vRealize configuration Manager - unable to run reports

When trying to run reports we receive the following error:

An error has occurred during report processing. (rsProcessingAborted)

Cannot create a connection to data source 'ECM'. (rsErrorOpeningConnection)

For more information about this error navigate to the report server on the local server machine, or enable remote errors

Troubleshooting:

Login to data source on report server to verify authentication which was successful

Worked with VMware support on solution

Solution:

add basic to the end of the AuthenticationTypes string in the rsreportserver.config file of the report server.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10_50.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer

vCenter Server - lookup service failed

Recently did a rack migration for which we had to shutdown SQL cluster and vCenter server including all Virtual machines.

After powering I was unable to login with my domain account and got the following error:

"Failed to connect to VMware Lookup Service. SSL certificate verification failed"

Troubleshooting:

• Login to vCenter server (SSH or RDP depending on vCenter server platform) and verified that the vmware-sso service is running.
• Could not login with local admin@vsphere.local so logged into VA configuration https://<vcenterServer>:5480.  Verified all services was running.
• Verified SSO server and Active directory domain controllers time is not off by more than 5 minutes.
• Found KB article on this error.

Unable to power on VM with SCSI bus sharing enabled - error: "Could not open/create change tracking file"

So recently i was asked to assist with setting up a new SQL 2012 AlwaysOn Cluster for POC.
During the configuration of the VM's we had to setup a quorom disk which is shared between both servers for MSCS.
The shared disk I configured and select virtual device node on newly created SCSI controller, LSI Logic SAS with SCSI bus sharing set to Physical.
On the 2nd VM i created the same SCSI controller as above and instead of creating new disk the existing disk was select.

With Primary powered on and trying to power on the 2nd SQL server i receive the following error:
"Could not open/create change tracking file"

vCenter Server - Host Profiles - set NTP

Setting your host with NTP services using host profiles requires a few changes to be made in different settings on host profiles.

Solution:

Edit the host profile

• Lets first set the NTP servers:
• General system settings -> Date and Time configuration
• Click Date and time configuration
• Time settings - "Configure a fixed NTP configuration"
• List of time servers - add server IP address or FQDN for NTP servers.  Use comma to list multiple servers
• Now lets enable the NTP service:
• Security and services -> Services configuration -> Services configuration
• Select NTPD (make sure this is enabled)
• On service verify the dropdown box is set to "Establish a fixed service configuration"
• Policy that dictates how the service will be handled - type "on"
• Now lets set the firewall rule:
• Security and services -> Firewall configuration ->  Firewall configuration -> Ruleset Configuration
• Select ntpClient (make sure this is enabled)
• Verify dropdown "Specify the configuration of a fixed ruleset.
• Check the box for enabled  on "Flag indication where ruleset should be enabled"
• Check the box for enabled on "Flag indication where ruleset should allow all ip addresses"  (this is self explanatory)

vCenter server - host profiles error "host state doesn't match specification..."

Setup host profiles and when applied on other hosts i get receive the error message:

Seems that ESXi treats SAS disk as shared disks instead of local disks which causes these errors when you create your host profile from an existing ESXi host.

Solution:

The only workaround I found is to disable the following settings in the host profile -

• Storage configuration - > Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA) configuration
• disable "PSA device settings"
• disable "PSA device configuration"
• Storage configuration -> Native Multi-Pathing NMP
• disable "PSP and SATP configuration for NMP devices

Links:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2002488

Cisco UCS - step by step configuration

As mentioned I don't go into too much details on my post since i think there are a lot of other great blogs and vendor documentation out there.  Here is my short bullet point task list.   If I am missing anything please let me know.

Set equipment policies:

• Equipment tab -> equipment - > policies tab
• Chassis/fex discovery policy
• Action = 4 ports
• Link grouping preference = port channel
• Power policy = grid

Configure server/uplink port:

• Equipment tab -> select FI-A/B -> expand -> fixed modules
• Configure the appropriate unconfigured ports as “Server” (connections between IOM and Fabric Interconnect) and “Uplink” (connection to network)

Configure FC storage ports

• Equipment tab
• All the way bottom, select FI A
• Right hand side select Configure unified ports
• Run slider to end of fiber storage ports you need
• This will reboot FIA, after reboot re-login.
• Select FI B
• Perform same steps

Cisco UCS - configure policies

Set Policies:

Network control policies (enable CDP)

• LAB tab -> Policies -> root -> sub-organizations -> network control policies
• Create network control policy
• Enable CDP

Bios Policy:

• Servers tab -> Policies -> root -> sub-organizations -> Bios Policies
• Create bios policies
• Mostly setting cpu settings

Host Firmware:

• Servers tab -> Policies -> root -> sub-organizations -> Host Firmware Packages
• Create host firmware package
• Set simple and only blade package version.

DPA - Automate the conversion of report from CSV to Excel and upload to Sharepoint

Data Protection Advisor is a great application providing alerts and reports.

I created a scheduled custom report to show daily backups from Avamar.  The report job however only saves to CSV and cannot export file to a share.  You can publish to Sharepoint but this only compatible with Sharepoint Server 2013 so this was not an options for us.

I create a batch file which copies the CSV file from the website using wget.
I then run a powershell script to convert the CSV file to XLSX.
Thanks to Boe Prox - https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/7c56c444-2476-4625-b1d9-821f30280e44
After conversion is completed the file is copied to a Sharepoint document library.
I then setup a windows task scheduler to run the batch file.

A couple of problems I ran into:

On a windows 2008 R2 server when trying to open the Sharepoint document library in windows explorer gives you the following error message:

“your client does not support opening this list with windows explorer”

To resolve this:

Install Desktop Experience on Windows 2008 R2

Go to features -> Add features -> Select “Desktop experience”

When i ran the batch file from windows task scheduler I got the following error "Microsoft Excel cannot access the file". 

To resolve this:

You have to create a folder (or two on a 64bit-windows):

(32Bit, always)

C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\Desktop

(64Bit)

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\Desktop

Task scheduler failed to copy the file to mapped network drive

To resolve this:

Changed the copy to UNC path

Solution:  (can copy and paste into batch file)

"C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin\wget" -N --http-user=<username> --http-password=<password> --no-check-certificate --secure-protocol=sslv3 https://<servername>:9002/dpa-api/scheduledreport/results/DailyBackups.csv

sleep 5

powershell -NoProfile -command ". .\ConvertCSV-ToExcel.ps1"; "& {&'ConvertCSV-ToExcel' -inputfile DailyBackups.csv -output 'Daily Backup Report.xlsx'}" > E:\DPAreports\convert.log

sleep 5

copy /Y "E:\DPAreports\Daily Backup Report.xlsx" "\\<sharepoint server>@SSL\DavWWWRoot\DPA Reports" > E:\DPAreports\copy.log