I thought it was necessary to get this post out. I’ve heard numerous people say that they’ve tried to install VMware’s vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) but for one reason or another it just didn’t seem to work. I myself recently installed this and had issues, but somehow got it to install correctly on the third try. If you’ve had trouble configuring the vCAC appliance then look for the tip below. ...
There are a few Linux commands that vSphere Administrators should know for basic troubleshooting purposes and I wanted to take a second to review them in case you’ve typically been a Windows Administrator (like me). First, traversing the Linux file system is pretty similar to going through Windows directories from the command line. change directories Windows : CD C:dirname Linux : cd /dirname Show files and folders Windows : dir ...
VMtools is one of those nagging little pieces of software that always seems to be a pain to update. Back in my System Administration days, I commonly needed to report on which VMs had different versions of VMtools, and I have to admit, this was a more difficult property to find from my PowerCLI toolkit. Take a look at the old way of finding my VMtools versions through PowerCLI. ...
There are a ton of features now that VMware has that may require either an SSD or a Non-SSD to be available in your ESXi host. Host Caching requires an SSD and Partner products like PernixData also require an SSD to be available on the host. VMware’s Virtual SAN (VSAN) currently require both an SSD and a Non-SSD to be available. I’ve seen that many people want to try out these products in a lab environment, but don’t want to go out and buy another disk just to familiarize themselves with the product. In these cases, you can fool ESXi into thinking there is a device of the type you want. This can be done by using the esxcli commands on the host as documented here on VMware’s site. ...
After a long day of working with Microsoft’s IPAM feature, I found that it might be possible to deploy my virtual servers with a static IP Address without going to look up an IP from an Excel spreadsheet or some other log. OK, let’s address the elephant in the room first. I know that there is this thing called DHCP and that I can already automatically assign an IP addresss, but with that solution, my IP Address could change from time to time. Typically, I create a DHCP Scope for servers that I’m just testing out, or need some dummy VMs with IP Addresses. This way I don’t have to worry about looking up stuff before deploying a VM that I’m going to destroy again shortly afterwards. I also use DHCP for PC’s, where I almost never care about the IP Address. ...
If you’ve been in a situation where you need to test connectivity, you’ve probably used the ping command. But what do you do when you’re trying to test connectivity from an ESXi host? Luckily there is a command called vmkping that will allow you to test from the host. The first thing that you need to do is to SSH into your ESXi host. Turn the SSH Service on from the Configuration –> Security Profile Tab. Then you can use your favorite ssh client and remote into your host. ...
VMware just announced their 2.0 version of Log Insight last week and for a logging product, it’s pretty cool. Let’s face it, most of us don’t get up every morning and rush to our computer to check out the newest logging software on the market, but VMware Log Insight is still neat. Installation The VMware Log Insight 2.0 product was shockingly easy to install for log management system. In my experience, logging software makes you jump through so many hoops that you need to be a Parkour Ninja to do successfully, and some of which I would consider to be a " Cold Butter IT Solution", but not in this case. The install comes in the form of an OVA and I won’t go through that process, but it’s very simple. ...
The other day I was making a grilled cheese sandwich for my son and it got me thinking. The process of making one of these delicious morsels was similar to some of the IT solutions that I had worked with in the past. Let me explain. First and foremost, lets define the objective. The goal was to have a tasty grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. This is not a difficult process and the steps are also fairly straight forward. ...
For the past year I’ve been working as a Vice President for a startup consulting company that deals with distressed assets. Think debt collections type stuff. My role involved managing projects, providing technical consultations about things like PCI-DSS, HIPAA and infrastructure design. While this position was certainly challenging in its own ways, it was time for me to make a change. I’m very excited to be joining the team at Ahead. Ahead is a consulting company in downtown Chicago that offers a variety of services for IT delivery. ...
I was recently approached to present the Keynote session for a few VMUG conferences and wanted to provide a perspective about the experience. Public Speaking is clearly not one of my top 10 things I’d like to spend my time doing. Being a Systems Engineer, I don’t mind explaining things to a small group of people, but for the most part am a pretty quiet and reserved person who would prefer to stay in the shadows. Don’t get me wrong, if asked to weigh in, I have had no problem providing feedback or participate in a conversation, especially if it’s something I’m knowledgeable about, but for the most part, I’m pretty shy. ...