Back in Part 11 of this series we configured the VMCA to be a subordinate CA to our enterprise CA. This ensures that all certificates which get used by vCenter components are automatically trusted. But as previously mentioned, not all organizations can use the VMCA. The US Federal Government would...
As mentioned in my vSphere 6.0 install part 3, VMware has introduced a new certificate option in this release. You can now make a built-in VMware certificate authority (VMCA) a subordinate to your enterprise CA. This is great news, as it will allow some automation of the certificate deployment process....
Each year Eric Siebert from vSphere-Land.com has an annual voting for the top vBloggers in the world. Competition is fierce and back in 2013 I was honored with getting position #24, for which I was thrilled. Then came along more SSL woes with vSphere 5.5, and my vCenter Toolkit was...
New to my vSphere installation series is using the pre-packaged vCenter appliance (VCSA). Now that the VCSA is on par with the Windows vCenter server, I suspect more and more people will migrate to the appliance. So to that end, let's install an external PSC using the VCSA. If you...
VMware has provided new SSL template guidance for vSphere 6.0. New to vSphere 6.0 are machine SSL certificates, solution user certificates, and using the VMCA as a subordinate CA. If you are using an enterprise Microsoft CA, then this article is for you. I'll show you how to create the...
Now that we have the PSC installed, it's time to configure the variables for the Toolkit script, and also make sure we can download our root certificates. Depending on your configuration, you may need to manually download your root public certificates. VMware needs certificates in a specific format, and they...
Now that we have the Windows PSC installed, it is time to prepare for installing vCenter. vCenter can support three database types: embedded vPostGres (supports up to 20 hosts and 2000 VMs), Microsoft SQL, and Oracle. SQL seems to be the most popular choice, so that's what I'll help you...
In this installment of the vSphere 6.0 installation how-to series we cover upgrading ESXi hosts, VMs, and VMFS. You do need to understand ESXi/VM/VMFS upgrade best practices, recommended order, and gotchas. That’s what this post is for. Blog Series vSphere 6.0 Install Pt. 1: Introduction vSphere 6.0 Install Pt. 2: Platform Services Controller vSphere...
Today Nutanix is proud to announce their Nutanix Platform Expert (NPX) certification. You can read the official press release here. The goal of this certification is to become the most rigorous technical computing qualification in the IT industry. That's saying a lot, given other live performance based certifications that people are going...
Upgrades can be scary times with any enterprise product. The more your critical infrastructure relies on a particular solution, or set of solutions, the more imperative it is you fully understand and test the new product. Prior vSphere releases has taught us that thorough testing cannot be skipped and you should not rush a new...
After some teasing at VMworld 2014, and a few more sessions at PEX 2015, vSphere 6.0 is finally available for download! If you are in a big hurry to download, here are some useful links. vSphere 6.0 release notes can be found here. As always, TEST TEST TEST before putting...
Each year Eric Siebert over at vSphere-land.com spends an enormous amount of time setting up the top blogger voting. This recognizes the very hard work that the top bloggers do, and the support they give to the community. Recognition is always fun, but shouldn't be the primary purpose to blog....