I was trying to avoid this post, but alas, a little shameless self promotion can’t hurt. VMware this year has decided to put a multitude of the sessions submitted during the CFP up for a vote, and I must say, there are plenty of good sessions up there. So even if I’m not your favorite,
-> Continue reading Get Out and Vote – VMworld 2010
Due to a change in Jon Hall’s schedule, the VCP Brown Bag for May 18th has been canceled and moved to the 25th. This also means that I had to push the VCDX Brown Bag on the 25th out to June 1st. Those of you registered should have received notifications, those of you not registered
-> Continue reading VCP/VCDX Brown Bag Scheduling Changes
After the excellent conversation we had last time, we’ve scheduled Jon Hall to come talk VMware Certification again this week. If you were there for the last one, you know you won’t want to miss this. If this is your first time… you will want to make every effort to be there, trust us. Critical
-> Continue reading VCP Brown Bag #8 – Jon Hall Returns!
This week we’ll be talking ESX Rapid provisioning, specifically objective 8 from the Enterprise Admin Blueprint. We’ll then take the discussion and build kickstart script, finishing with a scripted ESX install. Sound like fun? You know it will be. Here are the critical details: Date/Time: May 11, 2010 @ 2P CST Registration*: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/602230081 * Note:
-> Continue reading VCDX Brown Bag #6 – Rapid Provisioning
This came up on #VMware on Freenode this weekend. Basically the concern was “How do I Backup my ESXi USB Key?” Other than ripping the USB key out of a production machine… how was the user to do this? Well, vMA and the vCLI provide a method for this: Backing up your ESXi Configuration: To
-> Continue reading How To Backup ESXi Configuration – The Missing Piece
Nick Weaver, posted an update to the EMC Celerra VSA, or Virtual Storage Appliance. The build has rightfully been dubbed the -Uber edition. Here are a summary of his changes: 1. Completely automated install: On first boot a configuration wizard will ask a few questions and automatically reboot. On second boot everything is configured and
-> Continue reading Small, Sleek, and Sexxy – New EMC Celerra VSA
I believe we’ve covered networking before, but alas, that was before we started recording these. So… for the sake of completeness we will cover it this time around. First the critical call details: Date: May 4, 2010 @2PM CST Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/875600073 Note: VMware has a Free VCP Voucher offer, check here for details.
I found myself digging for resources about Private VLANs this last weekend and found some of the following useful: Wikipedia FTW! Eric Sloof’s Private VLAN Training: Online Training – Configure Private VLAN IDs from Eric Sloof NTPRO.NL on Vimeo. Cisco “Lan Security” – PVLANS – Cisco.com “Understanding Private VLANS” – Cisco.com Nexus 1000V PVLAN information
-> Continue reading Private VLAN Resources
Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends… This week’s VCDX Brown Bag will be an open topic discussion of all things VCDX. If we luck out, we’ve got VCDX #16 (Least I think that’s his number) Russell Pope. Call details: Date/Time: April 27, 2010 @ 2PM CST Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/602230081 Changes: Based on
-> Continue reading VCDX Brown Bag #5 – Open Topic
No really, it is seriously awesome. Eric Sloof from NTPRO.nl has published a video that runs you through a little utility he wrote called “vmFilemanager”, then further shows you how to create such a utility using the free edition of Visual Basic 2008. Online Training – Automating vSphere with the VIX API from Eric Sloof
-> Continue reading Awesome VMware VIX Training
Note: The follow-up video has been posted here. The video suffered, but the audio is what you’re after. It’s that time again. Time for another VCP Brown Bag. This time, we’ll also have a special guest: VMware’s Certification Tsar, Jon Hall. We’ll go over some of the recent certification news, VMware’s different tracks, and anything
-> Continue reading VCP Brown Bag #6 – A Chat With Jon Hall
Got a comment on my share and share alike post that covered setting up shared VMDK files on VI3 / ESX 3.x. Seemingly it didn’t work any longer. Work or not, I figure it’s time to revisit this in a new way, using vCLI(rCLI)! This will require the following steps: Download & install the vCLI
-> Continue reading Shared VMDKs on vSphere ESX and ESXi
This is a story, all about how, my cluster got flipped and turned upside down. Now I’d like to take a minute, to invite you to the next VCDX Brown Bag, where we’ll cover DRS Clusters & Performance Monitoring, and have a bit of fun while we’re at it. The critical details: Date/Time: Tuesday, April
-> Continue reading VCDX Brown Bag #4 – DRS Clusters and Performance Monitoring
For those of you who don’t have a copy of Hal’s PowerCLI book (if you don’t, you should)… and for those that do, but would like a supplemental reference for the VMware PowerCLI cmdlets, check VMware’s PowerCLI cmdlet reference. Have already used it to good ends this week. Example: New-VM added a DiskStorageFormat parameter… completely
-> Continue reading Online PowerCLI Reference
Growing up in VI3 I became accustomed to using the default inventory view. While effective for most tasks, you miss out on quite a bit of what the interface has to offer. What so i mean? Take this question for example: “What is my storage capacity, and how much of that do I have provisioned?”
-> Continue reading Finding Capacity vs.. Provisioned Storage
In this edition of the VCP Brown Bag we’ll have an open topic session.Bring any questions you have about the VCP certification, and we’ll try to get them answered. The critical details for this Brown Bag: Date: April 6, 2010 Time: 2PM CST Registration: Here! Hope to see you there!
This came up on Twitter Sunday, and having happened upon it in the past, I thought I’d share the solution that Ed Haletky (Blue Gears) and I came to. Basically it boils down to the service start order for the vCenter and related services. Specifically the order should be: SQL (MS SQL, Oracle, etc) ADAM
-> Continue reading vCenter Will Not Start! – vCenter Services Startup Order
Being that I’ll be going under the knife to have my elbow fixed, I don’t have anything specific set up for tomorrow. Bring your questions, experiences, and lunch for this weeks VCDX discussion led by Tom Howarth of PlanetVM, and Rob Markovic an independent virtualization consultant (contact). Details: Time: 2:00 PM CST Date: March 30,
-> Continue reading VCDX Brown Bag #3 – Open Topic
Lacking a service console, ESXi needs to be approached differently when performing common troubleshooting tasks. One of these, like the title states, is to find the CPU Ready values for a particular VM. There are more than a few ways to skin this particular cat, but in this case I’ll show you two: The vSphere
-> Continue reading Finding CPU Ready Values on ESXi
In this edition of the VCP Brown Bag we’ll cover the requirements for objective 5 of the VCP4 Exam Blueprint (Here). This will include the installation and configuration of virtual machines and vApps. The critical details for this Brown Bag: Date: March 23, 2010 Time: 2PM CST Registration: Here! Hope to see you there!