Ah, nothing like being in Las Vegas the end of August with several thousand of your closest IT colleagues!!  I have not attended a VMworld in Las Vegas since it was held at the Venetian a few years back, so I was really looking forward to this one.
 This 14th US VMworld was AWESOME!!  Attended by more than 20,000 customers and partners. And there was  a record number of Hand on Labs taken as well!
I hope everyone that attended had as much fun, and learned as many new things as me and my friends did!
I want to give a big thank you and pitch to Cohesity in giving out one of the coolest vExpert item ever!  It included a Patagonia backpack, travel mug, water bottle, USB charger and socks!!
Check out their VMworld 2017 blog

Here is a bit of a review in pictures from VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas-

​Even at baggage claim, ready for VMworld!

A snack at our favorite burger place...

VMworld Customer Appreciation Party at the T-Mobile Arena-

Rocking Out with the headline Band - Blink-182

For some replays and more info, visit VMware VMworld 2017 

If you have tried to disable the Distributed Firewall on one of your host clusters, and found that even when selecting Disable it still shows Enabled,  there is a know issue and documented in this VMware KB 
​
The KB details the workaround to disable the Distributed Firewall with the API call to the NSX Manager-
Method: PUT URL: https://nsxmgr-ip/api/4.0/firewall/domainID/enable/true|false
​Note: Replace the domainID field with the Cluster ID of the cluster which has the firewall disabled.
So, how to find your cluster ID you need??  Most of the documents have you go to the Management Object Browser (MOB), of your vCenter, then drill down to locate the specific item you need and it's associated ID.

​However, there is a quicker way.  If you log into the web client of your vCenter, (and yes all new features like NSX, vSan and many others can only be done in the web client),  you can locate the object ID for many items!
Just click on the item you need, such as the Cluster, then in the address bar of your browser, scroll all the way to the right, and the ID will be listed close to the end.
Here is an example of the cluster and ID needed:​

I used this trick during my VCIX-NV exam, which has one API question, and was able to find the ID required for a specific VM and then build my API query needed.  I was able to pass the exam so I hope I got that question correct at least!
​

A follow up to my previous post on setting up NSX backups…
If you have configured a backup schedule on your NSX Manager, you may notice that there is no setting on the number of backups to retain, or any option to remove older backups.  This is even true in the latest 6.3.3 version.
On several NSX Managers that I administer, I had noticed a slowdown accessing the managers, and when creating or deploying any new components, such as an edge gateway.
 It was discovered that the slowness started occurring if the NSX Manager has 100 or more backup files.  The only way to remove the files was to delete them from the FTP server folder, and then reboot the NSX Manager.
​
If you start to experience any odd behavior of your NSX Managers, check the number of backup files and remove the ones not needed.  I keep mine under 20.
I am hoping a feature will be added in the upcoming release to allow you to set a backup retention and to delete backup files in the web ui.
Will keep you posted on my progress for that...

Whether you need to recover your NSX Manager from a failure or revert from changes, it is always good to have a current backup!
And if you have several NSX Managers to configure backups on, updating them using the API call will save you quite a lot of time.
NSX Manager supports setting up backups using FTP or SFTP, and to schedule them to run on an hourly,
daily or weekly frequency.
If you are looking for a FTP Server, I have used the FileZilla Server and pointed NSX Manager backups. It will support SFTP as well, check out the FileZilla info- forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?t=8812
I have had the best success running API calls to NSX using the Firefox RESTClient.  To start with-
1. Locate the RESTClient Mozilla add‐on, and add it to Firefox.
2. Click Tools > REST Client to start the add‐on.
3. Click Authentication,then Basic Authentication, and enter the NSX Manager login credentials, which then appear encoded in the Request Header.
Note: you may need to browse to the NSX Managers web ui, and accept the certificate warning before running query.
4. Select a method such as GET, POST, or PUT, and type the URL of a REST API.
Response Header, Response Body, and Rendered HTML appear in the bottom window.
5. For POST and PUT, you will need to add a Custom Header.
Select Headers, Custom header and add the name Content-Type and Value application/xml

Below is an example of adding a backup for a daily schedule:

Method   PUT   URL: https://nsx-manager.corp.local/api/1.0/appliance-management/backuprestore /backupsettings
Headers: Authorization: Basic       Content-Type: application/xml
Body:
<backupRestoreSettings>
<ftpSettings>
<transferProtocol>FTP</transferProtocol>
<hostNameIPAddress>ftp-server.corp.local</hostNameIPAddress>
<port>21</port>
<userName>ftp-user</userName><password>my-pasword</password>
<backupDirectory>NSXBackupDir</backupDirectory>
<filenamePrefix>nsx-manager-</filenamePrefix>
<passPhrase>my-password</passPhrase>  - This item was not listed in the API guide
<passiveMode>true</passiveMode>
<useEPRT>false</useEPRT>
<useEPSV>true</useEPSV>
</ftpSettings>
<backupFrequency>
<frequency>DAILY</frequency>
<hourOfDay>19</hourOfDay>
<minuteOfHour>30</minuteOfHour>
</backupFrequency>
<excludeTables>
<excludeTable>AUDIT_LOGS</excludeTable>
<excludeTable>SYSTEM_EVENTS</excludeTable>
</excludeTables>
</backupRestoreSettings>
 
The items in Bold are the options for your specific configuration…
To check your backup settings, just change the Method to GET, and run the same URL with the Authentication: Basic Header-
Method   GET   URL: https://nsx-manager.corp.local/api/1.0/appliance-management/backuprestore /backupsettings
Headers: Authorization: Basic       
The configured settings will display in the Body:
<backupRestoreSettings>
<ftpSettings>
<transferProtocol>FTP</transferProtocol>
<hostNameIPAddress>ftp-server.corp.local</hostNameIPAddress>
<port>21</port>
<userName>ftp-user</userName><password>my-pasword</password>
<backupDirectory>NSXBackupDir</backupDirectory>
<filenamePrefix>nsx-manager-</filenamePrefix>
<passiveMode>true</passiveMode>
<useEPRT>false</useEPRT>
<useEPSV>true</useEPSV>
</ftpSettings>
<backupFrequency>
<frequency>DAILY</frequency>
<hourOfDay>19</hourOfDay>
<minuteOfHour>30</minuteOfHour>
</backupFrequency>
<excludeTables>
<excludeTable>AUDIT_LOGS</excludeTable>
<excludeTable>SYSTEM_EVENTS</excludeTable>
</excludeTables>
</backupRestoreSettings>