vSphere Replication when using vRDMS

January 31, 2017 Bilal Ahmed 2

So you can use vRDMs with vSphere Replication: https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2015/07/vsphere-replication-virtual-rdm.html There aren’t many use cases for it and it isn’t documented very well. So I have just been pondering over something: vSphere replication supports VMs that have vRDMs but not pRDMs. ESXi5.5 now supports vRDMs up to 62TB. What it does, is it will bring the vRDM up as a VMDK file at the DR site. I am throwing this out there as a possible option for replication of our VMs that have RDMs attached, since we have a few VMs that have RDMs attached to them and which need to be replicated too. “If you wish to maintain the use of a virtual RDM at the target location, it is possible to […]

Why I gave up attempting the VCDX

January 14, 2017 Graeme Vermeulen 2

Note: I’d like to preface this post by stating that I have utmost respect for any individual who’s achieved VCDX-level certification or is in the process of doing so. I wrote this post here a while ago on why I will become a VCDX, and why it’s worth it.  I feel that I need to write this post out, if anything, for myself so that I can finally move on from the VCDX and not feel so guilty about dropping it! I’ve been working in the background on a design to submit, despite having a very busy life with my fair share of issues to deal with, all the while still doing my usual day job of consulting. I’ve really found that […]

VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.1 on the #vBrownbag

January 12, 2017 Jason Grierson 1

The other week I saw the call to all VCDX volunteers for the vBrownbag series around the new VCAP6-DCV Design exam, so with exam closet to my heart I have volunteered for a few sections.  The first section I really wanted to cover was the Objective 1.1 as this was one of the sections that I really struggled with when I wrote the DCD 5.1/5.5 exam, however the due date didn’t leave me much time to prep a presentation deck.  So over the weekend I gave it the good old college try but was only able to get half way through the presentation due to the length of the chapter.  With that in mind I messaged Gregg letting him know […]

Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 5.8.1 Unable to Export Recovery Plan History

January 10, 2017 Bilal Ahmed 1

Basically, I had a recovery plan and I had done tests/cleanups/migrations/re-protects and it all worked exactly as expected,. But each time when I wanted to export the history reports it wouldn’t do anything! I would pick the type of report I wanted (html/doc etc), I would click generate report. It would generate it fine. But when I clicked download…I would get nothing. I click it and click it and nothing would happen?! I tried Chrome and Firefox, I had rebooted the SRM  service at both sites, the Web Client service at both sites. I had tried a different user account, I simply could not get the report to export. But every other plan exported fine. Then I was asking in the […]

WARNING: Veeam Backup VDDK error 1 and 2 ESXi 5.5/6 Veeam B&R v8/9 Updated: 03/01/2017

January 3, 2017 Bilal Ahmed 0

So this has been an ongoing saga for quite a while: Repeated VDDK error 1 and 2 This is an issue I blogged about a little while ago too, right here: WARNING: Veeam Backup VDDK error 1 and 2 ESXi 5.5/6 Veeam B&R v8/9 It has been causing people plenty of issues and although it’s simple to fix, it’s annoying and it shouldn’t be happening! Veeam and VMware have been pointing the finger at each other for months now. Personally I would lean to it being a VMware issue, simply because a restart of the management agents resolves the issue. So I have been following the thread on the Veeam forums and there has finally been an update! VMware have […]