ESXi

VMware Workstation 17 Nested vSAN ESA Overview

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In this high level video I give an overview of my #VMware #workstation running 3 x nested ESXi 8 Hosts, vSAN ESA, VCSA, and a Windows 2022 AD. Additionally, I show some early performance results using HCI Bench.

For more information around my VMware Workstation Generation 8 Build check out my latest BOM here

This entry was posted in ESXi, Home Lab, Storage, vCenter Server, Virtual SAN, vmware, VSAN, Workstation and tagged , .

First Look GEN8 ESXi/vSAN ESA 8 Home Lab (Part 1)

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I’m kicking off my next generation home lab with this first look in to my choice for an ESXi/vSAN 8 host. There will be more videos to come as this series evolves!

This entry was posted in Dell, ESXi, Home Lab, InfiniBand, Other, Video Blog, vmware, VSAN.

Will ESXi 8 install on to the ASRockRack EPC621D8A motherboard?

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In this video I show how I installed ESXi 8 on to the ASRockRack EPC621D8A motherboard and discuss some of the caveats of doing so.

Links in the video:
ASRockRack EPC621D8A motherboard: https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EPC621D8A#specifications

VMware Comptibility Guide: https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/detail.php?deviceCategory=server&productid=47030&deviceCategory=server&details=1&partner=600&page=1&display_interval=10&sortColumn=Partner&sortOrder=Asc

H3C NIC-GE-4P-360T-L3 NIC: https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/detail.php?deviceCategory=io&productid=50861&deviceCategory=io&details=1&VID=8086&DID=37d1&SVID=8086&page=1&display_interval=10&sortColumn=Partner&sortOrder=Asc

This entry was posted in ESXi, Home Lab.

Quick NAS Topics: Serial USB Server with the LOCKERSTOR 10

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In this Quick NAS Topic video I go over how to install VirutalHere USB Server on the LOCKERSTOR 10 and its client on my Windows 10 PC. This enables the client to establish a link to the a USB NULL Model Cable which is connected directly into the NAS.  Once established I’m able to use putty to create a serial SSH connection.

** Products in this Video **

This entry was posted in asustor, ESXi, Home Lab, Storage, vmware.

Tips for installing Windows 7 x32 SP1 on Workstation 16.1.2

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This past weekend I needed to install Windows 7 x32 to support some older software. After installing Windows 7 x32 I noticed VMware tools is grayed out.  I then tried to install VMware tools manually but it failed. There are a few tricks when installing Windows 7 x32 on to Workstation 16.1.2 and in this blog I’ll cover the the steps I took.

So what changed and why all these extra steps?

You may recall that Workstation 16.0.0 could install Windows 7SP1 x32 without any additional intervention. Starting September 2019, Microsoft added SHA-2 algorithm requirements for driver signing.  As Workstation 16 released updates it too included updated VMtools that were complaint with the Microsoft SHA-2 requirements.  So if you deploy the Windows 7 SP1 x32 ISO (which doesn’t have the SHA-2 patch) the vmtools install will fail because it cannot validate the drivers. For a bit more information See VMware KB 78655.

What are options to fix this?

By default Windows 7×32 SP1 doesn’t include the needed SHA-2 updates.  Users have 2 options when doing new installs.

Option 1: Create an updated Windows 7SP1 ISO by slip streaming in the Convenience Rollup Patch (More details here) and then use this slipstreamed ISO to do the install on Workstation. From there you should be able to install VMTools.

Option 2: After Windows 7 SP1 installation is complete, manually install the SHA-2 update, and then install VMtools.  See steps below.

Steps for Option 2:

  • First I created a new Workstation VM. When creating it I made sure the ISO path pointed to the Windows 7 SP1 ISO and Workstation adjusted the VM hardware to be compatible with Windows 7 SP1.  I allowed the OS installation to complete.
  • After the OS was installed I applied the following MS Patch.
  • After the rebooted, I went into Workstation and did the following:
    • Right clicked on the VM > Settings > CD/DVD
    • Made sure ‘Devices status’ was check for connected and connect at power on
    • Clicked on ‘Use ISO Image’ > Browse
    • Browsed to this folder ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation’
    • Choose ‘windows.iso’
    • Choose OK to closed the VM Settings
    • Back in the Windows 7 VM I went into File Explorer opened up the CD and ran setup.exe
    • From there I followed the default steps to install VM Tools and rebooted
  • Screenshot of the final outcome

This entry was posted in ESXi, Fusion, vmware, Windows, Workstation.

Home Lab Generation 7: Part 2 – New Hardware and Software Updates

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In the final part of this 2 part series, I’ll be documenting the steps I took to update my Home Lab Generation 7 with the new hardware and software changes.  There’s quite a bit of change going on and these steps worked well for my environment.

