VMGuru on A.J. Elsinga

Interview with a NetApp Cloud Architect | VMGuru TV

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

A couple of months ago, Alex and I were talking about the ‘vMotion’ of Dimitri de Swart from VMware to NetApp. We wanted to know why anyone would move from a virtualization company to a ’legacy’ storage vendor. Luckily Dimitri wrote a rather extensive post on the whole matter called ‘ Perception is Everything ’. Still, we had some questions left. And what else could we do then ask the man himself? So we did.

ARM, vSphere 7, SmartNICs, Skyline | VMGuru TV Episode 4

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

ARM, vSphere 7, Smartnics, Skyline and more | VMGuru TV Episode 4

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

It almost didn’t happen: VMGuru TV Episode 4. We planned on talking about VMworld 2020 and vSphere 7, but, the first attempt was no good. Even though we’re almost daily in Zoom calls, recording is something different. We forgot some important configuration that resulted in nail sized video that was really unwatchable.

VMGuru TV Episode 3 - Our VMworld 2020 recommendations

Wed, 26 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You probably didn’t miss it, but it is almost time for VMworld 2020. This year it will be held in a virtual format. From September 29 till October 1 you have the possibility to not only see, but also ‘Shape your Future’.

VMworld 2020 will have more than 950 sessions, organized into seven tracks, namely

App Modernization
Multi-Cloud
Intrinsic Security
Digital Workspace
Virtual Cloud Network
Vision and Innovation
Telco 5G

General sessions / Solution keynotes

With that many sessions is might be hard to choose your sessions wisely. You might be thinking about jumping in head first, deep into the tech goodness that VMworld will bring. And iff you think that VMworld is a tech-only conference, think again. Sure, a lot/most sessions are technology focussed, but there are definitely business oriented sessions. If you go to the content catalog you can filter on only the business tracks, or, filter the business tracks out if you just want some technical knowledge. The sessions are giving at different levels, Business 100-200 and Technical 100-300, so even if you are new at ’this VMware thing’, you can help yourself by selecting technical 100 sessions or visa versa.

VMGuru TV Episode 2: What if you need support?

Tue, 14 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I hope you had as much fun watching our first episode as we did making it. And like the saying goes: One is none, we decided that we would make another episode. And this time we’re talking about getting support.

We finally did it: VMGuru TV - working/learning from home

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

A couple of weeks ago Alex and I were talking about what we can do for VMGuru to keep giving you relevant information. Blogging is an interesting format, but it takes a lot of time: research, writing, rewriting because it was not easy to read, getting the correct screenshot or images. So we thought: Let’s try VMGuru TV, that will probably take less time. Spoiler alert: it took the same, if not more time.

Getting started with Photon OS

Mon, 29 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Dimitri and Erik have been talking about Photon and the integration into vRealize Automation , but how do you go about creating a container host with Photon OS, for example for OTNSX ?

vROPS Tenant App for vCloud Director

Thu, 28 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Earlier today Erik pointed me to something I totally missed: vROPS Tenant App for VCD. It’s already out there for a month!

How to solve your problem in 9 steps

Wed, 16 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

One of the most important things in troubleshooting in general is that you follow a system or workflow. You have to attack the problem methodically and analytical. There’s nothing worse than trying all kinds of things and realize suddenly that it works and not knowing what you did to get it working. It is great that it starts to work again, but you don’t know what it caused it.

Jeeves - your own VMGuru

Wed, 15 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Everyone is talking about it: Chatbots are going to be the next bing thing. If you don’t believe me, check out the Forbes article on why chatbots will be your new best friend . A quote from that article:

PowerShell Friday: Load PowerCLI from your own script

Fri, 22 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

When you want to start your PowerCLI scripts or just use the cmdlets for VMware, you can start VMware vSphere PowerCLI from your start menu. From the window you get you can use all PowerCLI cmdlets that you need or your own scripts.

PowerShell Friday: Backup, source control, versioning

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

You finally created that script that saves you a lot of time. Suddenly it doesn’t work anymore. Now the panic slowly kicks in. Where did you put that backup? Did you backup it? Or did you forget?

PowerShell Friday: Retrieving IP addresses for VMs

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

As I explained in the article about ExtensionData each VM object has a lot of information stored. If you want to know the IP addresses of a particular VM you can use PowerCLI to get those properties.

