Author: Michael Schroeder

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NSX-Manager Permissions and Groups

Using vSphere-Client 6.7 to synchronize NSX-Manager with Active Directory

Once you’ve deployed NSX-Manager to a vSphere 6.7 cluster, you may have noticed an error  on the dashboard.

“No NSX Managers available. Verify current user has role assigned on NSX Manager.”

Assuming you have configured vCenter connections correctly, there’s a simple explanation for the error (KB2080740).

Usually initial setup of NSX-Manager is done by the default SSO User administrator@vsphere.local. If you log into vCenter using that user, there will be no error on the dashboard. The point is that NSX-Manager has its own permissions and roles which are not coupled to vCenter permissions. That means a user with administrator rights in vCenter does not automatically get administrator rights in NSX-Manager. Without any permissions that user can’t even see NSX-Manager. Continue reading “NSX-Manager Permissions and Groups”

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Joining VCSA to Active Directory

Joining Active Directory with vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) has been simplified with every generation of VCSA.

I will show the workflow how to connect a VCSA 6.7 to an Active Directory source. The process differs a little, depending whether you’re using the HTML5-Client or the Web-Client (Flash).

Requirements

  • VCSA hostname has to be FQDN and may not be an IP address.
  • You need to login with a member of systemconfiguration admins, which administrator@vsphere.local is by default.

Workflow

The workflow is divided into three steps

  • Join VCSA to ADS
  • Reboot
  • Add ADS as identity source

Continue reading “Joining VCSA to Active Directory”

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Veeam: Ticket givaways to VMworld Barcelona and AWS re:Invent 2018

Win a ticket to one or two conferences in November

In November there are two major conferences you can’t afford to miss.

  • VMworld EU 2018 in Barcelona (5.-8. Nov 2018)
  • AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas (26.-30. Nov 2018)

These conferences are quite expensive (re:Invent 1799$ and VMworld 1475€).

Wouldn’t it be great to go there for free? It’s possible if you’re lucky and win one of the tickets Veeam gives away.

Join Veeam in Barcelona

Win one of 5 full-conference tickets to VMworld Barcelona 2018.

Just register for the chance to win a free conference pass worth 1475 €.

Three trips to AWS re:Invent 2018

Veeam also gives away three full-conference tickets and three gift cards for hotel accommodations to AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas. Register on the Veeam page and get the chance to win.

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The blind spot

Losing your mind over IT complexity

This is a rather non-technical post about life, the universe and… no, I think that has been written before. 😉

Seriously, it’s about how to deal with the overwhelming mass of information and the lack of knowledge of a single person in the field of virtualization.

In the old days

When I started my journey into virtualization, it was all about running a virtual machine within another operating system.  I can remember the day when I’ve first seen a Windows 2000 booting in a VM on my NT4 workstation. It has been sluggish like hell and animations looked like slideshows. But, hey! What a cool technology!

A bit later I had the opportunity to manage an ESX 2.5 cluster before virtualization became mainstream.

Over the years, many other products were added: HA, DRS, vDS, NIOC, SIOC, SRM, vRealize, View, Horizon, vCOPS, vROPS, NSX, vSAN, Cloud, Containers, IoT, Software-defined-whatever and so on.

Enter the vMatrix

It is that kind of technological evolution which makes my work so fascinating and kept me going over the years. Learning new stuff every day is the spice of life and the core reason why I’ve left my labcoat behind, took the red pill and entered the vMatrix. Continue reading “The blind spot”