Pre-Update-Steps:

  1. Check Product Interoperability Matrix (VCSA, ESXi, NSX, vRNI, VRLI)
  2. Check VMware Compatibility Guide (Network Cards, JBOD)
  3. Ensure the vSAN Cluster is in a health state
  4. Backup VM’s
  5. Ensure your passwords are updated
  6. Document Basic Host settings (Network, vmks, NTP, etc.)
  7. Backup VCSA via the Management Console > Backup

Steps to update vCenter Server from 7U2d (7.0.2.00500) to 7U3a (7.0.3.00100):

  1. Downloaded VCSA 7U3a VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-7.0.3.00100-18778458-patch-FP.iso
  2. Use WinSCP to connect to an ESXi host and upload the update/patch to vSAN ISO-Images Folder
  3. Mount the ISO from step 1 to VCSA 7U2d VM
    • NOTE: A reboot of the VCSA my be necessary for it to recognize the attached ISO
  4. Went to VCSA Management Console > Update > Check Updates should auto-start
    • NOTE: It might fail to find the ISO. If so, choose CD ROM to detect the ISO
  5. Expanded the Version > Run Pre-Update checks
  6. Once it passed pre-checks, choose Stage and Install > Accept the Terms > Next
  7. Check ‘I have backed up vCenter Server…’
    • NOTE: Clicking on ‘go to Backup’ will Exit out and you’ll have to start over
  8. Click Finish and allow it to complete
  9. Once done log back into the Management console > Summary and validate the Version
  10. Lastly, detach the datastore ISO, I simple choose ‘Client Device’

Change Boot USB to SSD and upgrade to ESXi 7U3 on Host at a time:

  1. Remove Host from NSX-T Manager (Follow these steps)
  2. In vCenter Server
    1. Put Host 1 in Maintenance Mode Ensure Accessibility (better if you can evacuate all data | run pre-check validation)
    2. Shut down the host
    3. Remove Host from Inventory (NOTE: Wait for host to go to not responding first)
  3. On the HOST
    1. Precautionary step – Turn off the power supply on the host, helps with the onboard management ability to detect changes
    2. Remove the old USB boot device
    3. Install Dell HBA330 and M.2/NVMe PCIe Card w/ 240GB SSD into the Host
    4. Power On the Host and validate firmware is updated (Mobo, Disk, Network, etc.)
    5. During boot ensure the Dell HBA330 POST screen displays (optional hit CTRL-C to view its options)
    6. In the Host BIOS Update the boot disk to the new SSD Card
  4. ESXi Install 
    1. Boot the host to ESXi 7.0U3 ISO (I used SuperMicro Virtual Media to boot from)
    2. Install ESXi to the SSD Card, Remove ISO, Reboot
    3. Update Host boot order in BIOS for the SSD Card and boot host
    4. In the ESXi DUCI, configure host with correct IPv4/VLAN, DNS, Host Name, enable SSH/Shell, disable IPv6 and reboot
    5. From this ESXi host and from another connected device, validate you can ping the Host IP and its DNS name
    6. Add Host to the Datacenter (not vSAN Cluster)
    7. Ensure Host is in Maintenance mode and validate health
    8. Erase all partitions on vSAN Devices (Host > Configure > Storage Devices > Select devices > Erase Partitions)
    9. Rename the new SSD datastore (Storage > R-Click on datastore > Rename)
    10. Add Host to Cluster (but do not add to vSAN)
    11. Add Host to vDS Networking, could be multiple vDS switches (Networking > Target vDS > Add Manage Hosts > Add Hosts > Migrate VMKernel)
    12. Complete the Host configuration settings (NTP, vmks)
    13. Create vSAN Disk Groups (Cluster > Configure > vSAN > Disk Management)
    14. Monitor and allow to complete, vSAN Replication Objects (Cluster > Monitor > vSAN > Resyncing Objects)
    15. Extract a new Host Profile and use it to build out the other hosts in the cluster
  5. ESXi Install – Additional Hosts
    1. Repeat Steps 1, 2, 3, and only Steps 4.1-4.10
    2. Attach Host Profile created in Step 4.15
    3. Check Host Profile Compliance
    4. Edit and update Host Customizations
    5. Remediate the host (the remediation will to a pre-check too)
    6. Optional validate host settings
    7. Exit Host from Maintenance mode
    8. Before starting next host ensure vSAN Resyncing Objects is completed

Other Notes / Thoughts:

