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Building a Veeam Lab – a recommended architecture

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This blog posts spawns from an interesting discussion between the Veeam Vanguard members on what components are needed to build an effective lab for testing out most of the Veeam features, especially with v10 around the corner. So, I’ve put together something that should hopefully work for this;

I’m not really going to focus on the platform you’ll be running this on, as you should already have some sort of home lab if you are looking to run a Veeam lab, I’d assume.

  • AD and DNS – I’m just going to presume you have this up and running already.
    • If you are trying to cut down your home lab infrastructure, this blog on running PhotonOS as DNS server and NTP server is helpful
  • vSphere Environment
    • Cluster can be as big as you like or already have as your homelab
    • Standalone host for replica’s, or just target one of your existing hosts directly in the replica configuration
  • Hyper-V standalone host
    • Just for running one or two Virtual machines. But if you are a Hyper-v admin, you probably already have a lab you can use.
  • Backup Repository
    • There a few options you can use, but you need to consider where you store your data, if it is on the vSphere environment itself, you may run out of storage fast. An External NAS would be best.

I have wrote a second blog, which covers the testing scenarios that the below architecture covers.

Veeam Lab Architecture

Veeam Components

Veeam Backup and Replication Server:

This is going to be your main virtual machine, and you can multi-home a few components on here, especially if you are not fussed about the performance.

For the database, you should be OK with the built in SQL Express install.

Sizing minimums:

  • 2 vCPU cores, 8 GB RAM, HDD space 60GB (inclusive of Logs, vPowerNFS, VBR software)
  • Recommendations for sizing;
    1 vCPU core (physical or virtual) and 4 GB RAM per 10 concurrently running jobs.

Continue reading Building a Veeam Lab – a recommended architecture →

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Veeam VMCE 2020 – Beta course and exam

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The last week of January for me, was spent taking some annual leave, and attending a special invite only edition of the Veeam VMCE 2020 course, at their offices in Bucharest.

The 3-day course, or event (as I’ll explain), was hosted by Rasmus Haslund and Bart Pellegrino. Several Veeam Solution Architects, Systems Engineers and Channel enablement were present, and finally 8 of the Veeam Vanguard community, which is how I got my ticket into the room. You can follow those members Below;

vmce vannyvanguard veeam

The course/event

This was run along the lines of “train the trainer” with a large focus on active feedback about the course content, what the current VMCE trainers in the room see the in classroom, and what we see in the field itself during implementation. So, I’d refer to my 3 days as an event rather than a course. Continue reading Veeam VMCE 2020 – Beta course and exam →

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vRSLCM – Replacing vRA key fails with “Failed to apply License key – LCMVRAVACONFIG590007”

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The vRA evaluation license in my homelab had failed, and trying to log in, I was hitting a 402 error.

vRA license expired 402 error

When replacing the license using vRealize LifeCycle Manager, I received the below errors. This happens because the license key has already expired.

Error Code: LCMVRAVACONFIG590007
Failed to apply License key. Please check whether the license provided is correct and retry.
Failed to get vRA License Key.

LCMVRAVACONFIG590007 Failed to apply License key

The Fix

The fix for this is to re-apply the license using the vRA CLI directly on your vRA node. As per the below commands, and then re-inventory your vRA deployment in vRSLCM and finally Retrust with Identity Manager.

###### To check the current license ######

vracli license

###### To remove the license ######

vracli license remove {license key}

###### To add a new license ###### 

vracli license add {license key}

Below are the options to finalise the configuration in vRSLCM.

vRA license expired 402 error Retrust with Identity Manager

The Logs

For those of you who are interested in the log output, and for search engines to track;

Error log from vRSLCM UI as in above screenshot

com.vmware.vrealize.lcm.common.exception.EngineException: Failed to get vRA License Key. at com.vmware.vrealize.lcm.plugin.core.vra80.task.VraVaReplaceLicenseTask.execute(VraVaReplaceLicenseTask.java:134) at com.vmware.vrealize.lcm.automata.core.TaskThread.run(TaskThread.java:45) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)