PowerShell Friday: ExtensionData

Fri, 26 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Did you know that VMware stores a lot of information about your virtual machines? And that you can retrieve all that data with PowerCLI?

PowerShell Friday: Enabling SSH with PowerCLI

Fri, 29 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Even if you have all the graphic tools that you want to manage your virtual environment, sometimes you still want to use command line utilities for maximum control or for something that isn’t really supported.

PowerShell Friday: Check time configuration with PowerCLI

Sat, 16 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Time is important in your network. Almost all components rely on time in one form or another. Authentication for example relies on time stamps to make sure that an authentication token only lives a certain time and is synchronised with the authentication source.

PowerShell Friday: Host Networking with PowerCLI

Sat, 16 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

It has been too long since there was a PowerShell Friday, so I thought I treat you on some titbits on checking your host network configuration.

PowerShell Friday: Copying files with Copy-VMGuestFile

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Every now and then you can run into the situation that you have a file wich needs to be distributed to any number of virtual machines. Now you could logon to these servers and copy the file manually and for maybe a handfull of virtual machines this is doable. But to make it easier on yourself you could also make use of Powershell with Copy-VMGuestFile.

PowerShell Friday: Managing HA with PowerCLI

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

vSphere High Availability (HA) is one of those features that usually “just works” – until your cluster starts filling up or a host fails. Then it suddenly matters to see quickly how HA is configured and whether the settings still match your cluster’s current load. In this short PowerShell Friday we show how a few PowerCLI one-liners give you fast insight into your HA configuration.

PowerShell Friday: Setting Reservations with PowerCLI

Fri, 08 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

When configuring your virtual machines sometimes you want to set reservations. Like I said in the article about adding memory: You can go into the vSphere Client to change the configuration, but where is the fun in that? Why not do everything from the command line? And preferably by the use of PowerCLI?

PowerShell Friday: Christmas Special

Thu, 24 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow is Christmas, so this post is a day early, but I wanted to give you something you can play with when you’re done eating, drinking and getting merry. That’s the reason I won’t be giving you PowerShell or PowerCLI scripts that have anything to do with work.

You can do a lot more with PowerShell than you might think. Anything you can imagine you can create with PowerShell. It doesn’t matter if it is playing some music, displaying ASCII art, or something completely far-stretching mind boggling.

PowerShell Friday: Adding Memory with PowerCLI

Fri, 18 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Just before the holidays we’ve got a small PowerCLI onliner for you. Nothing fancy, but still useful.

PowerShell Friday: Adding CPU's with PowerCLI

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Sometimes you need to add CPUs to your virtual machines. Adding CPU’s is easy on a virtual machine. Of course you can do this from the vSphere Client, where you can select the number of CPUs and the number of cores per CPU. If you only need to change one virtual machine this isn’t a problem. When you have to change 50 virtual machines it gets somewhat tiresome.

PowerShell Friday: Snapshots

Fri, 04 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Virtual machine snapshots are useful for sysadmins, since they preserve the state of a virtual machine’s virtual disk and, optionally, virtual memory before upgrading an application for example. VM Snapshots are also taken by a lot of backup applications for VMs at the start of the backup and then removed at the end of the backup. Since the original vmdk is frozen and all changes are written to the snapshotfile it can get big real fast, especially on machines that do a lot of write actions. Next to the size there is also a performance component to the use of snapshots. That’s why it is wise to manage your snapshots on a regular basis.

PowerShell Friday: stopping VMs

Fri, 27 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

This weeks PowerShell Friday is about stopping VMs with PowerCLI.

PowerShell Friday: Starting VMs

Fri, 20 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

With PowerCLI you can manage and automate your VMware infrastructure from the command line. After you connect to vCenter you can do all kinds of nifty stuff. For example it is very easy to start virtual machines. You can use the complete name of the VM, or you can use a wildcard or use the cmdlet in a pipe. The cmdlet for starting VMs itself is easy to remember:

PowerShell Friday: Connecting to vCenter

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

For our first cmdlet on PowerShell Friday we are going to connect to vCenter.

PowerShell Friday: quick start with PowerShell & PowerCLI

Fri, 06 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

PowerShell Friday: Getting Started with PowerShell and PowerCLI

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

PowerShell was release on November 14, 2006 and is now (or should be?) one of the major components in an admins life. If you’re just getting started on Windows or are new to the whole scripting and automation scene, this one is especially for you.

