We just wrapped up our second official vSAN & vSphere joint chat! Our chat featured the best of both worlds, John Nicholson and Nigel Hickey, representing vSAN and vSphere. Our subject matter experts spent the hour chatting about life as a virtual admin, starting from Day 0 through Day 365, inspired by the Life of an Admin Tech Field Day Video Series. Topics covered included patching, simplifying operations, running at your best and much more! If you missed that chat or you just want to skim the highlights, check out the recap below.
Q1: Today we’re going to talk about the Day in the Life of a Virtual Admin. To get started, what differentiates the VMware Digital Foundation? #vSANChat + #vSphereChat
A1:”It’s a common platform that lets applications be deployed at the edge, the core, or the cloud #vSANchat”
A1: Also make sure the healthchecks are green!… #vSANchat + #vSphereChat
Q2: Day 0: What are the decisions you need to think about from Day 0? #vSANChat + #vSphereChat
A2: “Day 0 is when Discovery of your environment should begin, along with getting Health Check of your environment. Moving to Planning your upgrades & installs will follow next.
Q3: How do you simplify operations? What are your top tips? #vSANchat + #vSphereChat
A3: “Use the new vSAN Baselines in VMware Update Manager.”
A3: “Simplifying operations can begin with automation. For example; the VCSA CLI can be used to Install/Upgrade/Migrate a vCenter Server” – vCenter Installation and Set up Guide.
Q4: Day 30: How do you determine “Are we running at our best?” #vSANchat + #vSphereChat
A4:
1. Check your health checks.
2. VUM for upgrades.
3. QuickBoot/VUM improvements mean much faster patch cycles.
A4: “Leveraging built-in tools vSphere Health and vSAN Health can help proactively discover environmental inconsistencies & provide guidance. Learn more: https://t.co/RosufR8Xhr
Q5: Let’s talk about patching. What do we need to know? #vSANChat + #vSphereChat
A5: “Patching is important! Let’s not forgot that VUM is part of the VCSA. VUM baselines can help with patching as well as Upgrades! Updates to VUM in #vSphere67.” – https://t.co/41LRsvWC3x
A5: “It’s time to stop bragging about 8 year uptime stats. Patch your hosts! Use the new VUM baselines, and health check that identifies what you can patch to. #vSANchat + #vSphereChat”
Q6: Day 180: When everything is on fire… what should we do? #vSANchat + #vSphereChat
A6: “Phone home support allows vSAN & vSphere Health to provide quick help to common issues.”
A6: “Support Insight has you covered. Phone home support helps make sure GSS is ready to jump in quickly and diagnose the issue.”
Q7: Day 365: How did we build this? When do we need to add capacity? #vSANchat + #vSphereChat
A7: “vRealize Operations dashboards in vCenter help you track when it’s time to add hosts.” – https://t.co/m0uDzuYzUz
A7: “Features such as Cluster Quickstart can allow the scale out of additional vSphere hosts in a simple and consistent manner.”
Q8: Okay, now the fun question. What meme most represents your life as an Admin? #vSANChat + #vSphereChat
Q9: Time to open up the questions! What do you want to ask Nigel and John today? #vSANChat + #vSphereChat
Love our tweet chats? Stay tuned for more! From basic 101 discussions to deep dives, we’ll be hosting monthly chats. No matter your experience level, join the conversation with our featured experts and expand your hyperconverged knowledge. Have a certain topic you’d like to chat about? We’d love to hear from you. Don’t be shy, drop us a line on Twitter!
