Together with vSphere 6.0, VMware released a new free tool that simplifies the download of VMware suites and products. The tool is very simple, its totally worth giving it a try. Install it on your desktop, login with your My VMware account and download all products and features of a VMware Suite with on button.
Software Manager Download Page
This is how it looks like:
In vSphere 6.0 the command line interface esxcli has 2 new namespaces. The esxcli is a complete set of commands that you can use for troubleshooting, configuration or kickstart files. I have created and printed a mindmap to navigate through the namespaces more quickly. This post covers only basic namespaces, available on all ESXi 6.0 hosts. If you've installed additional software you might see more namespaces. I've also created a mindmap for ESXi 5.1 and ESXi 5.5.
ESXCLI in version 6.0 has 15 namespaces:Read More »ESXi 6.0 - ESXCLI Command Mindmap
In vSphere 6.0 the command line interface esxcli has been extended by the new features. This post introduces the new and extended namespaces. Remarkable changes in esxcli version 6.0.0 are:
There are many 6.0 Beta and RC versions running at the moment. With the vSphere 6.0 going GA today a question came up on upgrading Beta software to GA software.
From the vSphere Documentation, this upgrade is not supported:
You can upgrade an ESXi 5.0.x, ESXi 5.1.x, ESXi 5.5.0, or ESXi 5.5.х host directly to 6.0.
Despite it is unsupported, you can actually upgrade ESXi 6.0 RC to ESXi 6.0 GA. I would not recommend doing this in production, but it works:Read More »Can I Upgrade ESXi 6.0 Beta/RC to ESXi 6.0 GA?
Today VMware has made the bits available for everyone to download. Updated: ESXi Release and Build Number History Updated: VMware Product Latest Version VMware vSphere 6.0… Read More »VMware vSphere 6.0 Download Available
Intel has begun to deliver their 5th Gen Broadwell NUCs. At the moment, only NUCs with i3 CPUs are available. NUCs with faster CPUs are available in the next few weeks. I could get my hands on the NUC5i3MYHE. That's the version with a 2.5" HDD slot and without integrated WLAN. This post quickly explains how to get ESXi running on the 5th Gen NUC. As known from 3th and 4th gen NUCs, it is not possible to use the ESXi Installer provided by VMware.
I'm confident that this guide will also work for i5 and i7 NUCs, as from what I've seen in the documentation they have identical controllers:
Read More »How to Install ESXi on 5th Gen Intel NUC (NIC and AHCI Fix)
To simplify vMotion across CPU generations VMware has introduced Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC). EVC automatically configures server CPUs with Intel FlexMigration or AMD-V Extended Migration technologies… Read More »VMware vSphere 6.0 introduces Haswell EVC Mode
In vSphere 6.0 the vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) has been changed a lot. Joining an Active Directory Domain is now included in the infrastructure node configuration which is part of the Platform Services Controller. Please note standard AD requirements like time synchronisation and naming. You can't join an AD if you've set an IP address as name during the VCSA guided installer.
Read More »How to Join AD Domain in vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 (vCSA)
Platform Service Controller is a new component in vSphere 6.0. The PSC contains all the services that vCenter needs for its functions including Single Sign-On (SSO). This post describes how to configure AD authentication in vCenter Server 6.0.
The method shown in this post allows you to manage users and groups in your central directory. This works for both, the vCenter Server 6.0 installed on Windows Server and the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA).
Read More »How to add AD Authentication in vCenter 6.0 (Platform Service Controller)
vCenter Server Virtual Appliance (vCSA) is still very rare in a production environment. This hasn't changed much with the enhancements in vSphere 5.5 where the embedded database scalability has been lifted. VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 does now support up to 1000 ESXi Hosts and 10.000 Virtual Machines with the embedded Postgres database. I hope i can deploy more vCenter Linux Appliances in the future.Read More »VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 (vCSA) Enhancements