Host Profiles: You may be thinking “why didn’t he use ESXi Backup/Restore or Host Profiles to simply this migration vs. doing all these steps?”.  Actually, at first I did try both but they didn’t work due to the add/changes of PCIe devices and upgrade of the ESXi OS.  Backup/Restore and Host Profiles really like things to not change for them to work with out error.  Now there are adjustments one could make and I tried to adjust them but in the end I wasn’t able to get them to adjust to the new hosts.  They were just the wrong tool for the first part of this job.   However, Host Profiles did work well post installation after all the changes were made. vSAN Erase Partitions Step 4.8:  This step can be optional it just depends on the environment.  In-fact I skipped this step on the last host and vSAN imported the disks with out issue.  Granted most of my vm’s are powered off, which means the vSAN replicas are not changing.  In an environment where there are a lot of powered on VM’s vSAN doing step 4.8 might be best.  Again, it just depends on the environment state. If you like my ‘no-nonsense’ videos and blogs that get straight to the point… then post a comment or let me know… Else, I’ll start posting really boring content!

This entry was posted in ESXi, Home Lab, vCenter Server, vmware.

Home Lab Generation 7: Updating the Dell HBA330 firmware without a Dell Server

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In this quick video I review how I updated the Dell HBA330 firmware using a Windows 10 PC.

 

This video was made as a supplement to my 2 Part blog post around updating my Home Lab Generation 7.

See:

Blog >> https://vmexplorer.com/2021/11/10/home-lab-generation-7-part-1-change-rational-for-software-and-hardware-changes/

Firmware >> https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-ng/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=tf1m6

This entry was posted in ESXi, Home Lab, vmware.

Quick NAS Topics Changing Storage Pool from RAID 1 to RAID5 with the Synology 1621+

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In this not so Quick NAS topic I cover how to expand a RAID 1 volume and migrate it to a RAID 5 storage pool with the Synology 1621+. Along the way we find a disk that has some bad sectors, run an extended test and then finalize the migration.

** Products / Links Seen in this Video **

Synology DiskStation DS1621+ — https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS1621+

This entry was posted in ESXi, Home Lab, NAS, SAN, Storage, Synology, vmware.

Home Lab Generation 7: Part 1 – Change Rational for software and hardware changes

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Well its that time of year again, time to deploy new changes, upgrades, and add some new hardware.  I’ll be updating my ESXi hosts and vCenter Server to the latest vSphere 7 Update 3a from 7U2d. Additionally, I’ll be swapping out the IBM 5210 JBOD for a Dell HBA330+ and lastly I’ll change my boot device to a more reliable and persistent disk.  I have 3 x ESXi hosts with VSAN, vDS switches, and NSX-T.  If you want to better understand my environment a bit better check out this page on my blog.  In this 2 part blog I’ll go through the steps I took to update my home lab and some of the rational behind it.

There are two main parts to the blog:

  • Part 1 – Change Rational for software and hardware changes – In this part I’ll explain some of my thoughts around why I’m making these software and hardware changes. 
  • Part 2 – Installation and Upgrade Steps – These are the high level steps I took to change and upgrade my Home lab

Part 1 – Change Rational for software and hardware changes:

There are three key changes that I plan to make to my environment:

  • One – Update to vSphere 7U3a
    • vSphere 7U3 has brought many new changes to vSphere including many needed features updates to vCenter server and ESXi.  Additionally, there have been serval important bug fixes and corrections that vSphere 7U3 and 7U3a will address. For more information on the updates with vSphere 7U3 please see the “vSphere 7 Update 3 – What’s New” by Bob Plankers.  For even more information check out the release notes.   
    • Part of my rational in upgrading is to prepare to talk with my customers around the benefits of this update.   I always test out the latest updates on Workstation first then migrate those learnings in to Home Lab.  
  • Two – Change out the IBM 5210 JBOD
    • The IBM 5210 JBOD is a carry over component from my vSphere 6.x vSAN environment. It worked well with vSphere 6.x and 7U1.  However, starting in 7U2 it started to exhibit stuck IO issues and the occasional PSOD.  This card was only certified with vSphere/vSAN 6.x and at some point the cache module became a requirement.  My choices at this point are to update this controller with a cache module (~$50 each) and hope it works better or make a change.  In this case I decided to make a change to the Dell HBA330 (~$70 each).  The HBA330 is a JBOD controller that Dell pretty much worked with VMware to create for vSAN.  It is on the vSphere/vSAN 7U3 HCL and should have a long life there too.  Additionally, the HBA330 edge connectors (Mini SAS SFF-8643) line up with the my existing SAS break-out cables. When I compare the benefits of the Dell HBA330 to upgrading the cache module for the IBM 5210 the HBA330 was the clear choice.  The trick is finding a HBA330 that is cost effective and comes with a full sized slot cover.  Its a bit tricky but you can find them on eBay, just have to look a bit harder.

