vSphere 4 & 5 License Calculator by VirtualVCP
I know that everyone is looking for a way to get a grip on the future license costs involved with going to vSphere 5 in the future. Rynardt Spies over at Vi...
Posts by Tags
5.0
AutoLab
AutoLab on VMware Fusion Documentation
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
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...
Automation
Automate/Orchestrate - Yes, Please!
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 ...
Backups
Veeam Backup & Replication v6
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...
AppAssure Replay 4 for vSphere Backup and Restore
So we all know who the big players in the VMware virtualization backup game are…Veeam, vRanger, PHDvirtual…to name a few of the more common ones. A new one ...
Are you getting good snapshots?
I was going through my nightly reading and came across a great article at vKnowledge about application consistent quiescing. Since there are many companies ...
Books
Books: Mastering VMware vSphere 5 by Scott Lowe
I am happy to push more on the announcement of Scott Lowe’s new book, Mastering VMware vSphere 5. I have always been a huge fan of Scott’s books. As a matt...
Career
vMotion’d Myself…
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...
Cloud
The Key to the Future of the Software-Defined DataCenter at vDestination
Check out my first guest post at vDestination.com: http://vdestination.com/2013/07/10/the-key-to-the-future-of-the-software-defined-data-center/
VMworld 2012 Session (OPS-CIM1274)
Looks like I will be speaking at VMworld on a panel session with Thomas Corfmat, Igor Stoyanov, Sean Harrison, and Vivienne Cleveland:
Clusters
Should servers in a cluster have the same everything?
Today I was approached by one of my coworkers and was asked,
DPM
vCO 101 - Test DPM
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...
DRS
Should servers in a cluster have the same everything?
Today I was approached by one of my coworkers and was asked,
ESX
vSMP VMs and Per CPU Licensed Applications
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...
ESX/ESXi Connections and Ports Diagram
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...
Bye bye Service Console…ESX EOL Confirmed!
It seems that VMware has finally determined and announced the end of life for ESX Classic! The fate of the Service Console is now eminent…With the release o...
ESX/ESXi
Adjusting the amount of hostd log files
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:
ESXi
ESXi 5.5, Cisco B440 M2 with 1TB+, and Cisco VIC 1280 Bug
The other day we noticed some odd behavior from some blades in a somewhat large environment. The environment is a mix of B200 M3 and B440 M2 blades. The od...
HP and Emulex CIM Providers on ESXi 5
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
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
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
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...
vSphere 5 Available to Download Now
It looks like the wait is completely over. VMware has made available vSphere 5 for download. Here is the download page:
Enabling Local/Remote Tech Support Mode in ESXi 4.1
I have seen quite a few people wondering if there is a way to enable TSM from the vSphere Client. I would have to say, “YES THERE IS!” VMware posted a KB Art...
ESXi 4.1 Patches Applied…VMware Tools disappear!
I ran into an issue today when patching a couple of standalone ESXi hosts. There were no VMs built out on these hosts yet so I took the quick second to updat...
Enabling SNMP in ESXi 4.1
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...
ESXi 4.1 Lockdown Modes
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 ...
vSMP VMs and Per CPU Licensed Applications
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...
ESX/ESXi Connections and Ports Diagram
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...
Bye bye Service Console…ESX EOL Confirmed!
It seems that VMware has finally determined and announced the end of life for ESX Classic! The fate of the Service Console is now eminent…With the release o...
Emulex
HP and Emulex CIM Providers on ESXi 5
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...
General
vSphere Lab Give Away
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...
New Look for the New Year
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 ...
Guest Blog
The Key to the Future of the Software-Defined DataCenter at vDestination
Check out my first guest post at vDestination.com: http://vdestination.com/2013/07/10/the-key-to-the-future-of-the-software-defined-data-center/
HA
Should servers in a cluster have the same everything?
Today I was approached by one of my coworkers and was asked,
HP
HP and Emulex CIM Providers on ESXi 5
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...