From the log bundle of vRSLCM

INFO  [pool-2-thread-5] c.v.v.l.d.v.h.VraPreludeInstallHelper -  -- Command to be run : vracli -j license
INFO  [pool-2-thread-5] c.v.v.l.d.v.h.VraPreludeInstallHelper -  -- PRELUDE ENDPOINT HOST :: sc-dc1-vra001.simon.local
INFO  [pool-2-thread-5] c.v.v.l.d.v.h.VraPreludeInstallHelper -  -- COMMAND :: vracli -j license
INFO  [pool-2-thread-5] c.v.v.l.u.SshUtils -  -- Executing command --> vracli -j license
INFO  [pool-2-thread-5] c.v.v.l.u.SshUtils -  -- exit-status: 0
INFO  [pool-2-thread-5] c.v.v.l.u.SshUtils -  -- Command executed sucessfully
INFO  [pool-2-thread-5] c.v.v.l.d.v.h.VraPreludeInstallHelper -  -- Command Status code :: 0 , Output :: {"status_code": 0, "output_data": [{"key": "XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX", "productName": null, "valid": false, "expirationDate": null, "error": "License expired"}], "error": "", "logs": {"asctime": "2020-01-28T12:55:43Z+0000", "name": "vracli", "processName": "MainProcess", "filename": "license.py", "funcName": "__get_license_result", "levelname": "INFO", "lineno": 325, "module": "license", "threadName": "MainThread", "message": "Running license command: check-serial --serial-number \"XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX\"", "timestamp": "2020-01-28T12:55:43Z+0000"}}

INFO  [pool-2-thread-5] c.v.v.l.p.c.v.t.VraVaReplaceLicenseTask -  -- Result of fetching License : null
ERROR [pool-2-thread-5] c.v.v.l.p.c.v.t.VraVaReplaceLicenseTask -  -- Failed to get vRA License Key.
INFO  [pool-2-thread-5] c.v.v.l.p.a.s.Task -  -- Injecting task failure event. Error Code : 'LCMVRAVACONFIG590007', Retry : 'true', Causing Properties : '{ CAUSE ::  }' 
com.vmware.vrealize.lcm.common.exception.EngineException: Failed to get vRA License Key.
	at com.vmware.vrealize.lcm.plugin.core.vra80.task.VraVaReplaceLicenseTask.execute(VraVaReplaceLicenseTask.java:134) [vmlcm-vrapreludeplugin-core-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar!/:?]
	at com.vmware.vrealize.lcm.automata.core.TaskThread.run(TaskThread.java:45) [vmlcm-engineservice-core-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar!/:?]
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149) [?:1.8.0_221]
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624) [?:1.8.0_221]
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748) [?:1.8.0_221]

Regards

Dean

Dean Lewis
LCM Migration vRSLCM Easy installer5

vRealize LifeCycle Manager – New License – Exception while loading DLF

VMware, , ,

Adding a new license into vRLCM locker fails with;

Exception while loading DLF. Check /var/log/vlcm for more detail

Sorry I didn’t take a screenshot of this in the UI.

In the log file, you will see the error code;

LCMLICENSINGCONFIG11005

Over all the logs are not very helpful;

INFO [pool-2-thread-12] c.v.v.l.p.a.s.Task - -- Injecting task failure event. Error Code : 'LCMLICENSINGCONFIG11005', Retry : 'true', Causing Properties : '{ CAUSE :: }' 
com.vmware.vrealize.lcm.plugin.core.licensing.common.exception.ValidateLicensingException: Exception while loading DLF. Check logs for more detail
at com.vmware.vrealize.lcm.plugin.core.licensing.task.ValidateLicenseTask.execute(ValidateLicenseTask.java:137) [vmlcm-licensingplugin-core-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar!/:?]
at com.vmware.vrealize.lcm.automata.core.TaskThread.run(TaskThread.java:45) [vmlcm-engineservice-core-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar!/:?]
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149) [?:1.8.0_221]
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624) [?:1.8.0_221]
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748) [?:1.8.0_221]

The Fix

Reboot the vRLCM appliance.

