NetApp Accelerate Cancelled
**Sad to hear that NetApp Accelerate has been canceled. You can definitely tell our economy isn’t doing too good when conferences like these are canceled. Y...
Posts by Category
Accelerate
Backup & Recovery
vMotion over Distance support with EMC VPLEX Metro
Last month at EMC World we released a storage virtualization product unlike any other. EMC VPLEX not only virtualizes back-end storage from other vendors it ...
Before Host Profiles there was vicfg-cfgbackup.pl
This last weekend I was reminded of a RCLI command that creates a backup of your ESXi Host configuration. A client had an ESXi host where the USB drive fail...
NetApp SnapManager for VI 2.0 (SMVI)
For those of you using NetApp for your back-end virtual machine storage, there is a new version of their SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure (SMVI) tool t...
The Things You’ll Find When You Google Yourself
My boss asked me today to provide a list of things I’ve done the past year for my upcoming performance review. I typed up all I knew off the top of my head,...
Like Veeam FastSCP? Get Veeam Backup for 50% Off!
The past few weeks I’ve been working with a customer that only has ESXi, Veeam FastSCP has came in really handy lately! I can copy files between systems or b...
Goodbye Backup Agents….Goodbye VCB
I’ve been quite busy the last couple weeks, so busy that I’ve neglected VMwareTips.com for far too long! Today I’d like to tell you about an exciting upcomi...
NetApp & VMware Webcast: Protect Your Virtualized Environment
</p> Live Webcast ...
Idealstor Releases VMware vCenter Backup Solution
Idealstor, a leading developer of disk-to-disk backup solutions, announced today the release of iBac VIP for VMware Virtual Center. iBac VIP for Virtual Cen...
NetApp SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure and VIBE
So, I’ve already had a couple posts including some shell scripts that I wrote that will quiesce your Virtual Machines then initiate a NetApp level snapshot. ...
NetApp Snapshots in ESX – Take 2
Alright, well I finally set aside some time to sit and think about my script that runs my snapshots (VMware Snapshots then NetApp Snapshots then remove VMwar...
NetApp Snapshots in ESX
UPDATE: I have re-written this script for enhancements, these can be found on the post titled “NetApp Snapshots in ESX – Take 2“
Celerra
EMC Celerra Plug-in for VMware v1.1 – View Integration
Just a little teaser of what we’re working on here at EMC. This is the next version of the EMC Celerra Plug-in for VMware which is v1.1 and offers great new ...
Certification
Get Your Read On
I just wanted to spend some time to tell you about two great books recently released by Pearson publishing. Both are focused on VMware vSphere 4 and will hel...
VMware VCAP-DCA #1
Last week on Twitter I publicised that I received the official document stating I achieved my VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Datacenter Administrat...
VCDX4 Annoucement
It makes me very proud to announce that I received my VCAP4-DCD Beta Exam results and much to my surprise (honestly) I passed!
VMware VCAP4-DCD BETA Exam Experience
Just like Jason Boche and Chris Dearden I was able to take part in the VCAP4-DCD Beta experience. I took my exam in San Diego on Tuesday (11/9) which was a l...
VMware VCAP4-DCA Beta Exam Experience
Sorry this took so long to get out, my new position at EMC has proven to be extremely demanding…which I LOVE! I love going out and evangelizing about what gr...
VCAP4 and VCDX4 Certifications
Have you been wanting to start down the VCDX3 track and were a little hesitant because you knew the VCDX4 would be shortly approaching? Well here is some inf...
My VMware VCDX Defense Experience
While most of my readers were already home with their families, or packing up and checking out of their hotel rooms on the way to the airport, I was getting ...
VCP4 Beta Exam Information for VMworld Attendees
You may have heard me on Friday via Twitter that I’ve passed the VCP4 Beta (along with a list of others). Today I received an e-mail making it official, alon...
VCDX Defense Scheduled!
For those of you that know, I recently heard that I passed the VCDX Design Exam, within the e-mail it details steps required to schedule your defense and how...
VCDX Design Exam Beta Results
After three LONG months (and the word LONG is an understatement), I finally received the results to my VCDX Design Exam Beta!
VCDX and VCP Testing at VMworld 2009
Jon Hall from VMware Certification wrote a post on the VMTN Communities page the other day, which Duncan Epping made me aware of.
VCP4 Beta Exam – Complete!