Hyper-V
Microsoft Hyper-V slithering into VMware shops
With all of the debate going on with Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere, it seems that some companies in the SMB market are starting to take on Hyper-V. C...
JavaScript
Renaming a datastore through vCO
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...
Licensing
VMTN Subscription Coming Back?
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...
vRAM Entitlements Changed - Thanks VMware!
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...
The VPP? Answer to vRAM Entitlement Outburst?
On July 27, 2011 VMware announced a new licensing purchase program dubbed the VMware Volume Purchasing Program or VPP for short. The VPP was created as a po...
vSphere 4 & 5 License Calculator by VirtualVCP
I know that everyone is looking for a way to get a grip on the future license costs involved with going to vSphere 5 in the future. Rynardt Spies over at Vi...
vSphere 5 vRAM Licensing Model
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 ...
Life
A Couple of Things
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
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Linux
SLES for VMware and VMware Tools
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,...
Memory
vSphere Memory Counters De-Mystified
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...
Microsoft
Microsoft Hyper-V slithering into VMware shops
With all of the debate going on with Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere, it seems that some companies in the SMB market are starting to take on Hyper-V. C...
Migration
Veeam saves the day!
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 ...
NSX
NSX Edge - Troubleshooting via CLI
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...
NSX Controller Troubleshooting - Logical Routing and Bridging
As you continue through your journey with NSX you will eventually want to or be forced to (by requirement) to utilize the logical routing and bridging functi...
NSX Controller Troubleshooting - Logical Switching
So to add to my last post on troubleshooting VXLAN through esxcli, I will now move into troubleshooting and gathering information from the NSX Controller ins...
VXLAN Troubleshooting - esxcli commands
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 ...
Operation: Through My Eyes
Operation Through My Eyes - Day 3 (@VMworld Barcelona)
So here it is…the last day of the conference. I have put together the final footage for the short last day of the conference in Barcelona. I really hope th...
Operation Through My Eyes - Day 2 (@VMworld Barcelona)
On with the series, I bring another day of the conference, through my eyes. We go and check out the session hall and get a tour of the Hands-On Labs area fr...
Operation Through My Eyes - Day 1 - VMworld Barcelona
So here is the first of my series, Operation: Through My Eyes, for VMworld Barcelona 2013. This day was mostly the Solutions Exchange. Come walk the VMworl...
Operation Through My Eyes (@VMworld Barcelona)
So while sitting at the airport this morning I came up with a great idea for a blog series. It was a combination of blog/vlog/pov type postings. I want to ...
PowerCLI
Export/Import vCloud Director 5.1 OrgNetworks with PowerCLI
I decided to provide an extension on the last post I did, Creating OrgNetworks in vCloud Director 5.1 with PowerCLI. I had a need for being able to export O...
Create OrgNetworks in vCloud Director 5.1 with PowerCLI
So I know I haven’t posted in a little while anything truly useful…well, hopefully, that changes with this one. I was approached by a colleague with a need ...
PowerCLI One-liner: Check for Fast-Provisioning Enabled/Disabled on Org vDC in vCD
Ran across something and needed to be able to check to see what vDC’s had Fast-Provisioning enabled in my lab. Here is a quick one-liner to list them and if...
Script: Report-Snapshots.ps1
```powershell @” =============================================================================== Title: Report-Snaphots.ps1 Description: List...
Script: Report-Datastores.ps1
``` @” =============================================================================== Title: Report-Datastores.ps1 Description: Report Datastore usage for a...
Datastore Size Reporting via PowerCLI Script
After pulling together some different resources from the likes of Alan Renouf, Luc Dekens, Eric Sloof, and others in the PowerCLI community (Forgive me if I ...
Rescan All HBA’s from PowerCLI
Over at Professional VMware, Cody Bunch posts a pretty useful PowerCLI one-liner to rescan all HBA’s.
Scripts: Export VM Name and VMDK Size
Here is a script that I use to gather some size data and spit out a spreadsheet listing name and VMDK size.