Getting started with vRealize Log Insight

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

VMware has a lot of tools these days. From the tools for virtualization all kinds of workloads to managing all that in an automated manner. In that last category VMware also has a tool called vRealize Log Insight. vRealize Log Insight, together with vRealize Operations gives you everything you need to monitor and troubleshoot your environment. I think that Log Insight is one of the most undervalued tools in a VMware environment.

No network connection after cloning Linux VM

Tue, 27 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

While upgrading our VMGuru environment I ran into an issue with the network connectivity of a cloned Linux VM. Erik wrote about it earlier when he was restoring a VCSA from backup. I had a similar issue after cloning the VM.

VMworld parties, fun or business?

Thu, 15 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

When you visit or visited VMworld before, do you or did you ever get these comments?

vRealize Automation 7 - Converged Blueprints

Tue, 13 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Today VMware announced the long awaited new version of their cloud management product vRealize Automation 7 (vRA7). This new release, previously known under codename Bellatrix, is a major overhaul and includes many new features and enhancements.

VMware Releases Socialcast Integration Store

Wed, 12 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

VMware releases a new feature for Socialcast: the Socialcast Integration Store. With the applications and services in the Socialcast Integration Store, you can add information from other programs to the Socialcast event stream. This way events can be commented on and referenced in other events.

VMware User Environment Manager released

Fri, 01 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

In the past VMware bought a product that could manage your user environment. When I say manage I mean it synchronized a Windows profile to a central location and after that only loaded the files and registry settings needed at that time. When an application needed some files Persona Management (that’s what the product is called) loaded it on the fly.

News from the VMware Education front

Wed, 22 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

There’s a lot happening on the VMware Education side of things. Since VMware released vSphere 6 a lot of courses and exams are updated or are still in beta.

Support on Windows 2003 ends soon

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Are you stressed out about the oncoming storm? No? So, you migrated all your servers to Windows 2008 or later already? No hidden servers left, gathering dust somewhere?

Login PI 1.0 now available

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I’ts finally here: Login PI 1.0. If you haven’t read our article in December, here’s a short recap on what Login PI is.

Barista as a Service with vRealize Orchestrator

Fri, 27 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

On Thursday March 19 the NLVMUG UserCon 2015 took place at the 1931 Conference Center in Den Bosch, The Netherlands. Erik thought it would be cool to do something different with vRealize Orchestrator as s a showcase since he was presenting at the NLVMUG together with Martijn Baecke.

Creating Workspace Portal 2.1 HA Cluster

Thu, 06 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Peter Bjork wrote a great post on how to create a Workspace Portal 2.1 HA cluster using internal databases. You’re probably wondering: ‘internal database? That is for testing purposes only?"

Rapid VMware deployment with Virtual SAN Ready Nodes

Mon, 27 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Lately you hear a lot about EVO:RAIL. But EVO:RAIL isn’t the only thing in the deployment kit. There’s also Virtual SAN Ready Nodes.

Customize VMware Workspace Portal some more

Sat, 25 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT SUPPORTED BY VMWARE IN ANY WAY. DON’T DO OR USE THIS IN YOUR PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT!

Get ready for VMworld!

Wed, 08 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Get Ready for VMworld! VMworld Europe 2014 is about to start. Next week Barcelona will be filled with all kinds of vEvents, vTweetUps, vBeers, vBeards, etc.etc, and of course technical and sales sessions .

Erik talked about all the different events going on in Barcelona here .

Translate VMware Workspace Portal

Wed, 24 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT SUPPORTED BY VMWARE IN ANY WAY. DON’T DO OR USE THIS IN YOUR PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT!

VMware Workspace Portal 2.1 available now

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Last week at VMworld, VMware introduced VMware Workspace Suite , a unified platform that delivers enterprise mobility management from AirWatch, application and desktop virtualization from Horizon, and file sync and share with Secure Content Locker. Part of the VMware Workspace Suite is the VMware Workspace Portal.

