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Questions from Gregg Robertson VCDX #205

August 18, 2016 vReid 0

Following my VCDX certification I was asked by Gregg AKA TheSaffaGeek to answer some questions for his blog. How did you get into using VMware? I started back in 2009 when my previous employer started a large datacentre consolidation project. I quickly did my VCP to ensure I was the main resource on the project. What made you decide to do the VCDX? I really wanted to further my knowledge after doing the VCAPs. What I liked about the VCDX program is it makes you stronger in so many different technology areas. How long did it take you to complete the whole VCDX journey? About 13 months once I had passed the VCAP’s. What advice would […]

VCAP5 Exam Retirements Suspended

May 14, 2016 vReid 0

Since we announced the retirement of the remaining VCAP5 exams in late March, we have heard from quite a number of you who have requested additional time to prepare for and take those exams. Additionally, we are still working on the development and refinement of the VCAP6 exams (which will replace VCAP5), so these new exams have not yet been released in production. In light of your requests and still-pending VCAP6 exam releases, we are suspending the retirement of the following exams: VCAP5 Design Exams: VMware Certified Advanced Professional 5 — Data Center Design (VCAP5-DCD) Exam #VDCD550 VCAP Lab Exams: VMware Certified Advanced Professional 5 — Data Center Administration (VCAP5-DCA) Exam #VDCA550 VMware Certified Implementation Expert — Network Virtualization (VCIX-NV) Exam […]

RDMs and Microsoft Failover clusters

May 13, 2016 vReid 0

Unfortunately we have large number of virtual Microsoft failover cluster with RDM’s in virtual compatibility mode. Moving to SQL Always On is too expensive and our application owners refuse to acknowledge HA as an alternative. The issue with adding RDM’s is when you need to reboot an ESXi host it rescans for all these devices. As the amount of RDM’s increases this rescanning process can take up to an hr… Obviously waiting an hr is not acceptable so VMware created the following KB article to perennially reserve these devices. The issue I’ve experienced is when you have 100’s of RDM’s across 30-40 ESXi hosts, gathering all the devices using “esxcli storage core device list” and creating a script can be […]

UCS Central Pool Usage

May 12, 2016 vReid 0

I am luckily enough to work in a large environment with multiple UCS domains. However, managing multiple domains (nearly 9 in my case) can be challenging when you have 9 sets of different WWNN / WWPN , IP, UUID and MAC address pools to manage. Cisco provide UCS Central which allows centralised management of all these domains. Something I came across in UCS manager is I could select a pool and view which service profiles were assigned to the pool values. However, in UCS Central this functionality appears to have disappeared… Instead of listing the service profile a particular value is assigned to (in this case the WWPN) you simply get “assigned-to-single”. I am not sure why this functionality was […]