Random
1337 VM H4ck3r
Something I came across today that struck me as funny while doing my daily VMware Community posting:
Reference
vSphere 4 & 5 License Calculator by VirtualVCP
I know that everyone is looking for a way to get a grip on the future license costs involved with going to vSphere 5 in the future. Rynardt Spies over at Vi...
Books: Mastering VMware vSphere 5 by Scott Lowe
I am happy to push more on the announcement of Scott Lowe’s new book, Mastering VMware vSphere 5. I have always been a huge fan of Scott’s books. As a matt...
Releases
VMware Clound Infrastructure Launch Live Event Overview
Another day that VMware has “raised the bar” for the virtualization community. Today those of us who were online for the live event received a skim of the n...
Replication
Veeam Backup & Replication v6
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...
SDDC
The Key to the Future of the Software-Defined DataCenter at vDestination
Check out my first guest post at vDestination.com: http://vdestination.com/2013/07/10/the-key-to-the-future-of-the-software-defined-data-center/
SLES
SLES 11/11sp1 Cloning or Deploy from Template Network Interface Fix
So we have all seen the wonderful cloning or deploying from template of a SLES VM and suddenly the network interface changes to eth1 and you have no network ...
SLES for VMware and VMware Tools
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,...
SSO
SSO High-Availability Single Site and vCenter Linked-Mode
I came across an interesting bug today when deploying a linked-mode vCenter and SSO in High-Availability mode. The installation of SSO, Inventory Service, a...
SSO Issue when using Windows Server 2012 AD Identity Source
One of the cool things about doing new installations is the ability to pick up on some of the latest gotchas. During a recent deployment of a greenfield I c...
vCenter Certificate Automation Tool 1.0
So for those of us who have experienced the wonderful times of dealing with replacing or updating certificates within our VMware infrastructures, VMware came...
Multi-Site vCenter Server Appliance Deployment
When sitting around today thinking about the grand scheme of things for my future state architecture, I was presented with a question from a co-worker about ...
Security
vCenter Certificate Automation Tool 1.0
So for those of us who have experienced the wonderful times of dealing with replacing or updating certificates within our VMware infrastructures, VMware came...
ESXi 4.1 Lockdown Modes
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 ...
ESX/ESXi Connections and Ports Diagram
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...
Site
A Couple of Things
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...
New Look…Fresh Feel
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. ...
Migrating to GitHub Pages
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...
Server Maintenance
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
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 ...
One Year Ago…
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...
New Site Design
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...
Snapshots
Script: Report-Snapshots.ps1
```powershell @” =============================================================================== Title: Report-Snaphots.ps1 Description: List...
Status
This week at vSential…
Stay tuned this week as I publish Part 4 and Part 5 of the vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate series!
Storage
Tool: UBERAlign by Nick Weaver
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...
Script: Report-Snapshots.ps1
```powershell @” =============================================================================== Title: Report-Snaphots.ps1 Description: List...
Script: Report-Datastores.ps1
``` @” =============================================================================== Title: Report-Datastores.ps1 Description: Report Datastore usage for a...
Holy VMFS3 Batman!
“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...
Symantec
Go to VMworld 2012 for Free from vDestination!
Last year Greg Stuart over at vDestination.com gave away a free trip to VMworld 2011. It looks like he has done it again with the aid of Veeam, TrainSignal,...
TSM
Enabling Local/Remote Tech Support Mode in ESXi 4.1
I have seen quite a few people wondering if there is a way to enable TSM from the vSphere Client. I would have to say, “YES THERE IS!” VMware posted a KB Art...
TrainSignal
Go to VMworld 2012 for Free from vDestination!
Last year Greg Stuart over at vDestination.com gave away a free trip to VMworld 2011. It looks like he has done it again with the aid of Veeam, TrainSignal,...
