The ever wonderful Virtu-Al has released an update to his PowerShell Daily report. This script is beyond awesome in usefulness and should be required in any production VI deployment. Really, it is that good. Also! There have been some mods to get it looking nice on the iPhone. What is new in V2? Bug Fixes
-> Continue reading PowerShell Daily Report V2 (and some iPhone love)!
I almost wish I had stumbled on this before. Microsoft has published an “Owners Manual” for PowerShell. You know, that little book in the back of your glove box? Yeah, only this one is uber useful, and while not PowerCLI specific, will make your life as a VI admin, and Windows admin that much nicer.
-> Continue reading PowerShell Owners Manual
In doing some background research for a post on FT vs. MSCS, I stumbled upon a wonderful write up by Brian Atkinson aka. “VMRoyale”, on FT’s laundry list of requirements, limits, and other considerations. The original post is here. He does an excellent job of pulling together data from various VMware docs and puts together
-> Continue reading VMware FT (Fault Tolerance) Requirements & Limits
Amazon just posted my 3 star review of OnlineFlashCards for the VCP310. You can read the entire thing here. I’ve quoted some bits of it here: When I received the product, it came in a shrink wrapped box. Odd I thought, considering this is an online product, what is the box for? I shook it
-> Continue reading OnlineFlashCards VCP310 – Review Posted
This post comes because I am just as confused as the rest of you when it comes to the options available in some of these new vSphere interfaces. I figure it best to take a look at some of the options, and figure when it is best to move away from defaults and start tuning
-> Continue reading VMDirectPath? Paravirtual SCSI? – vSphere VM Options and You!
Now that I have you at attention, let us take this time to talk of things. Important things. The things your parents never told you about VMFS. First let us start with some definitions, each of these will be taken in the context of VMware Virtualization using ESX/vSphere, and VMFS, but you knew that, didn’t
-> Continue reading Safe and Natural VMFS Enlargement! – Extend or Grow VMFS and Why You Should Care
It is official, or at least as official as anything can be said to be official, that I will be attending VMworld 2009. I’m not sure on flight details yet, however. Of all of the plethora of reasons to attend, I’m actually quite interested in the Golden Gate Bridge Run. Another thing that caught my
-> Continue reading Come Meet ProfessionalVMware at VMworld 2009
Today we continue along with the VCP4 Blueprint coverage (other objective 5.3 posts here and here). In this post we’ll wrap up 3.5 with some final coverage on vApps, specifically building and managing vApps in the vSphere 4 client when it is connected to vCenter server. Sound like fun? No? Trust me, it is. With
-> Continue reading Build & Manage a vApp – VCP4 Objective 5.3
First a picture of this in action: (Click the pic for full size) Wow. It’s actually a nice little overview of what is doing what on that particular host, at a given time. You can break it down by VM, and set the time range from real time on up. This is provided by the
-> Continue reading That’s New – vSphere Client Performance Overview
While playing in the “Lab” today I found a section in the vSphere client, under “Configuration” called “IPMI/iLO Settings”: Being an inquisitive fool, I clicked it and then properties: It seems this will let you get/set the IPMI or iLO settings for the server. Unfortunately my home lab does not support either.
I’m lazy. Very lazy, in fact. I’m also fairly sure that you are too. How many times a day do you connect to different vCenter servers? Do you type your password each time? If you do, for shame! Today while playing with vCenter Server for vSphere I found that the following parameters still work with
-> Continue reading Tired of Typing? vSphere Client Pass-through Auth
Another interesting bit from the VCP4 blueprint was in a line item under the “Tools” section under objective 3.5. The tool is “OVF Tool”. New on me. Perhaps new on you too. It seems that there has not been much in the way of publicity about it. A Google search lead me to the this
-> Continue reading OVF Tool – VCP4 Objective 3.5
While working through the VCP4 exam objectives I found a section on vApps. Specifically the line item around “Import/Export a Virtual Appliance”. Ignoring the rest, here is how you import and export vApps. Warning, this post is screenshot heavy. Importing There are two ways of going about this. “Deploy OVF” and “Browse VA Marketplace”. If
-> Continue reading Import/Export a vApp – VCP4 Objective 5.3
One of the great things about working in IT, is that software will always need to be updated. If it didn’t, some of us would need to find a new line of work. Just because it needs updating, does not mean we have to like it. In fact, most vendor update processes are needlessly obtuse.
-> Continue reading Spending an Afternoon with the Host Update Utility
Doesn’t that title bring back 1996. I can almost feel the texture of the hard plastic shell of the 3.5 inch disk AOL would mass mail me. Useless little things in today’s world aren’t they? Really, with USB disks, iso files and the like, when was the last time you needed one? They are still
-> Continue reading Solving the Chicken and Egg Problem With .flp
They’re here! What’s here? My summer reading, that’s what. I’ve recently received review copies of Eric Siebert’s “VMware VI3 Implementation and Administration”, Edward L. Haletky’s “VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security”, “Interconnecting Datacenters Using VPLS” from Cisco Press, and finally “VCP VMware 310” Online flash cards by John Traenkenschuh. They all appear to be great
-> Continue reading Summer Reading Pre-Reviews
After the success of the VCP4 beta study call I am thinking that a Podcast would be a good idea. The difficulty is: Would you come? What subjects would you like covered? How often? Live show? Recorded? Both? Call-in show? I figure I can answer some of these, however, as the show is for YOU
-> Continue reading ProfessionalVMware Podcast? – Would you come?
This post actually puts together two of my past posts to solve a ‘common’ problem. Common that is, if you often leave snapshots running, and do not have a method for otherwise checking on them. The situation is this: It is 3:45PM on Friday (what good issue doesn’t happen on a Friday?), you are closing
-> Continue reading Help! I Snapshotted My Datastore Into Oblivion
Rather than post several follow-ups to the same post, it is likely best to collect all of my available resources into a single page. In keeping with that, this page will contain everything I have found or have been linked to for the VMware Certified Professional 4 (VCP4) certification. General Exam Info VCP4 Exam Blueprint
-> Continue reading VCP4 Resource Page
The first, and likely most obvious change is the theme. I figure this one is a bit cleaner and more readable overall. I’m not sure what may have broken, but if there is anything ‘off’ drop me a line in the comments. The second, and less obvious of the two is that the backend has
-> Continue reading Changes: Now and Later