Regards

Dean

Dean Lewis
VMware Cloud Foundation Header

Nested VCF Lab – Error while creating NFS datastore

VMware, , ,

Whilst deploying my nested VCF environment for my home lab, I kept hitting the same issue over and over again, even when I rolled the environment back and redeployed it.

VCF bring up error while creating NFS datastore

Error while creating NFS Datastore for host XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX

Looking into the debug log files on the Cloud Builder appliance found in the below location;

vcf-bringup-debug.log /var/log/vmware/vcf/bringup/

You can see basically the same error message, and not much help.

ERROR [c.v.e.s.o.model.error.ErrorFactory,pool-3-thread-7] [TP9EK1] VCF_HOST_CREATE_NFS_DATASTORE_FAILED

And the log ends with the below comments, I’ve left my Task ID numbers in, but obviously these are unique to my bring up;

DEBUG [c.v.e.s.o.c.ProcessingTaskSubscriber,pool-3-thread-7] Collected the following errors for task with name CreateNFSDatastoreOnHostsAction and ID 7f000001-6ed0-12cd-816e-d1f7a33f006f: [ExecutionError [errorCode=null, errorResponse=LocalizableErrorResponse(messageBundle=com.vmware.vcf.common.fsm.plugins.action.hostmessages)]]

DEBUG [c.v.e.s.o.c.ProcessingTaskSubscriber,pool-3-thread-19] Invoking task CreateNFSDatastoreOnHostsAction.UNDO Description: Mount Repository NFS Datastore on ESXi Hosts, Plugin: HostPlugin, ParamBuilder null, Input map: {hosts=SDDCManagerConfiguration____13__hosts, nasDatastoreName=SDDCManagerConfiguration____13__nasDatastoreName, nfsRepoDirPath=SDDCManagerConfiguration____13__nfsRepoDirPath, repoVMIp=SDDCManagerConfiguration____13__repoVMIp}, Id: 7f000001-6ed0-12cd-816e-d1f7a33f006e ...

DEBUG [c.v.e.s.o.c.c.ContractParamBuilder,pool-3-thread-19] Contract task Mount Repository NFS Datastore on ESXi Hosts input: {"hosts":[{"address":"172.18.30.10","username":"root","password":"*****"},{"address":"172.18.30.11","username":"root","password":"*****"},{"address":"172.18.30.12","username":"root","password":"*****"},{"address":"172.18.30.13","username":"root","password":"*****"}],"nasDatastoreName":"lcm-bundle-repo","nfsRepoDirPath":"/nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount","repoVMIp":"172.18.30.50"}

DEBUG [c.v.e.s.o.c.ProcessingTaskSubscriber,pool-3-thread-19] Collected the following errors for task with name CreateNFSDatastoreOnHostsAction and ID 7f000001-6ed0-12cd-816e-d1f7a33f006f: [ExecutionError [errorCode=null, errorResponse=LocalizableErrorResponse(messageBundle=com.vmware.vcf.common.fsm.plugins.action.hostmessages)]]

WARN  [c.v.e.s.o.c.ProcessingOrchestratorImpl,pool-3-thread-10] Processing State completed with failure

INFO  [c.v.e.s.o.core.OrchestratorImpl,pool-3-thread-15] End of Orchestration with FAILURE for Execution ID 8c9c5ab1-e48a-414e-9c4d-8936e6f12c91

The Fix

I struggled with this one for a while, at first I considered maybe an IP address conflict with the SDDC manager appliance, but it wasn’t that, I had the same issue after trying again with a different IP address.

I discussed this with our internal support, and I was pointed to the direction of KB 1005948.

When I followed the article, I noticed that the default vmkernel used to access my subnet and the subnet of my SDDC manager was VMK2, which is assigned for VSAN traffic; Continue reading Nested VCF Lab – Error while creating NFS datastore →