UCS
ESXi 5.5, Cisco B440 M2 with 1TB+, and Cisco VIC 1280 Bug
The other day we noticed some odd behavior from some blades in a somewhat large environment. The environment is a mix of B200 M3 and B440 M2 blades. The od...
Upgrade
vSphere 4 & 5 License Calculator by VirtualVCP
I know that everyone is looking for a way to get a grip on the future license costs involved with going to vSphere 5 in the future. Rynardt Spies over at Vi...
Upgrades
ESXi 4.1 Patches Applied…VMware Tools disappear!
I ran into an issue today when patching a couple of standalone ESXi hosts. There were no VMs built out on these hosts yet so I took the quick second to updat...
Veeam saves the day!
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 ...
VCAP5-DCA
My VCAP5-DCA Experience at VMworld Barcelona
As a few of you know, I recently sat the VCAP5-DCA while in Barcelona at VMworld Europe. I wanted to post a little information about the experience and poin...
VCP
VCP-410 Study Guide Posts
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...
VCSA
Multi-Site vCenter Server Appliance Deployment
When sitting around today thinking about the grand scheme of things for my future state architecture, I was presented with a question from a co-worker about ...
VMDK
Tool: UBERAlign by Nick Weaver
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...
VMFS
Holy VMFS3 Batman!
“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...
VMTN
2012 VMware vExpert Recognition
On Sunday, April 15, 2012, VMware released the information regarding the 2012 VMware vExpert Recipients here: http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2012/04/announcin...
VMTN Subscription Coming Back?
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)
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...
Raising the Bar, Part V - July 12, 2011
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:
VMUG
Houston VMUG Leadership Role
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...
VMware
Export vRealize Automation 7 Blueprints
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...
VMware Client Integration Plugin (CIP) v6.0 Issue on Mac OS X
So for a little while I have noticed that I could not get the VMware Client Integration Plugin to work for v6.0. I had tried on multiple Mac machines that I...
NSX Edge - Troubleshooting via CLI
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...
NSX Controller Troubleshooting - Logical Routing and Bridging
As you continue through your journey with NSX you will eventually want to or be forced to (by requirement) to utilize the logical routing and bridging functi...
NSX Controller Troubleshooting - Logical Switching
So to add to my last post on troubleshooting VXLAN through esxcli, I will now move into troubleshooting and gathering information from the NSX Controller ins...
VXLAN Troubleshooting - esxcli commands
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 ...
ESXi 5.5, Cisco B440 M2 with 1TB+, and Cisco VIC 1280 Bug
The other day we noticed some odd behavior from some blades in a somewhat large environment. The environment is a mix of B200 M3 and B440 M2 blades. The od...
vCO Usage Survey Call For Help!
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...
Export/Import vCloud Director 5.1 OrgNetworks with PowerCLI
I decided to provide an extension on the last post I did, Creating OrgNetworks in vCloud Director 5.1 with PowerCLI. I had a need for being able to export O...
Create OrgNetworks in vCloud Director 5.1 with PowerCLI
So I know I haven’t posted in a little while anything truly useful…well, hopefully, that changes with this one. I was approached by a colleague with a need ...
vCenter Certificate Automation Tool 1.0
So for those of us who have experienced the wonderful times of dealing with replacing or updating certificates within our VMware infrastructures, VMware came...
PowerCLI One-liner: Check for Fast-Provisioning Enabled/Disabled on Org vDC in vCD
Ran across something and needed to be able to check to see what vDC’s had Fast-Provisioning enabled in my lab. Here is a quick one-liner to list them and if...
VMTN Subscription Coming Back?
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...
vSphere 5 Available to Download Now
It looks like the wait is completely over. VMware has made available vSphere 5 for download. Here is the download page:
The VPP? Answer to vRAM Entitlement Outburst?
On July 27, 2011 VMware announced a new licensing purchase program dubbed the VMware Volume Purchasing Program or VPP for short. The VPP was created as a po...
vSphere 4 & 5 License Calculator by VirtualVCP
I know that everyone is looking for a way to get a grip on the future license costs involved with going to vSphere 5 in the future. Rynardt Spies over at Vi...
vSphere 5 vRAM Licensing Model
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 ...
