The vRealize Operations SSL Certificate Expiration Issue

[UPDATE #2 Nov. 18 2019] The KB is available again. Please subscribe to the KB for updates regarding the available .pak files, and engage VMware GSS if you have further questions/concerns.

[UPDATE #1 Nov. 18 2019] The linked KB article below has been pulled from public consumption due to an issue found in the mentioned .pak file. I will update this post as soon as the KB is re-published, or a new article is posted.

The VMware Product team has been notifying customers about an issue that could potentially impact your vROPs instance, causing the tool to become inoperable. See the notice and summary below. The key take away here is the initial install date. Please reference VMware KB 71018 for more information and steps to remediate.

The notice states, "Customers that have installed vRealize Operations v6.x and above may be impacted by the internal SSL Gemfire certificate expiration on November 19, 2019. The internal certificates for vRealize Operations Manager are set to expire five years after its initial installation. For example, if vRealize Operations 6.0.0 was installed on November 19, 2014, and incrementally upgraded to later versions, the internal SSL certificate will expire on November 19, 2019.

There is a required PAK file update that has been released for customers running vRealize Operations v6.x and above that renews the certificate to prevent it from going into system inoperability."

To summarize:

• All vROPs instance 6.0 and newer are impacted
• There is no fix for versions 6.0 - 6.2. You must upgrade to 6.3 or higher.
• The internal Gemfire SSL cert expires 5 years after the initial install of vROPs. The first of these will start happening November 19th. 
• When the cert expires, you cannot view any data, though collections will continue to run.
• Upgrades to vROPs have no impact on the cert, so the initial expiration date will still apply, even if you've upgraded vROPs several times since installation.

Read More

vROPs for Horizon - Regain Compatibility and Insight into your VDI

If your business happens to utilize VMware Horizon for VDI, and vRealize Operations (vROPs) for infrastructure monitoring, insight, and capacity planning, you may also be a business that uses the vROPs for Horizon Adapter (V4H) to bring that level of insight into your virtual desktop infrastructure. That being the case, you likely noticed that good stretch of time where vROPs 6.7 broke compatibility with the existing vROPs Horizon Adapter (V4H) 6.5.1 forcing you to delay upgrades, or lose your vROPs insights into the Horizon environment until it was fixed.

So what's needed to bring everything to compliance and compatibility to get insight back into Horizon with vROPs? Ultimately, you need the 6.6 adapter and a patched vROPs instance. The V4H Adapter 6.6 now supports vROPs 6.7 and 7.0. And the process for patching and licensing the vROPs instance is outlined below.

Step 1:  Upgrade your V4H license

Head to the VMware Portal and find your vRealize Operations 6 Manager for Horizon license. Go through the process via the portal to upgrade it to vRealize Operations Manager for Horizon

Reference: How to upgrade license keys in My VMware

Step 2:  Patch vROPs

Follow the steps outlined in KB 60301 to apply the appropriate patch to your vROPs instance

NOTE: vRealize Operations Manager 6.6.1 GA, 6.7 GA, and 7.0 GA, do not include the Security Patch.

How can you tell if you already have this patch? 
If you're on version 7.0 and you see the patch below, you're still on GA and need to apply the security fix. Once it's been applied, you should see  build 7.0.0.11287812. Verify your working build per the KB linked above.

Step 3:  Install the new license 

Implementing the new key in your vROPs manager will bring compliance and compatibility once again. Here's the official documentation for applying licenses.

For the latest on vROPs and Horizon compatibility, always check the Interop Guide, and take a peek at KB 59651 as well.

Happy patching!

Read More