Horizon (with View) 6.0.1 is downloadable now

Tue, 09 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Did we outscoop Eric “Scoop” Sloof from NTPro.nl ? I hope we did with this:

VMware Fling - Services Virtual File System

Wed, 27 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

VMware release a new fling, a Service Virtual File System. Building on top of the FUSE API (Linux specific) and the llfuse library, Services Virtual File System (SVFS) aims to provide an easy way for creating a custom file system that integrates seamlessly with the native Linux one. Users are able to execute almost all operations on it, including but not limited to creation and removal of files and directories, as well as searches and read from/write to files. This allows the user to map just about any structure to a Linux file system, using the abstractions provided in SVFS.

VMware Fling - ESXi Mac Learning dvFilter

Tue, 26 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

MAC learning functionality solves performance problems for use cases like nested ESX. This ESX extension adds functionality to ESX to support MAC-learning on vswitch ports. For most ESX use cases, MAC learning is not required as ESX knows exactly which MAC address will be used by a VM. However, for applications like running nested ESX, i.e. ESX as a guest-VM on ESX, the situation is different. As an ESX VM may emit packets for a multitude of different MAC addresses, it currently requires the vswitch port to be put in “promiscuous mode”. That however will lead to too many packets delivered into the ESX VM, as it leads to all packets on the vswitch being seen by all ESX VMs. When running several ESX VMs, this can lead to very significant CPU overhead and noticeable degradation in network throughput. Combining MAC learning with “promiscuous mode” solves this problem.

Login VSI 4.1 is out with new workloads and more

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Today Login VSI, Inc. announced a new version of Login VSI:

Managing Amazon EC2 VMs from the vSphere client

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Automation and mulitplatformsupport is getting more and more attention. There was already a multihypervisor management tool from VMware for Hyper-V and VMware. From vCloud Automation Center you can create workloads in AWS, etc.

VMworld: Innovation at the Solutions Exchange

Thu, 17 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

If you wandered through the halls of the congress complex you’ve probably also seen the Solutions Exchange.

VMworld Europe 2013 - keynote speech

Tue, 15 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

This post is a recollection of the general session at Tuesday. If you missed the VMworld Europe 2013 general session you can watch it later at VMware Now, http://www.vmware.com/now

Review: Thecus N4520 - Part 1

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Last year Edwin did a review of the Thecus TopTower N8850, a beautiful enterprise grade NAS with a lot of features. So when the friendly people at Thecus send us the Thecus N4520 to review it was my turn.

vKernel did it again: vOPS Server Explorer 6.3

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

VKernel, now under the Dell flag, just released version 6.3 of the vOPS Server Explorer freeware suite.Next to the already present tools Environment Explorer, SearchMyVM Explorer, and vScope Explorer they added two new utilities: Storage Explorer and Change Explorer.

Which virtual switch to select in vSphere 5

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

There are a lot of choices to be made for networking in VMware vSphere 5. We’ve got the good ol’ vSwith, vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) and finally the Nexus 1000V from Cisco. But what is the best one?

Trend Micro Deep Security 9 on its way

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

During VMworld 2012 in San Fransisco Trend Micro announced the next version of their hypervisor based security product. They announced a lot of new and cool features and improvements which are probably gonna make into the final product.

VMworld Europe 2012 - General Session

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

(This article reflects the general session of Tuesday. It isn’t a literal transcript)

How to deliver Services powered by VMware vCloud (PAR1519)

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

The first day of VMworld Europe was, as always, reserved for partners. During this day a lot of partner specific sessions are presented. In the session “How to deliver Services Powered by VMware vCloud (PAR1519)” by Bart Schneider (VSSP manager VMware EMEA).

Connect ISO to VM the PowerCLI way

Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I recently bought a new server for my home lab, or at least, it was the start of my home lab. After my ESX host crashed two years ago I didn’t took the time to rebuild it.

Orchestrator plugin for Active Directory released

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Last Friday VMware released the Orchestrator plugin for Active Directory v1.0. With the plugin it is possible to manage Active Directory objects straight from within Orchestrator.

VMware Fling - PXE Manager for vSphere

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I just fiddled somewhat with the new fling from the VMware site: the VMware PXE Manager for vSphere. And if you ask me, it’s not just a ‘fling’, but it is really, really useful. It’s easy to install and easy to use.

Revert to snapshot from within a VM

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

For a couple of ThinApp packaging machines I didn’t want that the packagers had access to the vCenter Client, but still let them revert to a previous snapshot.

Scaling up/out? Or genuine performance troubleshooting?