Three hours and 270 questions later, the VMware VCP4 Beta Exam is complete. Let me just tell you, I was not prepared at all for this exam – no studying or ...
Invitation to the VMware Certified Professional on vSphere 4 Beta Exam
This morning I wake up to find an e-mail from the VMware Certification department, inviting me to take the VCP4 Beta Exam. This is pretty exciting, yet it di...
First Eight VCDX Awarded at the VMware Tech Summit
VMware’s first ever Technical Summit was held at the Hilton Towers in San Francisco, CA from May 5-7. This event was attended by over 900 employees from the ...
VCP, VCDX….now a Master VCP?!
Jon C. Hall, from VMware’s Certification department posted a comment on Erik Zandboer’s blog today with regards to the VCDX Design Exam. If you haven’t read...
VCDX Design Exam – Complete
I started the VCDX Design Exam at 2pm (GMT-8 04/02/09), and finished it right before 6pm. It took me the entire 4 hours to complete the exam, luckily I was a...
20 Hours Until VCDX Design Exam
I got about 20 hours until I take the VCDX Design Exam, and you know what…I’m not that nervous. I was lot more nervous about the Enterprise Administration E...
VMware VCDX Design Exam (beta) Announced
Just received an e-mail from the VCDX Certification team that the Design Exam (beta) is available for me until April 10th. As part of the beta I would be ent...
A Great Way to Start Off the Weekend!
This morning I called Tina in the VMware Certification department, it has been 17 days and I still haven’t heard of my VCDX Enterprise Administration Exam re...
No News is Good News….right?
Well, its been 10 days since I’ve taken the VCDX Enterprise Admin Exam, and I still haven’t heard from the VMware Certification department on the results. P...
24 Hours Left for vExpert Nominations
You only have 24 hours left to submit a nomination for VMware’s vExpert Award. Here is some information on the vExpert Award from VMTN:
VCDX Design Exam just a few weeks away
Duncan over at Yellow-Bricks came across a response on the VMTN forums from Jon Hall, Technical Certification Developer at VMware, in regards to the VCDX Des...
VCDX Enterprise Administration Exam Complete
As some of you know, last night I took the VCDX Enterprise Administration Exam. So, let me paint you the picture of how it worked, first you need to read a ...
Updated VI3 Reference Card
Many of you know that I’m taking my VCDX Enterprise Exam at 5pm tomorrow (02/03/2009), so I’ve been going over Forbes Guthrie’s VI3 Reference Card as much as...
VCDX Certification – Some Details Revealed
Tina from VMware Certification contacted me today to schedule my VCDX Enterprise Administration Exam, boy was I excited. I found out some interesting facts ...
VMware VCDX Enterprise Administration Exam
I finally received an email this afternoon from VMware in regards to the VCDX exam, it finally sounds like they’ve gotten it straightened out with Pearson VU...
Cloud
Do You vRealize What’s in a vName?
VMworld is upon us, a joyous time of year of new product announcements, new features, networking with friends, indulging in delicious cuisine and of course… ...
So Long vCloud Hybrid Service, Hello vCloud Air!
In a stunning turn of events VMware has ditched the vCloud Hybrid Service name for a shorter, simpler, to the point name of vCloud Air.
vCloud Director and vCloud Networking and Security Product Update
In case you may have missed it, VMware made a couple big announcements today around vCloud Director and vCloud Networking and Security (vCNS).
Accelerate Your Journey to Your Cloud with Application Modernization
Please join meon Thursday, August 16th at 8:00am PT as I talk about the Journey to full IT as a Service (ITaaS).Most people think that ITaaS s...
vmware 2011 Mega Launch
It is 9am Pacific Time on Tuesday, July 12th 2011 and I sure hope you’re tuned into the vmware Mega Launch so greatly titled “Raising the Bar, Part V”. If yo...
vSphere Doesn’t Like OVF with SCSI ID of X:15
In a very random situation that most customers probably wouldn’t even encounter, we’ve came across a bug while importing an OVF that has a VMDK with a SCSI A...
VMware vCloud Director 1.0.1 Released
VMware has released their first update to their vCloud Director product, the main focus of this update was to include support for the newly released vSphere ...
StratoGen looking for Beta Users for their vCloud Hosting service
I received an e-mail asking for a quick blast, StratoGen is a hosting provider based in the UK and they’re building out a new hosting service based ...
Conferences
VMworld 2015 – Session Voting Now Open!
