The vCenter inventory service has two primary purposes in life. First, it's a cache of objects which the web client accesses. This cache enables the offloading of retrieving objects from the vCenter core service (vpxd). This can also lessen the load on your back-end database if the vCenter service isn't...
Now that the SSO service and web client are installed, it's time to do a little SSO configuration. In this installment we will configure the SSO STS certificate chain, add an Active Directory identity and source, and delegate SSO administrative rights to a AD group. If you recall the vCenter...
The web client is the new and strongly preferred mechanism to manage your vSphere environment. In fact, the Windows VI client now comes up with a big warning that it's going the way of the dodo bird when you launch it. I suspect in vSphere 6.0 the Windows VI client...
Just like replacing a hip joint, replacing vCenter SSO SSL certificates can induce some pain, is a bit complex, and the outcome can be questionable. The replacement process in SSO 5.5 is pretty much like that in 5.1, but now we have the VMware certificate automation tool and my vCenter...
Not everyone has an online Microsoft Certificate Authority, or maybe my toolkit script has issues in your environment. So in this installment we will go over manual SSL minting. By that I mean we will use my Toolkit script to create the CSRs, you will download the certificates yourself, then run my...
In the last installment of the vSphere 5.5Â series we installed the SSO service. Now that the Java JRE is installed (via the SSO installer), we have the tools ready to create our vCenter SSL certificates via an online Microsoft CA. If you don't have an online Microsoft CA that can...
Yes, seven parts into this series we can finally mount our handy dandy vCenter 5.5 ISO and start installing software. Hopefully I haven't lost anyone along the way with all of the background and SSL information. But with the complexities in vCenter 5.5 and all the moving parts, I think it's important...
Now that you understand what type of SSL certificates you need and how many vCenter 5.5 requires, we need to create a Certificate Authority template that will mint proper certificates. You may very well be able to get away with the Microsoft "Web server" template, but it is missing a few...
Now that you've read up on upgrade best practices and SSO enhancements in the first four installments, we can get to the fun stuff! Understanding vCenter 5.5 SSL certificates. Ok maybe not fun for all, but fun to me. Last year in my 5.1 install series I just plowed right into...
In this installment of the vSphere 5.5 installation how-to series we cover upgrading ESXi hosts, VMs, and VMFS. As stated in my vCenter 5.5 upgrade post, I'm not going to do a step-by-step screenshot filled posts for upgrades. Why? Too many different deployment types for that to be widely useful. But you do need...