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Blog

A Couple of Things

3 minute read

So I know that it has been quite a while since I have posted anything. Needless to say that we all have things that come up in our lives that keep us from d...

Change is Good

2 minute read

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

New Look…Fresh Feel

less than 1 minute read

I am not quite sure why but I decided to change the look of my site again. I know that I was not on the old design for long but I just felt it was lacking. ...

Automate/Orchestrate - Yes, Please!

4 minute read

Most of you know that I am a Principal Consultant/Architect for a VAR in Texas. If you didn’t know that then now you do…any-who…I am often receiving emails ...

Migrating to GitHub Pages

less than 1 minute read

So today marks the day where I start my journey migrating off of wpEngine and moving to GitHub Pages. During this transition please bare with me as I get th...

VMworld 2014 Session Public Voting

less than 1 minute read

So it has been a minute since my last post and I hate that this is my newest one…OK…so maybe I don’t hate it!  Anyway, the session voting is open for the pub...

vCO Usage Survey Call For Help!

less than 1 minute read

As many of you know, what drives innovation is the voice of the community and people using the products provided to us by companies like VMware.  There are t...

vExpert Paparazzi VMworld Contest

less than 1 minute read

So just before I finish everything up and finish packing, I wanted to make everyone aware of a very cool contest happening this year at VMworld.  Greg Stuart...

VMworld 2013 Session Voting Open

1 minute read

Ladies and gentlemen, the VMworld 2013 Session Voting has begun!  I have submitted a couple of sessions both by myself and with some fellow colleagues.  You ...

vCloud Director SAML/SSO FAIL OMG

2 minute read

:warning: Disclaimer: Use at your own risk!  Be smart and contact VMware GSS if this is a production environment!  This was in my lab so your mileage may var...

VMworld 2012 Session (OPS-CIM1274)

less than 1 minute read

Looks like I will be speaking at VMworld on a panel session with Thomas Corfmat, Igor Stoyanov, Sean Harrison, and Vivienne Cleveland:

VMworld 2012 Session Voting

1 minute read

So this year I have a couple of topics that I and a couple of others (Cody Bunch, Joerg Lew) have turned into for the Call for Papers.  User voting for the t...

vCO 101 - Test DPM

less than 1 minute read

In response to Cody Bunch’s recent post on Testing DPM with PowerCLI, I decided to translate this into a vCO workflow.  I did this because I thought it would...

VMworld 2012 Call For Papers Open

less than 1 minute read

Much to my surprise, VMworld 2012 CFP is now open (http://www.vmworld.com/thread/5311).  I will be submitting a few topics with a couple of my vCO buds.  I w...

2012 VMware vExpert Recognition

less than 1 minute read

On Sunday, April 15, 2012, VMware released the information regarding the 2012 VMware vExpert Recipients here:  http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2012/04/announcin...

vCO vApp Upgrade Issue

1 minute read

So I decided to remediate my vCO vApp to the latest version, 4.2.1.  Everything went smooth after attaching the baseline that I created to upgrade it through...

Houston VMUG Leadership Role

1 minute read

So a couple of weeks ago I was contacted after offering to help with the Houston VMUG and asked if I was willing to take over as Leader of the group.  Shocke...

This week at vSential…

less than 1 minute read

Stay tuned this week as I publish Part 4 and Part 5 of the vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate series!

Server Maintenance

less than 1 minute read

I was notified today by Rackspace that my web server cluster will be experiencing an outage tomorrow, Saturday March 3, 2012 between 12:01AM and 1:30AM CST. ...

Extreme Makeover: vSential Edition

less than 1 minute read

Well, with the new year comes change (Yes I know it is already the end of February!).  With this in mind, I have decided it was time to change the design of ...

vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate

2 minute read

First, I want to thank the vCOteam for their help and all the others on the VMTN forums that helped me learn more about vCO and what it can do.  Secondly, I ...

vSphere Lab Give Away

less than 1 minute read

So one of our community well-known and appreciated people has found a way to make someone’s year a special one.  Cody Bunch over at ProfessionalVMware.com ha...