  • Three – Change my boot disk
    • Last September-2021, VMware announced boot from USB is going to change and customers were advised to plan ahead for these upcoming changes.   My current hosts are using cheap SanDisk USB 64GB memory sticks.  Its something I would never recommend for a production environment, but for a Home Lab these worked okay.  I originally chose them during my Home Lab Gen 5 updates as I need to do testing with USB booted Hosts.  Now that VMware has deprecated support for USB/SD devices it’s time to make a change. Point of clarity: the word deprecated can mean different things to different people.  However, in the software industry deprecated means “discourage the use of (something, such as a software product) in favor of a newer or better alternative”.  vSphere 7 is in a deprecated mode when it comes to USB/SD booted hosts, they are still supported, and customers are highly advised to plan ahead. As of this writing, legacy (legacy is a fancy word for vSphere.NEXT) USB hosts will require a persistent disk and eventually (Long Term Supported) USB/SD booted hosts will no longer be supported.  Customers should seek guidance from VMware when making these changes.

    • The requirement to be in a “Long Term Supported” mode is to have a ESXi host be booted from HDD, SSD, or a PCIe device.  In my case, I didn’t want to add more disks to my system and chose to go with a PCIe SSD/NVMe card. I chose this PCIe device that will support M.2 (SATA SSD) and NMVe devices in one slot and I decided to go with a Kingston A400 240G Internal SSD M.2  as my boot disk. The A400 with 240GB should be more than enough to boot the ESXi hosts and keep up with its disk demands going forward.   

 

Final thoughts and a important warning.  Making changes that affect your current environment are never easy but are sometimes necessary.  With a little planning it can make the journey a bit easier.  I’ll be testing these changes over the next few months and will post up if issues occur.  However, a bit of warning – adding new devices to an environment can directly impact your ability to migrate or upgrade your hosts.  Due to the hardware decisions I have made a direct ESXi upgrade is not possible and I’ll have to back out my current hosts from vCenter Server plus other software and do a new installation.  However, those details and more will be in Part 2 – Installation and Upgrade Steps.

Opportunity for vendor improvement – If backup vendors like Synology, asustor, Veeam, Veritas, naviko, and Arcoins could really shine.  If they could backup and restore a ESXi host to dislike hardware  or boot disks this would be a huge improvement for VI Admin, especially when they have tens of thousands of hosts the need to change from their USB to persistent disks.  This is not a new ask, VI admins have been asking for this option for years, now maybe these companies will listen as many users and their hosts are going to be affected by these upcoming requirements.

This entry was posted in ESXi, Home Lab, Test Lab, vCenter Server, vmware, VSAN, Whitebox.

VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1 | vCenter, ESXi, vSAN | Information

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VMware announced the GA Releases of the following:

  • VMware vCenter 7.0 Update 1
  • VMware ESXi 7.0 Update 1
  • VMware vSAN 7.0 Update 1

See the base table for all the technical enablement links, now including VMworld 2020 OnDemand Sessions

.

Release Overview
vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1 | ISO Build 16860138

ESXi 7.0 Update 1 | ISO Build 16850804

VMware vSAN 7.0 Update 1 | Build 16850804
What’s New vCenter Server
Inclusive terminology: In vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1, as part of a company-wide effort to remove instances of non-inclusive language in our products, the vSphere team has made changes to some of the terms used in the vSphere Client. APIs and CLIs still use legacy terms, but updates are pending in an upcoming release.

