Category: How Tos

CloudHealth by VMware – Reporting & Policies

Well, this blog post has been 3 months in the works – in fact a draft has been sitting in WordPress since September when I collaborated with Kim Bottu on his article about Integrating CloudHealth and vROps, the plan was for me to write a companion blog which show-cased the same capabilities in CloudHealth that … Continue reading CloudHealth by VMware – Reporting & Policies

MTI Secure Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Webinar & Guide

Back end of February I presented a webinar with my colleague, Andrew Tang, around Key Challenges and Considerations for Securing Hyper-Converged Infrastructure. The webinar has been uploaded for public consumption by the marketing team at MTI Technology. As I mentioned previously in my blog, I don’t really touch upon product in this webinar as the … Continue reading MTI Secure Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Webinar & Guide

Spectre & Meltdown Update

So it seems that the microcode patches released by VMware associated with their recent Security Advisory (VMSA-2018-0004) have been pulled.... https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52345 So that's ESXi650-201801402-BG, ESXi600-201801402-BG, or ESXi550-201801401-BG. The microcode patch provided by Intel was buggy and there seems to be issues when VMs access the new speculative execution control mechanism (Haswell & Broadwell processors). However, I … Continue reading Spectre & Meltdown Update

vCenter Server Migration Tool: vSphere 6.0 Update 2m

Last year I blogged about the vCS to vCSA converter tool that VMware Labs released as a fling and how I had used it to pretty much convert all my lab vCenters (all bar one) to vCSAs..... since then I've been following the releases and a few months ago I noticed the Fling was deprecated (ie … Continue reading vCenter Server Migration Tool: vSphere 6.0 Update 2m

Installing vShield Endpoint (vCNS Mgr 5.5.4-3)

Very quick blog entry as I'm busy tying up loose ends before jetting off on my summer hols.... It's pretty easy to install vShield Endpoint as it's a wizard-based OVA deployment. I'm not going to step through the process as it's very simple (plus the install guide explains it very well). Once that's done log … Continue reading Installing vShield Endpoint (vCNS Mgr 5.5.4-3)

Known bug with upgrading vCSA via VAMI

So there's a known bug where upgrading vCSA via the VAMI freezes at 70%.... I was doing a mass upgrade of all my vCSAs in the demo environment at work, and all of them got stuck at 70%. After reading the Release Notes for 6.0U1b, it turns out it's a known issue: http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/vsphere/60/vsphere-vcenter-server-60u1b-release-notes.html New In the … Continue reading Known bug with upgrading vCSA via VAMI

Upgrading vRealize Operations to 6.2

Now that vRealize Ops 6.2 has been released, it's time to upgrade your Ops Manager virtual appliance. So how do you do that? Well, it's pretty simple actually! Nearly all of VMware's virtual appliances have a simple upgrade process where you download an upgrade PAK file and upload it to the admin page of the … Continue reading Upgrading vRealize Operations to 6.2

Deploying VSAN 6.1 ROBO

One of the things I'm fortunate to have access to at MTI Technology is the Solution Centre which has all sorts of kit that can be used for demos and for consultants to play around with. After coming back from VMworld, one of the things I really wanted to test out was how easy it … Continue reading Deploying VSAN 6.1 ROBO

Unable to connect to VAMI after upgrading the vCSA

One of the plus points with upgrading your vCenter Server Appliance to 6.0 update 1 is the fact that VMware have re-introduced the Virtual Appliance Management Interface (VAMI). This was one of my bug-bears with 6.0... how any sort of administration/configuration work required you to access the vCSA shell! Recently after upgrading a customers vCSA … Continue reading Unable to connect to VAMI after upgrading the vCSA