VMware Clound Infrastructure Launch Live Event Overview
Another day that VMware has “raised the bar” for the virtualization community. Today those of us who were online for the live event received a skim of the n...
Raising the Bar, Part V - July 12, 2011
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:
VCP-410 Study Guide Posts
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...
vApps: To use or not to use?
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...
SLES for VMware and VMware Tools
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,...
Microsoft Hyper-V slithering into VMware shops
With all of the debate going on with Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere, it seems that some companies in the SMB market are starting to take on Hyper-V. C...
vSMP VMs and Per CPU Licensed Applications
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...
Are you getting good snapshots?
I was going through my nightly reading and came across a great article at vKnowledge about application consistent quiescing. Since there are many companies ...
ESX/ESXi Connections and Ports Diagram
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...
Bye bye Service Console…ESX EOL Confirmed!
It seems that VMware has finally determined and announced the end of life for ESX Classic! The fate of the Service Console is now eminent…With the release o...
VMware Fusion
AutoLab on VMware Fusion Documentation
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
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...
VMworld
VMworld 2014 Session Public Voting
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...
My VCAP5-DCA Experience at VMworld Barcelona
As a few of you know, I recently sat the VCAP5-DCA while in Barcelona at VMworld Europe. I wanted to post a little information about the experience and poin...
Operation Through My Eyes - Day 3 (@VMworld Barcelona)
So here it is…the last day of the conference. I have put together the final footage for the short last day of the conference in Barcelona. I really hope th...
Operation Through My Eyes - Day 2 (@VMworld Barcelona)
On with the series, I bring another day of the conference, through my eyes. We go and check out the session hall and get a tour of the Hands-On Labs area fr...
Operation Through My Eyes - Day 1 - VMworld Barcelona
So here is the first of my series, Operation: Through My Eyes, for VMworld Barcelona 2013. This day was mostly the Solutions Exchange. Come walk the VMworl...
Operation Through My Eyes (@VMworld Barcelona)
So while sitting at the airport this morning I came up with a great idea for a blog series. It was a combination of blog/vlog/pov type postings. I want to ...
vExpert Paparazzi VMworld Contest
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 US/EMEA - VCM4875: Getting Started with vCenter Orchestrator
I am very excited to announce that I had a session accepted for presentation at both VMworld US and EMEA this year! I will be presenting with my good friend...
VMworld 2013 Session Voting Open
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 ...
VMworld 2012 Session (OPS-CIM1274)
Looks like I will be speaking at VMworld on a panel session with Thomas Corfmat, Igor Stoyanov, Sean Harrison, and Vivienne Cleveland:
Go to VMworld 2012 for Free from vDestination!
Last year Greg Stuart over at vDestination.com gave away a free trip to VMworld 2011. It looks like he has done it again with the aid of Veeam, TrainSignal,...
VMworld 2012 Session Voting
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...
VMworld 2012 Call For Papers Open
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...
Need a pass to VMworld 2011?
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...
VPP
The VPP? Answer to vRAM Entitlement Outburst?
On July 27, 2011 VMware announced a new licensing purchase program dubbed the VMware Volume Purchasing Program or VPP for short. The VPP was created as a po...
Veeam
Go to VMworld 2012 for Free from vDestination!
Last year Greg Stuart over at vDestination.com gave away a free trip to VMworld 2011. It looks like he has done it again with the aid of Veeam, TrainSignal,...
Veeam Backup & Replication v6
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...
Veeam saves the day!
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 ...
VirtualCenter
vSMP VMs and Per CPU Licensed Applications
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...
Work
A Couple of Things
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
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
esxcli
VXLAN Troubleshooting - esxcli commands
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 ...
vApp
vApps: To use or not to use?