  • vSphere Accessibility Enhancements: vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1 comes with significant accessibility enhancements based on recommendations by the Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR), which is the internationally accepted standard.  Read more
  • vSphere Ideas Portal: With vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1, any user with a valid my.vmware.com account can submit feature requests by using the vSphere Ideas portal. Read more
  • Enhanced vSphere Lifecycle Manager hardware compatibility pre-checks for vSAN environments: vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1 adds vSphere Lifecycle Manager hardware compatibility pre-checks. Read more
  • Increased scalability with vSphere Lifecycle Manager​: For vSphere Lifecycle Manager​ operations with ESXi hosts and clusters is up to:
    • 64 supported clusters from 15
    • 96 supported ESXi hosts within a cluster from 64. For vSAN environments, the limit is still 64
    • 280 supported ESXi hosts managed by a vSphere Lifecycle Manager Image from 150
    • 64 clusters on which you can run remediation in parallel, if you initiate remediation at a data center level, from 15
  • vSphere Lifecycle Manager support for coordinated upgrades between availability zones: With vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1, to prevent overlapping operations, vSphere Lifecycle Manager updates fault domains in vSAN clusters in a sequence. ESXi hosts within each fault domain are still updated in a rolling fashion. For vSAN stretched clusters, the first fault domain is always the preferred site.
  • Extended list of supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu versions for the VMware vSphere Update Manager Download Service (UMDS): vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1 adds new Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu versions that UMDS supports. For the complete list of supported versions, see Supported Linux-Based Operating Systems for Installing UMDS.
  • Silence Alerts button in VMware Skyline Health – With vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1, you can stop alerts for certain health checks, such as notifications for known issues, by using the Silence Alerts button.  Read more
  • Configure SMTP authentication: vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1 adds support to SMTP authentication in the vCenter Server Appliance to enable sending alerts and alarms by email in secure mode. Configure Mail Sender Settings.   Read more
  • System virtual machines for vSphere Cluster Services: In vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1, vSphere Cluster Services adds a set of system virtual machines in every vSphere cluster to ensure the healthy operation of VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler. For more information, see VMware knowledge base articles KB80472, KB79892 and KB80483.
  • Licensing for VMware Tanzu Basic: With vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1, licensing for VMware Tanzu Basic splits into separate license keys for vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus and VMware Tanzu Basic. In vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1, you must provide either a vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus license key or a vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus with an add-on for Kubernetes license key to enable the Enterprise Plus functionality for ESXi hosts. In addition, you must provide a VMware Tanzu Basic license key to enable Kubernetes functionality for all ESXi hosts that you want to use as part of a Supervisor Cluster.
    When you upgrade a 7.0 deployment to 7.0 Update 1, existing Supervisor Clusters automatically start a 60-day evaluation mode. If you do not install a VMware Tanzu Basic license key and assign it to existing Supervisor Clusters within 60 days, you see some limitations in the Kubernetes functionality. For more information, see Licensing for vSphere with Tanzu and VMware knowledge base article KB80868.
  • For VMware vSphere with Tanzu updates, see VMware vSphere with Tanzu Release Notes.
Upgrade/Install Considerations vCenter
Before upgrading to vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1, you must confirm that the Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) mode is set to enhanced, which enables the Multiple Link Aggregation Control Protocol (the multipleLag parameter) on the VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) in your vCenter Server system.

If the LACP mode is set to basic, indicating One Link Aggregation Control Protocol (singleLag), the distributed virtual port groups on the vSphere Distributed Switch might lose connection after the upgrade and affect the management vmknic, if it is on one of the dvPort groups. During the upgrade precheck, you see an error such as Source vCenter Server has instance(s) of Distributed Virtual Switch at unsupported lacpApiVersion.

For more information on converting to Enhanced LACP Support on a vSphere Distributed Switch, see VMware knowledge base article 2051311. For more information on the limitations of LACP in vSphere, see VMware knowledge base article 2051307.

Product Support Notices

  • vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1 does not support VMware Site Recovery Manager 8.3.1.
  • Deprecation of Server Message Block (SMB) protocol version 1.0
    File-based backup and restore of vCenter Server by using Server Message Block (SMB) protocol version 1.0 is deprecated in vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1. Removal of SMBv.1 is due in a future vSphere release.
  • End of General Support for ​VMware Tools 9.10.x and 10.0.x  VMware Product Lifecycle Matrix
  • Deprecation of the VMware Service Lifecycle Manager API
    VMware plans to deprecate the VMware Service Lifecycle Manager API (vmonapi service) in a future release. For more information, see VMware knowledge base article 80775.
  • End of support for Internet Explorer 11
    Removal of Internet Explorer 11 from the list of supported browsers for the vSphere Client is due in a future vSphere release.
  • VMware Host Client in maintenance mode
What’s New ESXi
What’s New