VMTN Subscription Coming Back?

less than 1 minute read

So there has been a spark of another conversation regarding the VMTN Subscription.  For those of you who are unaware of what this is/was, it was a service si...

vExpert Spotlight: James Bowling (VMTN Blog)

less than 1 minute read

The VMTN Blog has posted an interview with me as part of a series of posts focusing on VMware vExperts and their journey in IT.  I am honored to be a part of...

vSphere 5 Available to Download Now

less than 1 minute read

It looks like the wait is completely over.  VMware has made available vSphere 5 for download.  Here is the download page:

One Year Ago…

less than 1 minute read

Today marks the birthday of vSential.com.  On August 5, 2010, vSential.com was created and brought online to bring good content on virtualization to the wond...

vSphere 5 vRAM Licensing Model

5 minute read

While everyone was excited to hear about the next generation of the dominating hypervisor, one particular piece has held a cloud (no pun intended!) over the ...

Need a pass to VMworld 2011?

less than 1 minute read

Holy free stuff!  I am truly amazed at this wonderful chance for those of you out there that want to go to VMworld.  My fellow vExpert and virtualization blo...

New Site Design

less than 1 minute read

So in celebration of the big #VMwareCloud event and the recent honor bestowed upon me, I have decided to change up the site a bit…well…a bunch!  The entire s...

Raising the Bar, Part V - July 12, 2011

less than 1 minute read

I hope everyone is just as excited as I am regarding the upcoming “Raising the Bar” online event.  Here is the information posted on the VMTN Blog:

A Good Way to Start the Weekend

less than 1 minute read

I got up this morning and was filing through my e-mail only to find one from Mr. John Troyer.  The e-mail stated that he was welcoming me to the 2011 VMware ...

vMotion’d Myself…

less than 1 minute read

Well, I have officially vMotion’d myself from one company to another within the same city and state.  I will be taking a longer hiatus than expected so I can...

Veeam saves the day!

3 minute read

This past weekend I was faced with a challenge of moving from an old unsupported SAN on a 3.5 deployment to a new supported SAN and a new 4.1 deployment. I ...

New Look for the New Year

less than 1 minute read

So with the New Year here, vSential.com has overgone a makeover of some sort.  There are definitely more things that need to be looked into and resolved but ...

1337 VM H4ck3r

less than 1 minute read

Something I came across today that struck me as funny while doing my daily VMware Community posting:

vSphere Memory Counters De-Mystified

3 minute read

One of the recent things that I have come across are posts in the community forums regarding memory metrics or memory counters.  People are always asking que...

vCenter 4.1 and SQL Express Gardening

less than 1 minute read

Cody Bunch over at ProfessionalVMware posted yet another good article for us vGeeks.  I, personally, have not run into this yet but I imagine I will soon.  C...

Holy VMFS3 Batman!

1 minute read

“Robin, go carve me out a new LUN for our new Batworks Monitoring System!”, says Batman.  Robin replies, “It is ready for you Batman, let’s get monitoring th...

ESXi 4.1 Lockdown Modes

less than 1 minute read

I came across a great video by David Davis at VMwareVideos.com about ESXi 4.1 Lockdown Mode and the new Total Lockdown Mode.  ESXi lockdown mode is designed ...

vApps: To use or not to use?

less than 1 minute read

Back in September, Cody Bunch at ProfessionalVMware.com, had posted an article regarding an e-mail he had received from one of his readers about vApps.  Besi...

Are you getting good snapshots?

less than 1 minute read

I was going through my nightly reading and came across a great article at vKnowledge about application consistent quiescing.  Since there are many companies ...

Bug

vCO vApp Upgrade Issue

1 minute read

So I decided to remediate my vCO vApp to the latest version, 4.2.1.  Everything went smooth after attaching the baseline that I created to upgrade it through...

