vCenter 6 Enhanced Linked Mode
I was studying for my VCP-DCV6 and was trying to get my head around Enhanced Linked Mode. I used two VCSA's to see how this operated. I wanted to find out how do you configure the appliance settings after they are built and how do you configure linked mode. Both answers surprised me a little.
The last time I used the VCSA was with 5.5 and I had nothing but trouble with it. It held up a project I was working on for a week before I reverted to the Windows version. I guess it was early days, over a year and a half ago so I stuck to using it in Labs and POCs since then. With 6.0 it's gotten an overhaul so today I tried using it to see what's changed.
The 5.5 appliance had a specific URL to configure management settings, NTP, AD, IP information etc but it was nowhere to be found! I pulled up the documentation and to my surprise it's now configurable from within vCenter:
Now I thought for a second someone was pulling my leg but sure enough all the settings I would normally look for are listed above. I'm sure you'll find lots of other posts about deploying VCSA so I won't cover that here. There is also a CLI interface for when you mess up!
The next task was to deploy a second one and see how to "join" them in Enhanced Linked Mode. The Platform Services Controller can contain an instance of SSO and this is key. If during install you point at the SAME SSO installation you get Enhanced Linked Mode automatically. Unlike legacy linked mode you can't turn it on afterwards so get your design right and plan for HA of SSO! So I've two VCSA's, both with the Platform Services running but only one has SSO on it - both use it and share information as shown below.
You may need to log out and back in to the first VCSA to see the second one's resources after you add them. As you can see above you can browse through to either VCSA and see Hosts, VMs and lots more besides!
So for planning it's worth it to take the time and review the recommended vCenter architectures as once you upgrade (and make your choices) you can't go back!