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I was reading another article about cloud computing today. Almost all articles and posts seem to focus on how easy it is to add resources to your environment when you need more power.

Dutch VMUG: Keynote

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Today the 6th edition of the Dutch VMUG has started.

Dutch VMUG: PowerCLI is for administrators!

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Luc Dekens and Alan Renouf did a great presentation on PowerCLI.

Dutch VMUG: vCloud Director presentation and demo

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Willem van Engeland (VMware) and Duncan Epping (VMware, Yellow Bricks) did a presentation on vCloud Director.

Dutch VMUG: VMware HA and DRS - Q&A

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Duncan Epping, Consulting Architect, Cloud Practice

Dutch VMUG: vSphere Advanced Troubleshooting

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Eric Sloof,** instructor and blogger for NTPro.nl, gave a great presentation on advanced troubleshooting on vSphere.

The journey to the cloud begins

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Today is the day that we will all remember. Today will mark the start of a new era. In a couple of hours we will be arriving in Copenhagen, Denmark to give you, our readers, the latest info on virtualization, cloud and cloud related items.

Database mirroring as alternative to clustering and FT

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

There are a lot of products and product features available for creating a (more or less) high available environment. If you look at Microsoft SQL Server you have the option to create a Microsoft Cluster, you can use Marathon everRun, VMware Fault Tolerance if you have a 1 vCPU SQL server, etc.

Dell EqualLogic 2010-2011 product roadmap

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

We recently received an update about the new stuff that is coming from Dell EqualLogic. Because a lot the information was under NDA so I can’t go into details or give you release dates.

Gartner: VMware, the market leader

Fri, 28 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Today, Gartner published the first-ever Magic Quadrant for the x86 Server Virtualization market, naming VMware as the only vendor in the leadership quadrant, with a sizeable advantage over all competitors. Simply put, from the most trusted voice in the IT market, VMware, the market leader!

Recovering from lost snapshot on RDM

Tue, 25 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

A couple of weeks ago I had a problem where the connection between a snapshot and its parent disk was gone. The parent was a raw device mapping pointing to a LUN on a SAN. This all happened during a migration from one type of SAN to another. For the migration we had to remove the Raw Device Mappings from a virtual machine in order to move it with Storage VMotion. After the move the original RDM had to be re-added to the virtual machine. The final step was to copy the original data from the RDM to a new disk.

Changing volume access from command line for EqualLogic

Tue, 18 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Last week Erik encountered a small issue which required him to change the access to almost all volumes on an EqualLogic storage infrastructure.

VMworld 2010 registration open

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Every year VMware is organizing VMworld. It offers attendees informative sessions and hands-on labs, plus access to a wealth of technology partners. The U.S. edition of VMworld takes place in the Moscone Center, San Fransisco from August 30 till September 2nd. The European edition will take place a little over month later from October 12 till October 14 at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark .

VMware to acquire RTO Software

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

VMware really wants to get a piece of the desktop market. After acquiring and/or releasing products for desktop management (VMware View and ThinApp)

Valentine's Day

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It was Valentine’s Day, February 14th, the day the boys and girls at Partner Exchange exchange business cards with their business partners. They draw hearts and flowers and write funny poems. VMware awoke early and looked over at the stack of cards ready and waiting to be given to friends, including one very special card for Cisco and NetApp, VMware’s best friends.

At the Partner Exchange, VMware was surprised to see that lots of other partners were already there and every desk was piled high with Valentines. VMware went to work right away, hurrying to leave a Valentine at each desk before the bell rang for the keynote.

The workplace in 2020

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Have you ever wondered what the world of work would look like in 2020? I have. With the huge technological progress, it’s hard to imagine what we will be doing and how the world around will look.

Apple iPad announced, can it change daily operations?

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Apple finally annoumced their tablet officially,dubbed the iPad. The last months more and more rumors appeared on the internet. You probably wonder why this is interesting for the virtualization community.

Please tell me: 'What is MED-V?'

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

This week I got the question if I could draw up a short lists of pro’s and cons for MED-V. Since I’m doing virtualization in the widest possible way, this fits well in my job description.

VMware licensing management - a proposal for change

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

A couple of weeks ago I talked to a co-worker who is responsible for selling VMware licenses and other VMware related stuff. As a VMware partner it isn’t always easy to manage the licenses for customers nor selling or upgrading their licenses if they bought them from another partner in the past.

