There are times when you will need to put a host into, or take a host out of maintenance mode and you wont otherwise have the remote access needed to make PowerCLI or other API methods work. For times like those, vimsh works wonders: This little gem comes from xtravirt: To enter Maintenance Mode, at
-> Continue reading Put ESX Into Maintenance Mode From the CLI
I’m reposting the Vid of our VMworld 2010 session from Chad Sakac’s Virtual Geek. As Tom Howarth could not make VMworld US, Mike Laverick stepped in to drive the panel. On the panel we had: Adam Carter @ HP Eric Schott @ Dell (formerly EqualLogic) Chad Sakac @ EMC Vaughn Stewart @ NetApp Now the
-> Continue reading VMworld 2010 – “Storage Super-Heavyweight Challenge”
This came up in the comments to one of my other posts, so I though I’d share. Note: The Host Update Utility was depreciated with 4.1, so if you came here looking for that… my apologies. The vSphere Host Update Utility, as far as I can tell is not actually offered as a separate download,
-> Continue reading Installing the vSphere 4.0 Host Update Utility
Sean’s vFail.net came to my attention because of some trackbacks on my VCAP-DCA posts. However, in addition to VCAP Study guides (which are quite good), he’s covered PowerCLI (another of my favorite areas) and some other great topics. If you aren’t already, add this series of virtual failures to your RSS reader or bookmarks and
-> Continue reading New Blog You Should be Following: vFail.net
Well, if that wasn’t an SEO title, I’m not sure what is. Basically, I find myself often having to find this in either the VMware KB or via Google each time I need it. Where are the logs? C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter The problem you may run into however, is that the “ProgramData” folder is hidden by
-> Continue reading Finding Virtual Center Logs on Windows Server 2008
More often than not, storage design considerations are NOT taking into account when users start rolling out VMware View environments. This can lead to unexpected performance issues, particularly when using linked clones. Using linked clones on an array with SATA drives and very little cache is just asking for trouble however there is a way
-> Continue reading How to convert linked clone VMware View desktops to fully deployed (thick)
This week we take a break from the certification track and instead take a tangent into other areas surrounding virtualization. This week we will be talking with Jim Curry of the OpenStack project. As always, bring along your questions. Logistics: When: Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 @ 2PM CST Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/909625585 What is OpenStack? The goal
-> Continue reading BrownBag #13 – OpenStack
A you may already know, Tom Howarth and I have actually managed to get a session accepted for VMworld. The gist of it is: Get a bunch of storage heavyweight folks onto a stage to answer your questions about storage & virtualization. That said… We need your help. Ask Your Questions: We understand that not
-> Continue reading Submit Your Questions – VMworld “Storage Super-Heavyweight Challenge”
So I’m traveling a bit outside of my normal realm and am hanging out in South Florida for a bit. What does that mean? Well outside excellent bicycling weather and humidity, it also means local area vMUGs! Two of them in fact. Come on out and let’s talk Virt! Details: South Florida Area vMUG Date:
-> Continue reading ProfessionalVMware in a Town Near You!
Instead of writing a 4.1 post, which seems to be all the rage, I’ll instead link you to a few of them that I have been reading (which are in turn links out to more documentation). Eric Siebert – http://vsphere-land.com/news/vsphere-41-the-links.html vChat (about 4.1) – http://www.techhead.co.uk/vchat-a-regular-virtualization-related-webcast VMware 4.1 KB articles – http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/2010/07/useful-vsphere-41-knowledgebase-articles.html ESXi “touchfree” installs –
-> Continue reading Yo Dawg… (Obligatory vSphere 4.1 Post)
You know you want it… We’ll be covering the security objective from the VCAP-DCA Blueprint. Likely with some live demos along the way. What’s that you say? “When? How? What"? Details Date/Time: Tuesday, July 20th @ 2PM CST Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/909625585 Note: If you have registered in the past, you ‘should’ not need to again. Preparation:
-> Continue reading BrownBag #12 – VCAP-DCA Security
This post actually has it’s roots in a practical and useful change in VMware’s “delete all” snapshot functionality. For the details, I strongly suggest you go off to Duncan’s page and read all about it. It was that post that in turn generated quite a lot of twitter buzz around some additional features, or naming
-> Continue reading Roll-Dice – PowerCLI & Fun with VMware Snapshots
I am the King of Last Minute Scheduling… as such, this weeks Brown Bag will be a rambling open topic.We’ll talk VCP, VCAP, establishing trust between Management & Virtualization groups, and anything else that happens to come up. The Details: Date/Time: Today (7/6/2010) at 2PM CST Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/909625585 Looking forward to seeing y’all there.
It’s summer reading time again! The first item on my reading list this summer is none other than the “Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) (Data Center): A Complete Reference Guide to the Cisco Data Center Virtualization Server Architecture (Networking Technology)” (A mouth and a half full). From the first two chapters of the book, the
-> Continue reading Pre-Review Cisco UCS: Complete Reference
Over the course of my travels, I’ve found that having a quick reference to random Windows commands is helpful. Here are two sets of commands I use often enough to be useful, but not often enough that I’ve committed them to memory: Managing IP Addresses from the CLI Netsh! – This one predates PowerShell on
-> Continue reading Useful Windows Commands for VM Administrators
With vSphere comes the ability for third parties to add hardware to the HCL without having to wait for an update to ESX for their drivers to be included. An excellent move on VMware’s part as this opened up the door hugely for 3rd parties to supply certified & updated drivers as well as provide
-> Continue reading Installing 3rd Party Drivers in ESX
In the spirit of all things Brownbag, we’re branching out beyond certification to include several “Deep Dive” technical podcasts with industry leading experts. Mind, we’ll still keep to our certification roots, but the Brownbag format lends itself well to doing technical deep dives as well. As such, our first topic will be Virtualization security, and
-> Continue reading Brownbag #10 – Security Deep Dive
This post is actually in preparation for another that will list my favorite Podcasts. First I thought it would be helpful to show you how I get through the many many hours of Podcasts generated a week. Other than listening to them while driving & during downtime, I time-shift them to 1.5x their recorded speed.
-> Continue reading Time Shifting Podcasts (Off Topic)
There are still some big things on the horizon for the Brown Bag series. One of the first things is the introduction of a new co-host for the VCP Series. Rather than try to introduce him here… We’ll leave it as a mystery during the call. This go around we’ll be talking about storage, otherwise
-> Continue reading VCP Brown Bag #9 – Storage (Objective 3)
With the long weekend here in the US I about forgot to put this post out. Tomorrows VCDX Brown Bag, due to a complete lack of show prep on my side will be Canceled. Those of you who registered should have received a notice. Sorry for doing this at the 11th hour, but please stay
-> Continue reading VCDX Brown Bag #7 – Open Topic