Category: VCF

Announcing VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0

By Lerpong Intaraworrapath | June 30th ,2023

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 is now available, as announced by the VMware Cloud Foundation team. This important platform update adds scalability, security, and other critical advancements to handle cloud scale infrastructure as a service (IaaS), easier on-premises cloud deployment, and enhanced cyberattack protection.

Software Building Blocks for the Private Cloud

  • SDDC Manager 5.0 (Cloud Builder 5.0)
  • vSphere 8.0 U1a (ESXi 8.0 U1a, vCenter 8.0 U1a)
  • vSAN 8.0 U1a (vSAN Witness 8.0 U1a)
  • NSX 4.1
  • vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager* 8.10 Patch 1

SDDC Manager Enhancements

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 includes a new capability called Isolated SSO Workload Domains, allow administrators the option to configure new workload domains using a separate Single Sign On (SSO) instance.
This scenario is useful for large enterprises that need workload isolation and for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who can allocate workload domains to different tenants with their own SSO domains.  Isolated SSO domains are each configured with their own NSX instance. The added benefit is that configuring workload domains as an isolated workload domain also allows the option to configure a separate identity provider (Active Directory or LDAP).

Workload Domain Scaling also increases when using isolated workload domains from 15 to 25 workload domains within a single VMware Cloud Foundation instance. Note that workload domains configured to use the shared management domain SSO are still limited to a maximum of 15 domains.  Additional scaling is made possible through the parallelization of tasks in order to reduce the time to add Workload Domains within a VMware Cloud Foundation instance.

VMware Cloud Foundation Platform and Scaling Enhancements

When one considers all of the new capabilities delivered within VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0, the platform and scale enhancements are probably the most highly anticipated customer feature requests, especially as they continue to scale their production of VMware Cloud Foundation environments.  It is also important to emphasize that upgrades to VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 are direct, customer led skip-level upgrades from VMware Cloud Foundation versions 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5.

More resources

https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2023/06/01/announcing-vmware-cloud-foundation-5-0/

https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/?p=12521

https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2023/06/01/whats-new-with-vsphere-and-vsan-in-vmware-cloud-foundation-5-0/

https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2023/06/01/whats-new-with-nsx-in-vmware-cloud-foundation-5-0/

https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2023/06/01/whats-new-in-vrealize-suite-within-vmware-cloud-foundation-5-0/

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Cloud-Foundation/5.0/rn/vmware-cloud-foundation-50-release-notes/index.html

https://www.vmware.com/products/cloud-foundation.html

https://core.vmware.com/

Pre-check the SDDC warning “Checks whether the SDDC Manager VM system directory has enough disk space”.

By Lerpong Intaraworrapath | 29th July 2022

We intend to upgrade VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) from 4.2.1 to 4.4.1.
Before upgrading VCF, we must do a pre-check on all VCF components.

The pre-check begins with the SDDC manager.

We noticed the warning “Checks whether the SDDC Manager VM system directory has enough disk space” during the SDDC manager pre-check.

DescriptionChecks whether the SDDC Manager VM system directory has enough disk space
Start Timexx/xx/xx
End Timexx/xx/xx
Health StatusYELLOW
ImpactMedium: May perform upgrades without addressing the issues
RemediationMinimal disk space is available in SDDC Manager directory Available disk space is 3.0 GB. Recommended disk space is 6.0 GB or more. Clean up unused files from the directory /

COMMON_SERVICES

MULTI_SITE_SERVICE

SDDC_MANAGER_UI

Steps to resolving these issues

The steps following do not require a reboot or restart of any SDDC Manager services.

1.SSH into the SDDC Manager as the VCF user.

2.To display space, we navigate to /var/log and use the “df -h” command. We discovered a path. Use 90% Avail 2.7G for /dev/sda4.

3.We used the command “ls -lt” to list in long format and sort by time and date. The file size of “auth.log” was 9.5GB.

4.To resolve this issue, we followed the blogs https://vinsanity.uk/2021/10/21/failed-pre-check-in-sddc-manager-error-disk-space-on-sddc-manager-vm-is-less-than-required/, but I will demonstrate for the specifics.

5.We must verify the file size in the audit log path.

6.Log in as the root user.

7.Verify the file size of the audit log file. The file size of “audit.log” was 9.5GB.

8.To identify and sort the large 5 files, use the command “find -type f -exec du -Sh {} + | sort -rh | head -n 5“.

9. To clear the size of the auth.log file, use the command “> auth.log.“.

10.Verify the file size. Using the command “ls -lt,” we confirmed that the size of auth.log had been reduced.

11.Navigate to the audit path “cd audit“.

12.Verify the file size in the audit path “ls -lt“.

13.To clear the size of the audit.log file, use the command “> audit.log.“

14.Verify the file size. Using the command “ls -lt,” we confirmed that the size of audit.log had been reduced.

15.Return to SDDC Manager and execute the pre-check once again.

16.SDDC Manager’s components had all succeeded.

Conclusion

The SDDC Manager UI provides a single point of control for managing and monitoring your VMware Cloud Foundation instance and for provisioning workload domains. Before upgrading VCF, we recommend that you do a pre-check, and if you find any errors or warnings, please resolve them before proceeding with the update.

Reference

https://vinsanity.uk/2021/10/21/failed-pre-check-in-sddc-manager-error-disk-space-on-sddc-manager-vm-is-less-than-required/