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...
vCLI
ESXi 5.0 and APC SmartUPS 1000
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...
vCNS
vCNS Manager Users and vCenter Group Authentication
Figured I would post this since it didn’t seem that this was documented anywhere. This is in regards to utilizing a vCenter Group for authentication into th...
vCO
vCO Usage Survey Call For Help!
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...
VMworld 2013 US/EMEA - VCM4875: Getting Started with vCenter Orchestrator
I am very excited to announce that I had a session accepted for presentation at both VMworld US and EMEA this year! I will be presenting with my good friend...
VMworld 2012 Session (OPS-CIM1274)
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
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
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
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 Webviews/Perspectives Default Values Issue
So today I was running some workflows that will be needed in the next week or so and found that they suddenly did not work in Webviews or Perspectives. The ...
vCO vApp Upgrade Issue
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 - Part Five
Now that we have a completely working automation workflow with some cool little auto-generated stuff in it, we can move to the presentation of the workflow. ...
vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate - Part Four
While learning how to use vCO for automating tasks within my virtual environments I came across the need to auto-generate or auto-populate certain portions o...
vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate - Part Three
Now that wait wasn’t so bad, was it? Anywho, today we will look at turning this Visio diagram looking thing into a working automation workflow. In the prev...
vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate - Part Two
So another day, another piece of the workflow! Today we will be generating input parameters, and workflow attributes. There are a few ways to do this but I...
vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate - Part One
As promised, here is the first of a series of post regarding using VMware vCenter Orchestrator to add a new host to vCenter and later in another workflow, de...
vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate
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 ...
vCSA
VMware vCenter Server Appliance v6 Services
So I have been asked by a few people,
vCenter Server Appliance v6.0 Upgrade Login Issue
So today I ran across an interesting issue after deciding to upgrade the vCenter Server Appliance in my lab environment. After applying the upgrade patches ...
vCenter
VMware Client Integration Plugin (CIP) v6.0 Issue on Mac OS X
So for a little while I have noticed that I could not get the VMware Client Integration Plugin to work for v6.0. I had tried on multiple Mac machines that I...
vCenter Server Appliance v6.0 Upgrade Login Issue
So today I ran across an interesting issue after deciding to upgrade the vCenter Server Appliance in my lab environment. After applying the upgrade patches ...
vCNS Manager Users and vCenter Group Authentication
Figured I would post this since it didn’t seem that this was documented anywhere. This is in regards to utilizing a vCenter Group for authentication into th...
SSO High-Availability Single Site and vCenter Linked-Mode
I came across an interesting bug today when deploying a linked-mode vCenter and SSO in High-Availability mode. The installation of SSO, Inventory Service, a...
SSO Issue when using Windows Server 2012 AD Identity Source
One of the cool things about doing new installations is the ability to pick up on some of the latest gotchas. During a recent deployment of a greenfield I c...
vCenter Certificate Automation Tool 1.0
So for those of us who have experienced the wonderful times of dealing with replacing or updating certificates within our VMware infrastructures, VMware came...
Multi-Site vCenter Server Appliance Deployment
When sitting around today thinking about the grand scheme of things for my future state architecture, I was presented with a question from a co-worker about ...
vCenter 5 VMwareVCMSDS Errors
So after playing around with my latest vCenter 5 installation I found that my logs were filling up with the following:
vSphere 5 Available to Download Now
It looks like the wait is completely over. VMware has made available vSphere 5 for download. Here is the download page:
vCenter 4.1 and SQL Express Gardening
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...
vSMP VMs and Per CPU Licensed Applications
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...
vCloud Director
Export/Import vCloud Director 5.1 OrgNetworks with PowerCLI
I decided to provide an extension on the last post I did, Creating OrgNetworks in vCloud Director 5.1 with PowerCLI. I had a need for being able to export O...
Create OrgNetworks in vCloud Director 5.1 with PowerCLI
So I know I haven’t posted in a little while anything truly useful…well, hopefully, that changes with this one. I was approached by a colleague with a need ...
