and sysprep. Reviewing the customization logs(C:\windows\temp\vmware-imc\guestcust.log) I noticed the following error..Unable to set customization status in vmx.

Upon further research it seems this is a known issue and is resolved in ESXi 5.1 Express Patch 5 KB2077640 as referenced in this article KB2078352.

However the hotfix only fixes future occurences, you still need to fix all the VMs affected. See below for the powercli script I created to connect to all my vcenters, get VM’s that are affected and …

Thank you to everyone who listened to me on the EMEA vBrownbag. Here are copies of documentation and scripts on how to configure ESXi to use the remote dump collector.

Check the ESXi Dump Collector Configuration Example:

1Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost)){
2$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
3$esxcli.system.coredump.network.get()}

Setting the ESXi Dump Collector Example:

1Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost)) {
2$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
3$esxcli.system.coredump.network.set($null, “vmk0″, “IPtoDumpCollector″, “6500″)
4$esxcli.system.coredump.network.set($true)}

Thank you to everyone who listened to me on the EMEA vBrownbag. Here are copies of documentation and scripts on how to configure ESXi to use the Syslog collector.

Check the ESXi Syslog Collector Configuration Example:

1Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost)){
2$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
3$esxcli.system.syslog.config.get()}

Setting the ESXi Syslog Collector Example:

1Foreach ($vmhost in (get-vmhost)){
2$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
3$esxcli.system.syslog.config.set($null, $null, $null, $null,"udp://IPtoSyslogServer:514″)
4$esxcli.system.syslog.reload()}

Post-Installation …

In Part 1 we showed you how to deploy vCloud Connector 2.6, and in Part 2 we showed you how to configure it.

Here in Part 3 we will show you how to migrate a workload from your private cloud to your public cloud.

Lets go back to our vCenter and select our vCloud Connector Plugin

Expand your vCenter and select the folder that contains the VM you wish to copy to vCHS. (The source VM must be powered off)

So luckily i was selected for the June 2014 wave of vCloud Hybrid Service access as a vExpert. I have been looking forwarding to using vCHS since it went GA and am glad to finally have the opportunity to use it hands on.

Once I got access I knew I wanted to copy some of my existing workloads to vCHS instead of having to start from scratch. I begin to look for some good guides on implementing vCloud Connector 2.6 but couldn’t find anything as it was just released and majorly overhauled.

Here is Part 2 a continuation of Deploying vCloud Connector 2.6 and Configuring For vCHS (Part 1) (http://davidstamen.com/2014/06/03/deploying-vcloud-connector-2-6-and-configuring-for-vchs-part-1/) where we will configure vCloud connector to your Private(vCenter) and Public(vCHS) clouds.

Lets start with getting the vCloud Connector Server ready. Just in case you forgot what IP you assigned we can open the appliance and view the management information.

As we can see here the URL to configure the appliace is https://192.168.0.13:5480 and the default username is admin and default password is …

For upcoming testing there was a need to create 140 datastores on a cluster for testing. Who wants to do that much clicking and typing? Not me! You can use the below PowerCLI commands to get the SCSI ID’s,  Create the Datastore and then Rescan all hosts in the cluster.

How do i get the CanonicalName for allocated disks?

1Get-SCSILun -VMhost 192.168.1.103 -LunType Disk | Select CanonicalName,Capacity

How do I create a VMFS datastore for the CanonicalName I identified above?

1New-Datastore -VMHost Host -Name Datastore -Path CanonicalName -VMFS

How do i rescan all the hosts in the cluster …

After upgrading vCenter this functionality is no longer enabled by default. Please perform the following steps to enable rename of files upon successful Storage vMotion.

1. Log into the vSphere Client as an Administrator
2. Click Administration > vCenter Server Settings
3. Click Advanced Settings
4. Add this advanced parameter key:

• provisioning.relocate.enableRename

5. Set the value to: true
6. Click Add
7. Click OK
8. Restart the VMware VirtualCenter Server service for the changes to take effect

If you are configuring a cluster with less than 2 datastores, you will receive an HA warning “The number of heartbeat datastores for host is 1, which is less than required: 2” You can add an option to the HA Advanced Options to supress this warning.

1. Log in to vCenter Server
2. Right-click the cluster and click Edit Settings
3. Click vSphere HA > Advanced Options
4. Under Option, add an entry for das.ignoreInsufficientHbDatastore
5. Under Value, type true
6. Click Cluster Features
7. De-select Turn on vSphere HA and click OK
8. Wait for all the hosts in the cluster to re-configure HA, then …

When setting up a cluster for testing you may not have 2 nics to use for management. to bypass the warning you can configure HA to not alert you for this issue.

To perform the steps in the c# client.

1. From the VMware Infrastructure Client, right-click on the cluster and click Edit Settings.
2. Select vSphere HA and click Advanced Options.
3. In the Options column, enter das.ignoreRedundantNetWarning
4. In the Value column, type true
5. Click OK.
6. Right-click the host and click Reconfigure for vSphere HA. This reconfigures HA.

To perform the steps in the webclient.

1. From the vSphere Web Client, right click …