  • ESXi 7.0 Update 1 supports vSphere Quick Boot on the following servers:
    • HPE ProLiant BL460c Gen9
    • HPE ProLiant DL325 Gen10 Plus
    • HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9
    • HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen10 Plus
    • HPE ProLiant XL225n Gen10 Plus
    • HPE Synergy 480 Gen9
  • Enhanced vSphere Lifecycle Manager hardware compatibility pre-checks for vSAN environments: ESXi 7.0 Update 1 adds vSphere Lifecycle Manager hardware compatibility pre-checks. The pre-checks automatically trigger after certain change events such as modification of the cluster desired image or addition of a new ESXi host in vSAN environments. Also, the hardware compatibility framework automatically polls the Hardware Compatibility List database at predefined intervals for changes that trigger pre-checks as necessary.
  • Increased number of vSphere Lifecycle Manager concurrent operations on clusters: With ESXi 7.0 Update 1, if you initiate remediation at a data center level, the number of clusters on which you can run remediation in parallel, increases from 15 to 64 clusters.
  • vSphere Lifecycle Manager support for coordinated updates between availability zones: With ESXi 7.0 Update 1, to prevent overlapping operations, vSphere Lifecycle Manager updates fault domains in vSAN clusters in a sequence. ESXi hosts within each fault domain are still updated in a rolling fashion. For vSAN stretched clusters, the first fault domain is always the preferred site.
  • Extended list of supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu versions for the VMware vSphere Update Manager Download Service (UMDS): ESXi 7.0 Update 1 adds new Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu versions that UMDS supports. For the complete list of supported versions, see Supported Linux-Based Operating Systems for Installing UMDS.
  • Improved control of VMware Tools time synchronization: With ESXi 7.0 Update 1, you can select a VMware Tools time synchronization mode from the vSphere Client instead of using the command prompt. When you navigate to VM Options > VMware Tools > Synchronize Time with Host, you can select Synchronize at startup and resume (recommended), Synchronize time periodically, or, if no option is selected, you can prevent synchronization.
  • Increased Support for Multi-Processor Fault Tolerance (SMP-FT) maximums: With ESXi 7.0 Update 1, you can configure more SMP-FT VMs, and more total SMP-FT vCPUs in an ESXi host, or a cluster, depending on your workloads and capacity planning.
  • Virtual hardware version 18: ESXi Update 7.0 Update 1 introduces virtual hardware version 18 to enable support for virtual machines with higher resource maximums, and:
    • Secure Encrypted Virtualization – Encrypted State (SEV-ES)
    • Virtual remote direct memory access (vRDMA) native endpoints
    • EVC Graphics Mode (vSGA).
  • Increased resource maximums for virtual machines and performance enhancements:
    • With ESXi 7.0 Update 1, you can create virtual machines with three times more virtual CPUs and four times more memory to enable applications with larger memory and CPU footprint to scale in an almost linear fashion, comparable with bare metal. Virtual machine resource maximums are up to 768 vCPUs from 256 vCPUs, and to 24 TB of virtual RAM from 6 TB. Still, not over-committing memory remains a best practice. Only virtual machines with hardware version 18 and operating systems supporting such large configurations can be set up with these resource maximums.
    • Performance enhancements in ESXi that support the larger scale of virtual machines include widening of the physical address, address space optimizations, better NUMA awareness for guest virtual machines, and more scalable synchronization techniques. vSphere vMotion is also optimized to work with the larger virtual machine configurations.
    • ESXi hosts with AMD processors can support virtual machines with twice more vCPUs, 256, and up to 8 TB of RAM.
    • Persistent memory (PMEM) support is up twofold to 12 TB from 6 TB for both Memory Mode and App Direct Mode.
Upgrade/Install Considerations ESXi
In vSphere 7.x, the Update Manager plug-in, used for administering vSphere Update Manager, is replaced with the Lifecycle Manager plug-in. Administrative operations for vSphere Update Manager are still available under the Lifecycle Manager plug-in, along with new capabilities for vSphere Lifecycle Manager.

The typical way to apply patches to ESXi 7.x hosts is by using the vSphere Lifecycle Manager. For details, see About vSphere Lifecycle Manager and vSphere Lifecycle Manager Baselines and Images.

You can also update ESXi hosts without using the Lifecycle Manager plug-in, and use an image profile instead. To do this, you must manually download the patch offline bundle ZIP file from the VMware download page or the Product Patches page and use the esxcli software profile command.
For more information, see the Upgrading Hosts by Using ESXCLI Commands and the VMware ESXi Upgrade guide.
What’s New vSAN
vSAN 7.0 Update 1 introduces the following new features and enhancements:

Scale Without Compromise

  • HCI Mesh. HCI Mesh is a software-based approach for disaggregation of compute and storage resources in vSAN. HCI Mesh brings together multiple independent vSAN clusters by enabling cross-cluster utilization of remote datastore capacity within vCenter Server. HCI Mesh enables you to efficiently utilize and consume data center resources, which provides simple storage management at scale.
  • vSAN File Service enhancements. Native vSAN File Service includes support for SMB file shares. Support for Microsoft Active Directory, Kerberos authentication, and scalability improvements also are available.
  • Compression-only vSAN. You can enable compression independently of deduplication, which provides a storage efficiency option for workloads that cannot take advantage of deduplication. With compression-only vSAN, a failed capacity device only impacts that device and not the entire disk group.
  • Increased usable capacity. Internal optimizations allow vSAN to no longer need the 25-30% of free space available for internal operations and host failure rebuilds. The amount of space required is a deterministic value based on deployment variables, such as size of the cluster and density of storage devices. These changes provide more usable capacity for workloads.
  • Shared witness for two-node clusters. vSAN 7.0 Update 1 enables a single vSAN witness host to manage multiple two-node clusters. A single witness host can support up to 64 clusters, which greatly reduces operational and resource overhead.

