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VMware vCenter Server 6.5 Update 2d adds tool to convert external PSCs into embedded PSCs

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VMware releases another update for vSphere 6.5. This update brings a Command Line tool (CLI) which is able to convert vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) instances with an external Platform Service Controller (PSC) into a VCSA with an embedded PSC connected in Embedded Linked Mode.

We've talked about Embedded Linked Mode (ELM) in this post. Basically, (vCSA) supports embedded deployment where vCenter Server and Platform Service Controller (PSC) are on the same node. And you can join another node with the VCSA + PSC to have them within the same console.

ELM applies only to VCSA, not to vCenter on Windows.

Quote from vSphere documentation:

With vCenter Embedded Linked Mode, you can connect a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller together to form a domain. vCenter Embedded Linked Mode is not supported for Windows vCenter Server installations. vCenter Embedded Linked Mode is supported starting with vSphere 6.5 Update 2 and suitable for most deployments.

As you can see, only VCSA is concerned, Windows platforms are no longer developed, and soon, with next major release of vSphere, phased out. It's been quite a journey for VMware on this for several years, but it seems that finally, they got it right.

vCenter Embedded Linked Mode – The Features:

  • vCSA is installed together with PSC – you can join another vCSA with embedded PSC (up to 15) to your SSO domain. You can join a vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller to another embedded node during deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance.

You have the option to use the UI or CLI with example JSON files which you can customize to match your environment.

Other features of vCenter Embedded Linked Mode:

  • No external Platform Services Controller, providing a more simplified domain architecture than enhanced linked mode.
  • A simplified backup and restore process.
  • A simplified HA process, removing the need for load balancers.
  • Up to 15 vCenter Server Appliances can be linked together using vCenter Embedded Linked Mode and displayed in a single inventory view.

What's New in vCenter Server 6.5 Update 2d?

Quote from the release notes:

  • vCenter Server 6.5 Update 2d adds a CLI tool to convert instances of vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller into vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller connected in Embedded Linked Mode.
  • With vCenter Server 6.5 Update 2d, you can add VMware Platform Services Controller appliances to Active Directory 2016 domains.
  • With vCenter Server 6.5 Update 2d, you can use the new vRealize Operations Manager plug-in that provides specific metrics and high-level information about data centers, datastores, virtual machines, and ESXi hosts, to vCenter Server and vSAN. The plug-in is supported only in the vSphere Client.
  • With vCenter Server 6.5 Update 2d, the new vRealize Operations Manager plug-in adds by default the Patch method, supported by the HTTP protocol, to facilitate the online installation stage.
  • With vCenter Server 6.5 Update 2d, you can configure the property config.vpxd.macAllocScheme.method in the vCenter Server configuration file, vpxd.cfg, to allow sequential selection of MAC addresses from MAC address pools. The default option for random selection does not change. Modifying the MAC address allocation policy does not affect MAC addresses for existing virtual machines.

You can find the release notes here.

Does this sounds like the end of external PSCs…? Looks like. They are still supported, but the Embedded PSCs are the way to move forward…

Shop for vSphere licenses at VMware Store:

Essentials Plus which has vSphere High Availability, is an obviously better choice. Because, if you have an unplanned hardware failure, vSphere HA can restart automatically those VMs which failed with the host. Those VMs are automatically restarted on other hosts which are part of VMware cluster.

There is small downtime during which the system figures out which host has failed and which are the hosts that are able to start the failed VMs. Once this automatic decision is taken, the VM boots up. The whole process is completely automatic and acts without the admin’s intervention.

Requirements of vSphere HA?

  • A shared SAN/NAS storage
  • Pingable Gateway
  • VMware vCenter Server (part of Essentials and Essentials Plus bundles)

vSphere Tips:

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Comments

  1. MR says

    Hi, maybe important : Upgrade and migration paths from vCenter Server 6.5 Update 2d to vCenter Server 6.7 Update 1 are not supported.