Rebuilding your VSAN lab in Ravello is easy and takes no time!

February 1, 2018 Kim Bottu 2

I really like the Free vEXPERT Ravello tier to run some quick tests but it has few disadvantages: The limited amount of CPU hours. The time it takes to upload images, create VMs, blueprints, applications and networks. The time it takes to create a new lab environment from scratch can take a lot of hours. The more servers you add to your lab environment, the longer it will take to create it. But as soon as I had figured out how to create my applications, VMs and blueprints, it was very easy to come up with a plan to deploy new test environments in different regions or to replace my corrupted labs with only a few mouse clicks. The time to deploy a […]

No Image

Linux Foundation Certified Engineer (LFCE) Exam Review #LinuxFoundation @linuxfoundation #Linux #CentOS @sandervanvugt @tecmint #vExpert

January 16, 2018 Bilal Ahmed 9

So I never originally planned to do this exam! But after I did the LFCS (see my review here) I realised I was not that far off from getting the LFCE, and since I was on a roll I thought WHY NOT!? Now the blueprint for the LFCS was very very broad, to the point it made it very difficult to study for, but the blueprint for the LFCE is much more concise: Current LFCE Blueprint :  Network administration Configure network services to start automatically at boot Implement packet filtering Monitor network performance Produce and deliver reports on system use, outages and user requests Route IP traffic statically and dynamically Troubleshoot network issues Network filesystems and file services Configure systems to mount […]

Mapping the VCDX Defense Genome Part 3: Is All Flash a Trap?!

January 5, 2018 Jason Grierson 0

Hey everyone, So prior to the holidays I was helping mentor some new VCDX candidates for their re-defenses and was coming across a few trends that I wanted to discuss a little as they started creeping up over and over again.  These trends were All Flash SAN’s, Oversized Compute, and questions being asked that were not part of the candidates design.  We’ll get into the last point a little more but first lest tackle the first two. All Flash SAN Is All Flash SAN a VCDX trap?  No of course not the All Flash SAN is obviously a silver bullet when it comes to storage as it greatly reduces the complexity of the storage system while giving amazing performance.  Gone […]

RAVELLO: Windows vCenter 6.5 vCenter server errors: 500, 503

December 20, 2017 Kim Bottu 3

If you use a cleanly installed Windows based vCenter server in the #VEXPERT FREE TIER of RAVELLO cloud you might have seen the following errors as well. For me there errors were the cause that my VSAN lab would not properly work anymore, so I had to find a solution fast. I assume these errors appear because in the Free Tier,  Ravello isn’t always the fastest environment to start up your server nor to run your workloads. So some services might be timing out while starting up. This will result in a handful of vCenter services not being reachable and an unreachable management plane.  Yes this also applies to a Windows based vCenter server  with an embedded PSC. A server error occurred. [500] […]

Linux Foundation Certified Systems Administrator (LFCS) Exam Review #LinuxFoundation @linuxfoundation #Linux #CentOS @sandervanvugt @tecmint #vExpert

December 18, 2017 Bilal Ahmed 3

So I spent a good few months brushing up on my Linux skills for this exam. Where I work there is a big proportion of VMs that run CentOS 6/7 and with all the other studying I had been doing, I had never had the time to improve my Linux skill set and it has always been an area that I was lacking in. The reason I went with the Linux Foundation is because they had a black Friday sale on last year where you could get the course and the exam (with a free retake) pretty cheap. My company paid for it and all, but it just seemed like a no brainer . You can pick from multiple distributions, […]

Resizing VMDKs with vSphere Replication #vExpert #vSphereReplication

December 12, 2017 Bilal Ahmed 0

*picture from VMware docs Now then, everyone that has used VR knows that resizing VMDKs for replicated VMs isn’t the easiest thing to do. But I have come across people who seem to believe that the only way to resize the VMDKs is via the CLI on a host….this is one of the options BUT IS NOT the only one. Resizing via the CLI: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2052883 > No need for me to repeat what it says, but you do it using vmkfstools. It works well but does require the person to have access to the host directly. The key point when using vmkfstools , which isn’t totally clear in the kb is: If the original size was 550GB and the new […]

VSAN 6.5 and 6.6.1 resources calculator

November 11, 2017 Kim Bottu 0

The old sheet has been modified to fall in line with the “10.2 Capacity Sizing Example II” of the VMware® vSAN™ Design and Sizing Guide for 6.5 and 6.6.1. You can download the spreadsheet here: https://vmusketeers.com/vsan-6-6-1-resources-calculator/   Kim   ps: If you see errors or have remarks,  feel free to comment.

How to setup a VSAN 6.6.1 test environment on Ravello

October 30, 2017 Kim Bottu 1

There are a couple of things to prepare before you can start setting up your VSAN 6.6.1 test on Ravello Cloud. If you don’t have an account, you can click on the picture below which will redirect you to the Oracle cloud signup page (Ravello is owned by Oracle). After signing up you will receive 30 days of free access and a budget of 300$ to spend as you wish. Images For this VSAN 6.6.1 test, I have uploaded the following files to Ravello: Server 2012 STD iso file VMware-VIM-all-6.5.0-6816762.iso VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.5.0.update01-5969303.x86_64.iso   Create a new application in Ravello In this application you will create all the VM’s you need for this test. Click on create application give it a name and […]