Office 365 ProPlus on Linked Clones

May 17, 2016 Graeme Vermeulen 4

Man, installing Office 365 ProPlus onto non-persistent VDI is a bit of a headache. I really do wish Microsoft would release a Office 365 ProPlus software package that didn’t need activation every time the user logs in! Surely as long as the company has enough entitlements there should be no problem and we can use a KMS key – unfortunately not. Users are supposed to download and install their software directly from the portal, which makes admin for hundreds of users quite a challenge. We don’t want Office activated every time a user logs in and enters their credentials, they would soon run out of licences! The KBs on the internet from Microsoft on these really are rubbish. Hopefully this […]

Testing the vSphere 6.x HTML5 webclient fling

May 16, 2016 Kim Bottu 0

I have been testing the HTML5 webclient and if you want to do the same you have to follow a few procedures. Deploy a new VM from an ova [download] which will use 2 vCPUs and 4 GB or RAM. Indeed, you need to deploy a new VM which will talk to vCenter server.  There is no vCenter deployment which comes with an embedded HTML5 client yet. The procedures on how to deploy the HTML5 webclient are well explained in the HTML5 webclient documentation and don’t take too long. The only thing you really need is a vSphere 6 deployment! Some remarks about the HTML 5 client: It is fast. There is no doubt that it is a lot faster than the current webclient. There are still […]

How a certification changed my life

May 16, 2016 Jason Grierson 3

Around this time last year I believe there was a question either on this community or on the VMware forums about how the VCAP program certifications are received in the work place and if they are worth it. Seeing as my blog portion of my website is still under construction to add new sections like my blog, and the new DCD6 simulator.  I really have no better place to post this then vMusketeers. How a certification changed my life: The last year and half has been a whirl wind to say the least, I guess going on 2 years now.  Two springs ago around May I decided to start my VCDX track and achieve my DCA.  After a few months […]

Dell Compellent and SCSI UNMAP

May 15, 2016 Bilal Ahmed 0

Dead space reclamation (SCSI UNMAP) Basically the UNMAP command is used when you have Thin Provisioned LUNs, you run it against VMFS  5 datastores, hopefully freeing up some space. This will allow the hosts to correctly report the list of deleted blocks on the datastore to the array. It basically is a space reclamation feature that helps reclaim space left by deleted data. The main reasons you would want to run this on all Thin Provisioned LUNs, would be because of: Storage vMotion, VM snapshots and VM deletion. As even though the VM/Snapshot etc has been deleted it doesn’t mean the array is aware of this! It was disabled in ESXi 5.0, due to various issues and enabled in 5.1 by using […]

PSC SUPPORTED DESIGN TOPOLOGIES

May 15, 2016 Kim Bottu 0

Today I stumbled over an article written by Petr McAllister on the VMware TAM blog. It is a good read and for sure one of those articles you instantly recognize as an article to memorize for the VCAP6-DCV Design certification test. Platform Services Controller (PCS) and vCenter Server 6 Maximums “So the question was, “When we run a complex environment with multiple vCenter servers, vRealize Operations servers, vRealize Automation, vRealize Orchestrator, Site Recovery Manager and backup appliances, how can we fit all those solutions under the 10-solution limit?” Finding the correct answer was pretty straight forward; VMware has published a document called “Configuration Maximums vSphere 6.0,” and the information is right there. The document has very specific content on exactly what my […]

RAM Upgrade Procedures on Cisco UCS Servers

May 15, 2016 Graeme Vermeulen 0

I couldn’t find anything on the internet regarding the correct procedure to add more RAM to a UCS blade. Since it’s not out there, maybe I can help prevent others from running into the same problem I had! Firstly, you need to make sure your catalog is updated to the latest version – make a note of what version is currently running by going to Admin and downloading the latest version (note if you’re running 3.0 you can’t use the 3.1 catalog) from here. You’ll need a Cisco ID. This means that the RAM will be recognised when the discovery is re-run. The correct procedure: Put the blade into maintenance mode (if running VMware for example) and power it off. […]