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VxRail Hosts show TPM 2.0 device detected but the connection cannot be established.

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Occasionally, I have to help our customers with installing/configuring and maintaining their DellEMC VxRail environments. I was recently assisting one of our customers with an upgrade from VxRail code 4.5.x to 4.7.x. After the upgrade was complete (12 hours later), we noticed that each host had an alert stating: “TPM 2.0 device detected but a connection could not be established” – Well, that’s a bummer!

After a long support call with DellEMC, one of their escalation engineers had seen this before and was able to resolve the issue. Short story, the BIOS needed to be configured to use SHA256 in order to support TPM.

Few tips that the engineer kept stressing:

  1. Ensure the vSAN cluster is healthy
  2. Ensure there is not an active re-sync operation in progress
  3. Ensure there are enough resources available for vMotions
  4. Ensure there was enough free space available for Fault Tolerance.

You can change the BIOS setting by completing the following steps:

  1. Put the host in Maintenance Mode in vCenter and using the “Ensure Accessibility” setting.
  2. Log into the BMC by hitting F2 for System Setup then System Security
  3. Ensure “TPM Security” is set to ON and “Intel(R) TXT” is ON
    1. If you can not turn this setting on, then you will need to enable secure boot in the bios first.
  4. Go into “TPM Advanced Settings” and Ensure “TPM PPI” settings are disabled, and “TPM2 Algorithm Selection” should be SHA56
  5. Save settings and let the host reboot with the new settings
  6. Clear alerts in vCenter for that hosts and wait 10-15 minutes
  7. Ensure is vSAN Health is healthy
  8. No Resync operations in progress
  9. Ensure there was enough free space available for Fault Tolerance.
  10. Proceed to the next host

Needless to say, this isn’t a quick process. Hope this helps anyone else seeing this and saves you a call to support.

FSLogix | Profile Containers |Excluding Directories

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I was recently on a project where we used FSLogix for profile management in Citrix. During the design phase with the customer, it was discovered that the client only wanted to redirect specific “Common” directories. Those common directories that they wanted to redirect were: Desktop, Favorites, and Documents. Unfortunately, the documentation for FSLogix and excluding directories isn’t the most straight forward – this included support who struggled to figure it out.

For those not familiar with how FSLogix works, let me take a moment to explain. FSLogix Containers (Profile and Office365) creates a Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) file on a FileServer and stores the user profile including registry in the VHD file. For Profiles, this results in very fast login times as there is no data being copied to the non-persistent VDI session. It simply mounts the VHD to the OS and accesses the data as it was local.

With FSLogix, there is a “Redirections.XML” file, which controls what folders you want to include/exclude. This file needs to be shared and accessible to “everyone” in a read-only capacity. This allows the file to be read upon login and copied to the user’s profile. The FSLogix ADMX file, tells the FSLogix Service where to look for the file. [Computer Configuration /Administrative Templates /FSLogix /Profile Containers /Advanced / Provide RedirXML file to customize redirections]

In the above example, we implemented a Redirections.XML file with the contents listed below:

Where the “0” is listed, you have some options:

0 = No files copied in or out. (Note: the copy tag may be left out entirely and the action will be the same as setting to 0. Only the folder(s) are created on the local_<user_name> directory.)

1 = Copy files to base. Any existing file in an excluded folder will be copied to base.

2 = Copy files back to the virtual profile. Any modified file in the base will be copied back to profile on user logout.

3 = Files are copied from/to base. Combinations options 1 and 2.

FSLogix Profiles made the painful VDI Profile portion, much less painful, and was relatively easy to implement.

I’m excited to see how Microsoft will continue to enhance the different containers and what’s next!

#vExpert2019

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Good Afternoon friends, it’s been a while since I have posted anything to this fine blog. I promise, I will post more in 2019 as I expect to dive into new products and technologies.

Now, back to why you are reading this post. I’m proud to announce that I made the cut to participate in the VMware vExpert program for 2019. #Strumbelievable! This will be the 4th year that I have been selected to be a part of this program.

The VMware vCommunity is an amazing group of passionate IT folks who are always willing to lend a helping hand and share knowledge.

It’s also great to see that my friend and co-worker @Mike Dent also made the cut!

Congrats to all of the other vExperts out there, I’m looking forward to another great year!

#Nutanix NTC2019

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This is probably the proudest post that I make on this blog every year. It is an incredible honor to be chosen by Nutanix, for the 3rd year in a row, to be a Nutanix Technology Champion for 2019.

From the NTC announcement: “This group of IT professionals, are from every cloud, application and technology group. Their diverse backgrounds, experiences, and expertise help their organizations and the virtualization community to challenge the status quo.”

It’s going to be a fun year of showing customers how they can take advantage of other Nutanix software, such as Nutanix AHV, Flow, Beam, and Calm. 

Also part of those recognized is Mike Dent, who is part of the amazing team at eGroup. We presented at .Next 2018 with one of my favorite customers about their Nutanix on UCS config. Hopefully, we will be given another opportunity to do the same this year with another customer. 

Congrats to all of the 124 other NutanixNTC’s out there. 2019 is going to be a great year!

The official NutanixNTC announcement is located here

Azure – Time to Deep Dive!

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I don’t often write about personal goals on my blog, but I feel like this is a big enough goal to write on the blog. Maybe this will keep me more accountable.

I have been putting off deep diving into Microsoft Azure for more than two years. You might be asking why, well, to be honest, I don’t know – I am sure if you pressed me hard enough, I could come up with plenty of horrible excuses.

With that being said, with the arrival of college football season, so does the “Dave Strum deep diving into Azure” season.

Here’s the Plan:

  1. Work with the eGroup Azure wizards on where to start – Probably Jesus and Ryan
  2. Complete multiple training programs
    1. Skylines Academy
    2. Pluralsight
    3. acloud.guru
  3. Lots and lots of real-world building.

What’s the goal:

  1. Work on at least one basic Microsoft Azure project by January 31, 2019
    1. This can be a solo project or pulling an assist
  2. Passing at least one Microsoft Azure certification exam

I’m also going to use the blog as an area to walk through the basics.

-Dave