Certification

VCP-410 Study Guide Posts

less than 1 minute read

As I start gearing up for my VCP-410 exam I decided I would post my progress and information regarding each objective as I go through them.  I know that ther...

HowTo

NSX Edge - Troubleshooting via CLI

1 minute read

So let us continue down the path of the various commands to help troubleshooting.  We have been down the path of the VXLAN via esxcli, NSX Controller and Log...

VXLAN Troubleshooting - esxcli commands

1 minute read

So with the release of VMware’s NSX™ product, some of us may have already started down that road of playing with it in our labs.  VMware NSX™ is the network ...

Can’t Remove vApp in vCD - Pending State

2 minute read

So I have run into a few issues where trying to delete a vApp with Partially Powered Off VMs live inside the vApp.  It seems to place the vApp and VM into a ...

vCloud Director SAML/SSO FAIL OMG

2 minute read

:warning: Disclaimer: Use at your own risk!  Be smart and contact VMware GSS if this is a production environment!  This was in my lab so your mileage may var...

AutoLab on VMware Fusion Documentation

less than 1 minute read

So after my last post about the VMware Fusion and AutoLab goodness, I was pinged by Alastair Cooke on Twitter about possibly writing up the documentation for...

AutoLab on VMware Fusion

1 minute read

I have noticed that you can’t find much about installing the AutoLab on a Mac running VMware Fusion.  Here are some notes on getting it going.  The first thi...

vCO 101 - Test DPM

less than 1 minute read

In response to Cody Bunch’s recent post on Testing DPM with PowerCLI, I decided to translate this into a vCO workflow.  I did this because I thought it would...

Renaming a datastore through vCO

1 minute read

I was in need of automatically renaming a generic datastore name in one of my host deployment workflows and found that the renameDatastore() method was depre...

vCO vApp Upgrade Issue

1 minute read

So I decided to remediate my vCO vApp to the latest version, 4.2.1.  Everything went smooth after attaching the baseline that I created to upgrade it through...

vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate

2 minute read

First, I want to thank the vCOteam for their help and all the others on the VMTN forums that helped me learn more about vCO and what it can do.  Secondly, I ...

vCenter 5 VMwareVCMSDS Errors

less than 1 minute read

So after playing around with my latest vCenter 5 installation I found that my logs were filling up with the following:

HP and Emulex CIM Providers on ESXi 5

1 minute read

It looks like HP and Emulex have finally worked out their differences with their CIM providers.  As some of you will remember, you were unable to install Emu...

Enabling SNMP on ESXi 5

less than 1 minute read

Some people have asked how to enable SNMP on ESXi 5.  The process is identical to how you would on ESXi 4.x.  Here’s how:

ESXi 5.0 and Remote syslog

1 minute read

So I have started laying out the beginnings of the new vSphere 5 infrastructure at my work.  Got a couple of hosts laid out, vCenter built up, and dotting my...

ESXi 5.0 and APC SmartUPS 1000

5 minute read

So the company I work for had a deployment scenario in place for there remote branches utilizing VMware Server 2 prior to me coming onboard.  I was tasked wi...

Veeam saves the day!

3 minute read

This past weekend I was faced with a challenge of moving from an old unsupported SAN on a 3.5 deployment to a new supported SAN and a new 4.1 deployment. I ...

Enabling SNMP in ESXi 4.1

less than 1 minute read

I decided to gather some information about a server that was sitting in Morgantown, PA due to a couple of errors we were receiving.  I needed to get it prett...

Adjusting the amount of hostd log files

less than 1 minute read

There was a question posted on the VMware Community Forums regarding the ability to increase the number of hostd log files.  Here is the solution I provided:

SLES for VMware and VMware Tools

less than 1 minute read

Eric Gray from vCritical posted a good article in regards to the usage of SLES for VMware and installing VMware Tools.  Since the release of SLES for VMware,...

vSMP VMs and Per CPU Licensed Applications

less than 1 minute read

I have the handy vCalendar by Jason Boche sitting on my desk here at work and as I was tearing through the days of this weekend I came across one tidbit that...