WAN optimization for VMware View 4.0 PCoIP

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Although PCoIP is very efficient display protocol also over WAN connection. ( See video demonstration on Vimeo ) there was still the leak of a good WAN optimization solution for VMware View 4.0.

First impressions VMware View 4.0

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Last we had the opportunity to set up a VMware View Proof of Concept based on the new version 4.0. We grabbed some hardware set it up in our Support Lab. Installed vSphere 4.0 Update 1 on it. Prepared three virtual servers setup a domain with a domain controller, a vCenter server and a View 4.0 Manager server. We prepared the XP Sp3 golden image we planned to use and setup a Windows XP Sp3 laptop we planned to use as a View 4.0 End Point. From this point we started the VMware View installation. The installation is pretty straight forward and even me as a pre-sales consultant was able to do the trick. I was lucky to have some help from our engineers. One of them just passed the vSphere 4.0 exam and another one had some experience with VMware View 3.0. Everything worked well and with 90 minutes we had our first vDesktop up and running and a laptop connecting to it.

Visit the Dutch VMUG

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

On the 11th of December the anual Dutch VMUG conference will take place at the Nieuwegein Business Center . The final agenda has recently been published and judging on the names and topics it is going to be an awesome event again.

Advertising? Or just name calling?

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I do like advertising from time to time. I think advertising gives away a lot about how companies operate and what their internal values are. You also find out if the company understands their market and their potential users.

Harry Potter in the VMware era

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Earlier this week the following message popped up in my twitter: ‘@Microsoft: Amazon says Windows 7 is the biggest pre-order product of all times, even over Harry Potter in the UK’.

The cloud and the future according to Microsoft

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Last Friday we had a session with Microsoft about ‘the Cloud’. We already heard a lot about clouds, but I must admit that both Microsoft presentations that day were refreshing.

Project VRC: Clock drift and test results

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Project Virtual Reality Check finally posted a new document about previous results and possible clock drift when using the “Login Virtual Session Indexer (VSI)”. Previous test setups and results didn’t take into account how different hypervisors handle passing time.

VMGuru.nl widget for Mac OS X Dashboard

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

VMGuru.nl widgetI finally got around to it: Installing the development tools for Mac OS X. After a couple of months using the Mac I now enter the world of development again. One of the first things I tried was a dashboard widget with the VMGuru.nl RSS feed. I must say that for a first time (and with all 2 minutes I spent on it) it looks nice IMO.

VMware licenses RTO's Virtual Profiles

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

User profiles are a pain in the *. All to often profiles get corrupted by multiple sessions and logons are often slow. RTO has a product for this: Virtual Profiles. This product solves a lot of problems with user profiles.

Getting your money back

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

To get a new project funded is often hard work. You have to calculate how much it costs to build your virtual infrastructure and how fast you can save money so you can justify the investment. Even after you started the project and you are building the infrastructure you still have to keep an eye on your wallet. The same goes for virtualizing desktops. We calculate what it costs to create the virtual infrastructure for the virtual desktops.

VMware View with software Teradici PCoIP on the horizon?

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Today Virtualization.info published the news that VMware View 4.0 went into private beta with the Teradici PCoIP software implementation. I was unable to verify this but I assume it’s correct.

Spaces in LDAP

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

With one of our deployments of VMware View we had problems with the linked clones. Adding the computer accounts to Active Directory failed everytime. Even after recreating the pool it failed. Computer accounts weren’t created in Active Directory.

VMware View log viewing

Fri, 01 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

With the addition of VMware View your environment gains complexity. Before adding components like VMware View or Lab Manager you only have one point of logging in your virtual enviroment, vCenter Server. Now you have to look into the textfiles itself if you want to do some real troubleshooting.

Thoughts on high availability

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

With all the news and buzz around vSphere it’s easy to get carried away by all the new stuff appearing. But even with all these new features we still need to think about High Availability and how to design the infrastructure.

IT personnel lack communication skills?

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Last Saturday I read an article in a well known magazine in The Netherlands. The article talked about that people in the IT/ICT branche lack good communication skills. I often wonder when reading articles: Who’s the author? Is he or she biased in any way?

