I have been keen to do the VMware vSphere Optimize and Scale (VCAP5-DCA) course for a while now, but since I pay for all my own training myself I’ve been waiting for someone to offer it at a reasonable price before parting with a few thousand pounds. Well, at last, that time has finally come … Continue reading “VMware vSphere Optimize and Scale (VCAP5-DCA)”
14,287 total views, 2 views today
I’ve been doing some standard maintenance on my Dell R815 hosts (upgrading BIOS, firmware, drivers etc.) and ran into some difficulty with one particular server. I use the Dell Management Plugin for VMware vCenter to carry out these operations, and besides being slow it works well. I simply run the firmware upgrade wizard which stages … Continue reading “Dell VC Plugin – iDRAC Queued Jobs”
34,698 total views, 4 views today
I’m not sure how widely vCenter custom attributes are used in general, but I certainly find them useful for a summary of important information in a single view (the VM summary tab). The only problem with using additional annotations, is that the data only becomes useful if it is maintained and can be relied upon. … Continue reading “Work Smart, not Hard – Automate Custom Attributes”
49,025 total views, 3 views today
If you’re running ESX/ESXi on either HP or Dell hosts with AMD Opteron 62xx series processors and were affected by the PSOD issue, then you will be happy to know that both vendors have now released BIOS updates to address this. My understanding is that this was actually a problem with the AMD microcode rather … Continue reading “FIX : PSOD on hosts with AMD Opteron 62xx series processors”
22,662 total views
I have only recently come across http://www.vmnews.co.uk/, and think that the concept is awesome. The presentation both simple and elegant – the perfect mix in my opinion. I really like the fact that you get a clear overview from many sources and can very quickly pick out the relevant articles that you’re interested in – … Continue reading “VMnews – why didn’t I think of that?”
8,688 total views
I had a support call today where I was asked to have a look at some servers to find out why they seemed so much slower than the existing ones. With not much detail to go on I first looked at some basic metrics; The first thing that stands out is that the new server … Continue reading “Why are my new servers so much slower than the old ones?”
25,216 total views, 2 views today
I have been meaning to post this information for ages, and fortunately after replying to a question in the VMware communities Andreas Peetz picked up on this and wrote a comprehensive article about these advanced settings, crucially explaining when to use them and why not to use them in production – thanks Andreas, excellent information! … Continue reading “Suppressing CPU compatibility checks in vSphere 5.x”
103,177 total views, 6 views today
HP have just released updated VIB’s to address the bug in the Feb2013 release of the ESXi management bundles. Download both ZIP files and import them into your VUM repository for deployment; HP Agentless Management Service for ProLiant Gen8 HP Insight Management WBEM Providers Limited for ESXi Remediate using VUM; A quick check before deploying … Continue reading “FIX : HP ESXi 5.x Management Bundles”
70,195 total views, 2 views today
VMware education services have provided some fantastic FREE instructional videos, and the catalogue seems to be growing. If you haven’t already visited http://vmwarelearning.com/ then head over and check it out. I find these particularly useful, especially on my daily commute, as they are short informative and I don’t have to do any reading (see examples … Continue reading “FREE VMware Education”
10,903 total views, 2 views today
In this scenario you have an ESXi host with 1Gb physical adapters, and a virtual machine with the guest network speed showing connected at 10Gbps. The host configuration looks like this; But the guest VM shows this; This is rather confusing at first, especially considering that you don’t have any 10Gb interfaces in your hosts. So how … Continue reading “How can I be connected at 10Gb when I only have 1Gb adapters in my hosts?”
69,000 total views, 2 views today