Scripts

Export vRealize Automation 7 Blueprints

4 minute read

Now that people are starting to build out vRealize Automation 7 in some environments, we find that we need to use some of the new features, or at least, we w...

ESXi 5.0 and APC SmartUPS 1000

5 minute read

So the company I work for had a deployment scenario in place for there remote branches utilizing VMware Server 2 prior to me coming onboard.  I was tasked wi...

Script: Report-Snapshots.ps1

1 minute read

```powershell @” =============================================================================== Title:             Report-Snaphots.ps1 Description:     List...

Script: Report-Datastores.ps1

1 minute read

``` @” =============================================================================== Title: Report-Datastores.ps1 Description: Report Datastore usage for a...

Speaking

VMworld 2012 Session (OPS-CIM1274)

less than 1 minute read

Looks like I will be speaking at VMworld on a panel session with Thomas Corfmat, Igor Stoyanov, Sean Harrison, and Vivienne Cleveland:

Tools

vCenter Certificate Automation Tool 1.0

1 minute read

So for those of us who have experienced the wonderful times of dealing with replacing or updating certificates within our VMware infrastructures, VMware came...

AutoLab on VMware Fusion Documentation

less than 1 minute read

So after my last post about the VMware Fusion and AutoLab goodness, I was pinged by Alastair Cooke on Twitter about possibly writing up the documentation for...

AutoLab on VMware Fusion

1 minute read

I have noticed that you can’t find much about installing the AutoLab on a Mac running VMware Fusion.  Here are some notes on getting it going.  The first thi...

Tool: UBERAlign by Nick Weaver

1 minute read

We all know that one of the biggest performance killers in our virtual environments is the wonderful alignment of partitions so that they may work in harmony...

ESXi 5.0 and APC SmartUPS 1000

5 minute read

So the company I work for had a deployment scenario in place for there remote branches utilizing VMware Server 2 prior to me coming onboard.  I was tasked wi...

Veeam Backup & Replication v6

less than 1 minute read

One of my favorite virtualization backup companies is about to mark another day to bring new features and take the backup world to the next level…Veeam Backu...

Script: Report-Datastores.ps1

1 minute read

``` @” =============================================================================== Title: Report-Datastores.ps1 Description: Report Datastore usage for a...

Veeam saves the day!

3 minute read

This past weekend I was faced with a challenge of moving from an old unsupported SAN on a 3.5 deployment to a new supported SAN and a new 4.1 deployment. I ...

ESX/ESXi Connections and Ports Diagram

less than 1 minute read

Dudley Smith has released the latest version of his ESX/ESXi Connections and Ports Diagram.  It is a PDF formatted for printing in poster size (2’x3’)…This i...

Troubleshooting

NSX Edge - Troubleshooting via CLI

1 minute read

So let us continue down the path of the various commands to help troubleshooting.  We have been down the path of the VXLAN via esxcli, NSX Controller and Log...

VXLAN Troubleshooting - esxcli commands

1 minute read

So with the release of VMware’s NSX™ product, some of us may have already started down that road of playing with it in our labs.  VMware NSX™ is the network ...

VMware

vRAM Entitlements Changed - Thanks VMware!

2 minute read

Looks like VMware listened to all of the negative feedback and lashings they received from their customer base regarding the new vRAM Entitlement licensing m...

Workflows

vCO 101 - Test DPM

less than 1 minute read

In response to Cody Bunch’s recent post on Testing DPM with PowerCLI, I decided to translate this into a vCO workflow.  I did this because I thought it would...

vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate

2 minute read

First, I want to thank the vCOteam for their help and all the others on the VMTN forums that helped me learn more about vCO and what it can do.  Secondly, I ...