VMworld Europe 2009 - VMware 'Unplugged'

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

This year the VMworld organization organized a ‘VMworld Unplugged’. The idea was to let the attendees ask questions to a panel. The members of this panel were: Paul Maritz, Maritizio Carli, Tod Nielsen and Steve Herrod. You could ask questions by microphone or send them before the session.

VMworld Europe 2009 - vExpert awards

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

As you probably read earlier VMware started a new program, vExpert. Today both Erik and me got the mail from John Troyer with: “Congratulations. You received a vExpert award!’ This is great news as there are only 25 vExperts in the Netherlands and 300 worldwide.

VMworld Europe 2009 – Cisco Nexus 1000v hands-on lab

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Today we did our first Hands-on-Lab. Last year these labs were fully booked so we decided to hit the lab early this year.

VMworld Europe 2009 – Keynote day 1

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Maritzio Carli, GM for EMEA, opened the keynote today. He gave a lot of figures to reflect the grow in virtualization despite the hard economic times. These figures show that virtualization, and VMware in specific, is here to stay and invests heavily in people and resources.

VMworld Europe 2009: vCenter Management Suite

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

VMworld Europe 2009 - VMware announces vCenter Management Suite

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Today at VMWorld Europe 2009 in Cannes VMware introduced their strategy for the coming years. VMware combines Chargeback, CapacityIQ, Orchestrator, ConfigControl and self service in the vCenter Management Suite. These are the building blocks that create the foundation for the next level in the virtualization game.

Clean up before a P2V

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Yesterday I made one of the mistakes I always warn my collegues about. I always tell them: “Make sure you know the situation before you change anything”. For some strange reason I made that mistake myself this time.

Do you Poken?

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

pokenusb

It looks like this is going to be THE new thing this year. Almost every has a Facebook account, LinkedIn network or some other form of social network online.

More PowerShell stuff

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Last year I started to write a small program in Perl to document the virtual infrastructures we encounter at client locations. But since it’s all PowerShell it was time to start to write the same thing in PowerShell.

Browsing through your VC database like a drive

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Yesterday I was browsing through the PowerShell scripts posted in the VI Toolkit community on the VMware site.

vCenter physical or virtual?

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Still a lot of people hesitate to make vCenter (was VirtualCenter) virtual. They have a lot of reasons for that.

Searching for a VM

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

One of the problems that most people have with virtualizing vCenter is that they don’t know where the vCenter VM is when there are problems.

Creating portgroups with PowerShell

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I must be a workaholic. I was browsing my laptop for some movie and I came across a folder with all kinds of plugins for VirtualCenter. Things like addPortgroup and other stuff.

Virtual Offices

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Virtual Office is so much more than just a virtual working place. Things like VOIP, teleconferencing etc will add up to the ultimate virtual office.

Some video's for the weekend

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I just got my hands on a laptop in our dance school (something with digitizing video’s as an excuse :)) so I thought it would be funny to post some links to some VMware related video’s for the slow monday morning.. Just to get back into the rhythm of the week ;)

Don't enable root access for SSH

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I came across some scripts to run on your ESX server after it has been installed. These script did some stuff like disabling firewall and enabling root logon from a remote system.

VMware and PowerShell

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I’m from the pre-WIMP era, like in pre Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointers. There wasn’t anything like a graphical user interface. Even when they emerged like Norton Commander and PC Tools I still did most of my work from the commandline. Stuff like 4DOS enriched my life so I could get the most out of the commandline.

Tip: Create an ISO store, no matter what

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

In one of our previous projects we suggested a LUN to use for ISO’s. The client said: ‘Well, we don’t need one, we have all our software on network shares and operating systems are deployed by the means of an unattended install with boot from network’.

Unable to VMotion, unable to disconnect ISO

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

We had a small issue today with a virtual machine at one of our customer sites. We were unable to do a VMotion. The message we got was that there was an ISO image connected to the system.

Virtualization is to blame

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Virtualization is hot! A lot of companies are already virtualized or in the middle of a migration. The physical platform gets replaced by a virtual one. This directly introduces a new whipping boy.

What if life was a virtual machine..

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I spend a lot of hours in traffic jams lately. It’s really driving me nuts. All those break lights, slow moving cars.. Man, your mind starts to wonder..

VC Upgrade went haywire

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Yesterday was a fun day. What looked like a simple, clean upgrade became something more interesting. After making a before snapshot I started the VirtualCenter installation wizard. Then the fun started. Nothing happened.