PowerCLI One-liner: Check for Fast-Provisioning Enabled/Disabled on Org vDC in vCD
Ran across something and needed to be able to check to see what vDC’s had Fast-Provisioning enabled in my lab. Here is a quick one-liner to list them and if...
Host Disconnects from vCenter in a vCloud Director Environment
So I ran into an issue the other day regarding host disconnects within vCenter in a vCD environment. SSH’d into the host and noticed right off the bat that ...
Can’t Remove vApp in vCD - Pending State
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
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...
vDR
Are you getting good snapshots?
I was going through my nightly reading and came across a great article at vKnowledge about application consistent quiescing. Since there are many companies ...
vExpert
vExpert Paparazzi VMworld Contest
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...
2012 VMware vExpert Recognition
On Sunday, April 15, 2012, VMware released the information regarding the 2012 VMware vExpert Recipients here: http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2012/04/announcin...
vExpert Spotlight: James Bowling (VMTN Blog)
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...
A Good Way to Start the Weekend
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 ...
vMA
HP and Emulex CIM Providers on ESXi 5
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
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
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
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...
vRA
Export vRealize Automation 7 Blueprints
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...
vRAM
vRAM Entitlements Changed - Thanks VMware!
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...
vRO
vCO Usage Survey Call For Help!
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...
VMworld 2013 US/EMEA - VCM4875: Getting Started with vCenter Orchestrator
I am very excited to announce that I had a session accepted for presentation at both VMworld US and EMEA this year! I will be presenting with my good friend...
VMworld 2012 Session (OPS-CIM1274)
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
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
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
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 Webviews/Perspectives Default Values Issue
So today I was running some workflows that will be needed in the next week or so and found that they suddenly did not work in Webviews or Perspectives. The ...
vCO vApp Upgrade Issue
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 - Part Five
Now that we have a completely working automation workflow with some cool little auto-generated stuff in it, we can move to the presentation of the workflow. ...
vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate - Part Four
While learning how to use vCO for automating tasks within my virtual environments I came across the need to auto-generate or auto-populate certain portions o...
vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate - Part Three
Now that wait wasn’t so bad, was it? Anywho, today we will look at turning this Visio diagram looking thing into a working automation workflow. In the prev...
vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate - Part Two
So another day, another piece of the workflow! Today we will be generating input parameters, and workflow attributes. There are a few ways to do this but I...
vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate - Part One
As promised, here is the first of a series of post regarding using VMware vCenter Orchestrator to add a new host to vCenter and later in another workflow, de...
vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate
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 ...
vShield
vSphere 5 Available to Download Now
It looks like the wait is completely over. VMware has made available vSphere 5 for download. Here is the download page:
vSphere
SLES 11/11sp1 Cloning or Deploy from Template Network Interface Fix
So we have all seen the wonderful cloning or deploying from template of a SLES VM and suddenly the network interface changes to eth1 and you have no network ...
vSphere 5 Available to Download Now
It looks like the wait is completely over. VMware has made available vSphere 5 for download. Here is the download page:
vSphere 4 & 5 License Calculator by VirtualVCP
I know that everyone is looking for a way to get a grip on the future license costs involved with going to vSphere 5 in the future. Rynardt Spies over at Vi...
vSphere 5 vRAM Licensing Model
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 ...
Books: Mastering VMware vSphere 5 by Scott Lowe
I am happy to push more on the announcement of Scott Lowe’s new book, Mastering VMware vSphere 5. I have always been a huge fan of Scott’s books. As a matt...
vSphere Memory Counters De-Mystified
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...
Rescan All HBA’s from PowerCLI
Over at Professional VMware, Cody Bunch posts a pretty useful PowerCLI one-liner to rescan all HBA’s.
SLES for VMware and VMware Tools
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,...
Microsoft Hyper-V slithering into VMware shops
With all of the debate going on with Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere, it seems that some companies in the SMB market are starting to take on Hyper-V. C...