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November 2015

ESXi 6.0 November 2015 CBT Fix Patch (Build 3247720)

VMware has published a patch for ESXi 6.0 that resolves the (new) CBT Bug documented in KB2136854.

Product: VMware ESXi 6.0
Release date: November 25, 2015
Patch: ESXi600-201511001
Build: 3247720
Links: KB2137545 | Download

This patch updates the esx-base VIB to resolve an issue that occurs when you run virtual machine backups which utilize Changed Block Tracking (CBT) in ESXi 6.0, the CBT API call QueryDiskChangedAreas() might return incorrect changed sectors that results in inconsistent incremental virtual machine backups. The issue occurs as the CBT fails to track changed blocks on the VMs having I/O during snapshot consolidation.

Read More »ESXi 6.0 November 2015 CBT Fix Patch (Build 3247720)

How to create custom vCenter Alarms from Events

In my last article I've created a custom vCenter alert with a special event trigger. I've received a question about how to figure out the trigger event string to be used for creating alarms.

The vSphere Client shows the following error event:vcenter-event

To create an alarm based on this event, you have to create a new alarm and use the following event trigger: com.vmware.vc.vsan.RogueHostFoundEvent
alarm-trigger-RogueHostFoundEvent

Read More »How to create custom vCenter Alarms from Events

Why you should protect your Virtual SAN Network

As a common best practice you should separate management, vMotion and Virtual SAN traffic from production traffic. This is not only a performance requirement, but also for security concerns. Compared to management traffic which is encrypted and requires authentication and vMotion traffic which is impracticable to eavesdrop, Virtual SAN traffic presents a large surface area to attacks.

This article explains why it is critical to keep Virtual SAN traffic in protected networks and what can happen when you ignore this guideline. I am also explaining how you can detect and monitor such attacks.

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Building a Single-Node VSAN

single-node-vsanI was wondering if it possible to speed up my Intel NUC based ESXi with Virtual SAN. The idea is that compared against vSphere Flash Read Cache, Virtual SAN can use the SSD not only as read cache but also as write buffer. This post explains how you can create a Virtual SAN Datastore on a single ESXi host from the command-line without a vCenter Server.

It goes without saying that this is neither the idea behind Virtual SAN nor officially supported by VMware. It also violates VMware's EULA if you are running Virtual SAN without a VSAN license. To assign a licence you need a vCenter Server and wrap the single ESXi into a Cluster.

My configuration for this test:

Read More »Building a Single-Node VSAN