Simplify Operations

  • vSAN Data-in-Transit encryption. This feature enables secure over the wire encryption of data traffic between nodes in a vSAN cluster. vSAN data-in-transit encryption is a cluster-wide feature and can be enabled independently or along with vSAN data-at-rest encryption. Traffic encryption uses the same FIPS-2 validated cryptographic module as existing encryption features and does not require use of a KMS server.
  • Enhanced data durability during maintenance mode. This improvement protects the integrity of data when you place a host into maintenance mode with the Ensure Accessibility option. All incremental writes which would have been written to the host in maintenance are now redirected to another host, if one is available. This feature benefits VMs that have PFTT=1 configured, and also provides an alternative to using PFTT=2 for ensuring data integrity during maintenance operations
  • vLCM enhancements. vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) is a solution for unified software and firmware lifecycle management. In this release, vLCM is enhanced with firmware support for Lenovo ReadyNodes, awareness of vSAN stretched cluster and fault domain configurations, additional hardware compatibility pre-checks, and increased scalability for concurrent cluster operations.
  • Reserved capacity. You can enable capacity reservations for internal cluster operations and host failure rebuilds. Reservations are soft-thresholds designed to prevent user-driven provisioning activity from interfering with internal operations, such as data rebuilds, rebalancing activity, or policy re-configurations.
  • Default gateway override. You can override the default gateway for VMkernel adapter to provide a different gateway for vSAN network. This feature simplifies routing configuration for stretched clusters, two-node clusters, and fault domain deployments that previously required manual configuration of static routes. Static routing is not necessary
  • Faster vSAN host restarts. The time interval for a planned host restart has been reduced by persisting in-memory metadata to disk before the restart or shutdown. This method reduces the time required for hosts in a vSAN cluster to restart, which decreases the overall cluster downtime during maintenance windows.
  • Workload I/O analysis. Analyze VM I/O metrics with IOInsight, a monitoring and troubleshooting tool that is integrated directly into vCenter Server. Gain a detailed view of VM I/O characteristics such as performance, I/O size and type, read/write ratio, and other important data metrics. You can run IOInsight operations against VMs, hosts, or the entire cluster
  • Consolidated I/O performance view. You can select multiple VMs, and display a combined view of storage performance metrics such as IOPS, throughput, and latency. You can compare storage performance characteristics across multiple VMs.
  • VM latency monitoring with IOPS limits. This improvement in performance monitoring helps you distinguish the periods of latency that can occur due to enforced IOPS limits. This view can help organizations that set IOPS limits in VM storage policies.
  • Secure drive erase. Securely wipe flash storage devices before decommissioning from a vSAN cluster through a set of new PowerCLI or API commands. Use these commands to safely erase data in accordance to NIST standards
  • Data migration pre-check for disks. vSAN’s data migration pre-check for host maintenance mode now includes support for individual disk devices or entire disk groups. This offers more granular pre-checks for disk or disk group decommissioning.
  • VPAT section 508 compliant. vSAN is compliant with the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). VPAT section 508 compliance ensures that vSAN had a thorough audit of accessibility requirements, and has instituted product changes for proper compliance.

 Note: vSAN 7.0 Update 1 improves CPU performance by standardizing task timers throughout the system. This change addresses issues with timers activating earlier or later than requested, resulting in degraded performance for some workloads.
Upgrade/Install Considerations vSAN
For instructions about upgrading vSAN, see vSAN Documentation   Upgrading the vSAN Cluster   Before You Upgrade   Upgrading vCenter Server  Upgrading Hosts

Note: Before performing the upgrade, please review the most recent version of the VMware Compatibility Guide to validate that the latest vSAN version is available for your platform.

vSAN 7.0 Update 1 is a new release that requires a full upgrade to vSphere 7.0 Update 1. Perform the following tasks to complete the upgrade:

1. Upgrade to vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1. For more information, see the VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1 Release Notes.
2. Upgrade hosts to ESXi 7.0 Update 1. For more information, see the VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1 Release Notes.
3. Upgrade the vSAN on-disk format to version 13.0. If upgrading from on-disk format version 3.0 or later, no data evacuation is required (metadata update only).

