This is a post to address a query that I recently received regarding the use of Aria Operations (formerly vRealize Operations) with VMware Data Services Manager. The question was whether or not the vRealize True Visibility Suite for PostgreSQL and MySQL would work with the databases that are provisioned by DSM. tl;dr The answer is yes, the True Visibility management packs will successfully gather metrics from databases deployed via DSM, and allow you to build monitoring dashboards, etc. In this post, I will demonstrate the steps involved in configuring the integration for PostgreSQL as there are a few specific steps…
I am delighted to announce the availability of a new book, VMware vSAN 8.0U1 Express Storage Architecture. Along with my colleagues, Duncan Epping and Pete Koehler, we have updated the vSAN deep dive book to focus on the new vSAN architecture which was announced with the vSphere & vSAN 8.0 releases. We held off publication as we were aware of a number of upcoming enhancements in 8.0U1. Now that this release is generally available, the book includes all of the new features and functionality found in the 8.0U1 release. Please note that we made a decision not to focus on…
Its been some time since I wrote an article on VMware Cloud Foundation. However, I recently caught up with my good pal Gary Blake who informed me about a significant new development in the VCF space. This is the release of a new fling called the VMware Cloud Foundation Configuration File Generator. This new fling will enable us to replace the Deployment Parameter Workbook with a containerized web application. This new application has the ability to validate all of the configuration inputs before generating the JSON file. This file is then used by the Cloud Builder appliance to bring up…
In this video, you will see how easy it is to create a clustered MySQL database through VMware Data Services Manager (DSM) v1.4. The video shows how to deploy a clustered MySQL database at deployment time rather than building a standalone MySQL database and then enabling a clustered configuration. You will see how a ‘clustered’ IP address is used to act as a front-end IP address for the cluster, and also how a read-write access port of 6446 is used to connect to the database rather than the default port of 3306. Finally, you will see how to use the…
This short video steps through the cloning of an existing database, highlighting another self-service feature of VMware Data Services Manager. This task can be done directly in the DSM UI by an end user, adding to the self-service capabilities available in the product. The demo will show how to take the clone, and then uses pgAdmin 4 to connect to the databases, validate the results of the cloning operation (by looking at the schema and tables), and then examining the contents of one of the cloned tables. Hope you find it useful. Please reach out with any thoughts, comments or…
This is a short video which highlights the various aspects of lifecycle management in VMware Data Services Manager (DSM). The demo shows the steps involved in upgrading DSM from v1.3.2 to v1.4. It looks at the steps to upgrade the Provider, the Agents and the version of existing databases which are already deployed. It also highlights points where these updates can be automated from within DSM itself, along with maintenance windows and policies. A more detailed description of the steps are highlighted in this accompanying lifecycle management blog post which covers the same upgrade scenario.
In this post, three aspects of lifecycle management of VMware Data Services Manager are reviewed. An upgrade from DSM v1.3.2 to v1.4 will be used to demonstrate the various aspects of lifecycle management. First, the provider administrator will upgrade the DSM provider. This will be followed by an upgrade of the DSM agents, before finally upgrading the databases. Upgrading from DSM v1.3.2 to v1.4 introduces a new minor version of the supported versions of PostgreSQL and MySQL. If the Allow Minor Version Upgrade option is enabled, then the databases are updated during the next maintenance slot automatically. However, the provider…