Using VMware SDK Support

I predict this post will get a single hit over its lifetime, but if it helps at least one person desperately trying to find out how to open a VMware SDK support request, that’s good enough for me.

Quick Overview

Not everyone knows, but VMware, along with support for vSphere, NSX and all the other software products, also provides SDK and API support. If you are a partner developing a solution that integrates with a VMware product or even a customer writing your own vSphere plug-in using vSphere Management SDK, you can reach out to VMware for help.

It’s a paid service. You can find detailed description of it on its landing page here: VMware SDK and API Support

How to open SRs

One thing that is not very obvious about the SDK support is how to open support requests if you’re a customer. The goal of this short post is to demonstrate where to find it on VMware support portal:

1. Log in to My VMware portal using your account credentials
2. Under the Support section click Get Support
3. On the opened page, under “Technical” category, choose your issue type, such as “Fault/Crash”
4. In the provided list of Supported Products expand SDK Support Services
5. Select VMware SDK Support
6. Click Continue and proceed with describing your issue and opening the ticket, as usual

This is a screenshot of what it will look like, if your account has been entitled to SDK support:

If you’re working with SpringSource, there is also a range of support option under the SprinSource Open Source Support sub-category.

Conclusion

I’ve had only brief interaction with SDK Support team, but can only say good things about them. One of the examples was a question I had on parameter specifications of a particular vSphere Web Management SDK function and I not only got an answer to my question, but I was also provided with code snippets, which I didn’t even ask for. So if you are serious about using VMware SDKs and think you may require technical support, I can certainly recommend this service.

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VNX LDAP Integration: AD Nested Groups

Have you ever stumbled upon AD authentication issues on VNX, even though it all looked configured properly? LDAP integration has always been a PITA on storage arrays and blade chassis as usually there is no way to troubleshoot what the actual error is.

If VNX cannot lookup the user or group that you’re trying to authenticate against in AD, you’ll see just this. Now go figure why it’s getting upset about it. Even though you can clearly see the group configured in “Role Mapping” and there doesn’t seem to be any typos.

Common problem is Nested Groups. By default VNX only checks if your account is under the specified AD group and doesn’t traverse the hierarchy. So for example, if your account is under the group called IT_Admins in AD, IT_Admins is added to Domain Admins and Domain Admins is in “Role Mapping” – it’s not gonna work.

To make it work change “Nested Group Level” to something appropriate for you and this’d resolve the issue and make your life happier.