 Note: vSAN retired disk format version 1.0 in vSAN 7.0 Update 1. Disks running disk format version 1.0 are no longer recognized by vSAN. vSAN will block upgrade through vSphere Update Manager, ISO install, or esxcli to vSAN 7.0 Update 1. To avoid these issues, upgrade disks running disk format version 1.0 to a higher version. If you have disks on version 1, a health check alerts you to upgrade the disk format version.

Disk format version 1.0 does not have performance and snapshot enhancements, and it lacks support for advanced features including checksum, deduplication and compression, and encryption. For more information about vSAN disk format version, see KB2145267.

Upgrading the On-disk Format for Hosts with Limited Capacity

During an upgrade of the vSAN on-disk format from version 1.0 or 2.0, a disk group evacuation is performed. The disk group is removed and upgraded to on-disk format version 13.0, and the disk group is added back to the cluster. For two-node or three-node clusters, or clusters without enough capacity to evacuate each disk group, select Allow Reduced Redundancy from the vSphere Client. You also can use the following RVC command to upgrade the on-disk format: vsan.ondisk_upgrade –allow-reduced-redundancy

When you allow reduced redundancy, your VMs are unprotected for the duration of the upgrade, because this method does not evacuate data to the other hosts in the cluster. It removes each disk group, upgrades the on-disk format, and adds the disk group back to the cluster. All objects remain available, but with reduced redundancy.

If you enable deduplication and compression during the upgrade to vSAN 7.0 Update 1, you can select Allow Reduced Redundancy from the vSphere Client.

Limitations

For information about maximum configuration limits for the vSAN 7.0 Update 1 release, see the Configuration Maximums  documentation.
Technical Enablement
Release Notes vCenter Click Here  |  What’s New  |  Earlier Releases  |  Patch Info  |  Installation & Upgrade Notes   |  Product Support Notices

Resolved Issues  |  Known Issues
Release Notes ESXi Click Here  |  What’s New  |  Earlier Releases  |  Patch Info  |  Product Support Notices  |  Resolved Issues  |  Known Issues
Release Notes vSAN Click Here  |  What’s New  |  VMware vSAN Community  |  Upgrades for This Release  |  Limitations  |  Known Issues
docs.vmware/vCenter Installation & Setup  |   vCenter Server Upgrade  |   vCenter Server Configuration
Docs.vmware/ESXi Installation & Setup  |  Upgrading   |   Managing Host and Cluster Lifecycle  |   Host Profiles  |   Networking  |   Storage  |   Security

Resource Management  |   Availability  |  Monitoring & Performance
docs.vmware/vSAN Using vSAN Policies  |  Expanding & Managing a vSAN Cluster  |  Device Management  |  Increasing Space Efficiency  |  Encryption

Upgrading the vSAN Cluster   Before You Upgrade   Upgrading vCenter Server  Upgrading Hosts
Compatibility Information Interoperability Matrix vCenter  |  Configuration Maximums vSphere (All)  |  Ports Used vSphere (All)

Interoperability Matrix ESXi  |  Interoperability Matrix vSAN  |  Configuration Maximums vSAN  |  Ports Used vSAN
Blogs & Infolinks What’s New with VMware vSphere 7 Update 1  |  Main VMware Blog vSphere 7    |  vSAN  |  vSphere  |   vCenter Server

Announcing the ESXi-Arm Fling  |  In-Product Evaluation of vSphere with Tanzu

vSphere 7 Update 1 – Unprecedented Scalability

YouTube A Quick Look at What’s New in vSphere 7 Update 1  |  vSphere with Tanzu Overview in 3 Minutes

VMware vSphere with Tanzu webpage  |  eBook: Deliver Developer-Ready Infrastructure Using vSphere with Tanzu

What’s New in vSAN 7 Update 1   |  PM’s Blog, Cormac vSAN 7.0 Update 1
Download vSphere   |   vSAN
VMworld 2020 OnDemand

(Free Account Needed)

 Deep Dive: What’s New with vCenter Server [HCP1100]    |   99 Problems, But A vSphere Upgrade Ain’t One [HCP1830]

Certificate Management in vSphere [HCP2050]      |     Connect vSAN Capacity Across Clusters with VMware HCI Mesh [DEM3206]

Deep Dive: vSphere 7 Developer Center [HCP1211]    |

More vSphere & vSAN VMworld Sessions
VMworld HOL Walkthrough

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 Introduction to vSphere Performance [HOL-2104-95-ISM]

VMware vSphere – What’s New [HOL-2111-95-ISM]

What’s New in vSAN – Getting Started [HOL-2108-95-ISM]

This entry was posted in ESX, ESXi, SAN, Virtual SAN, VMUG, vmware.