Planning is in full swing for what will be the 12th Annual VMworld Conference, which will be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco and the Fira Gran Vi...
VMworld 2014 San Francisco – Live Blogging
Here we are, VMworld 2014. No Limits is the theme, and already new products (VMware EVO), new names (vRealize, vCloud Air) and ton’s of other awesome things ...
Help steer what we do with EMC World
Things are in full swing for EMC World 2014. The venue is paid for, sessions are selected and content being tweaked, and tons of other fun/exciting things a...
VMworld 2013 San Francisco – Live Blogging
All Systems Go. VMworld 2013 has kicked off and things are in full swing. We’re about 10 minutes away from the Monday morning General Session beginning and t...
Western PA VMUG User Conference
It’s with great honor that I accepted a request to speak at the Western PA VMUG User Conference, tomorrow in the Moon Township suburb of Pittsburgh. I’m not ...
Kansas City VMUG – Tuesday, December 11th, 2012
It’s with great pleasure to let all of my readers know that I’ll be speaking at the Kansas City VMware Users Group on Tuesday, December 11th. It’s with even ...
VMworld 2012 San Francisco – Live Blogging
Hello and Welcome to VMworld 2012 in San Francisco! I’m going to try something a little different these next few days. I’ve created this aggregated page that...
VMworld 2012 Itinerary
Here we go again! 2012 marks the 9th VMworld Conference (I remember Steve Herrod, then Senior Director of R&D, giving a technical overview of ESX and exp...
VMworld 2012 – INF-VSP1504 – Ask the Expert vBloggers
It’s that time of year again, and for the 5th year I’ll be hosting Ask the Expert vBloggers at VMworld 2012 in San Francisco! This is really a great session...
Life Events Cause Priorities to Change
If you haven’t noticed I’ve been lacking in the content department for VMwareTips.com and for that, I apologize. Most of my readers and friends in the indust...
VMworld 2011 Madness
144 Bottles of Water, 48 Cans of Monster Lo-Carb, 50 Bags of Single Serve Chips, 270 Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, 144 Bottles of 5-Hour Energy and 300 Or...
vmworld 2011 – time to vote!
it’s that time of year again! vmworld 2011 is fast approaching and some great sessions are now up for public vote! Included in all of those great sessions ar...
Get to VMworld 2010 and Save Some Money
For those of you who haven’t purchased your pass to VMworld yet do I have a surprise for you! Being an employee of EMC combined with EMC being a great partn...
VMware ISV Seminar – Boston, MA
Through a sponsorship with TradePub, I’m glad to offer FREE registration to a VMware seminar dedicated to the ISV market. This seminar is located i...
VMware Technology Exchange Developer Day
Nava Davuluri, one of the writers on the VMware Code Central blog wanted to reach out to my readers and invite them to VMware’s Technology Exchange Developer...
San Diego VMware User Group Meeting Tomorrow
Friday, July 24th is another San Diego VMware User Group meeting. I strongly urge you to come join us as we discuss all things VMware, this includes a discu...
Burton Group – Catalyst Conference 2009
Join me July 27th through July 31st in my hometown of San Diego, CA for the Burton Group Catalyst Conference. I will be speaking at two sessions, both on Th...
VMware Online Virtualization Forum
Just a little note telling all of my readers to register and listen to my session on how The City of San Diego utilizes Virtualization for Consolidation and ...
VMworld Sessions & Labs Opened for Public Access
Tony Dunn and the rest of the VMworld.com team have opened up a number of breakout sessions and labs from VMworld Europe 2009 and VMworld 2008 for public acc...
NetApp, VMware and SQL TechTalk – Q&A Transcript
Most of you know that I was the featured guest on a Live TechTalk last week, NetApp has furnished me with the transcripts from the Q&A of the event – for...
Two Sessions Approved for VMworld 2009
Just received some exciting news from VMware, my two submissions have been approved and are scheduled for VMworld 2009! Looks like I have some work ahead ...
San Diego VMware Users Group – May 15, 2009
I was asked to speak at the San Diego VMUG meeting this morning, the event had a really good turn out with close to 200 VMware fans! My session had two majo...
SAP Virtualization Week 2009 – Virtualizing SAP Presentation
Last week I spoke at SAP Virtualization Week 2009, I discussed The City of San Diego’s use of VMware Virtualization for their SAP NetWeaver deployment. A lo...
SAP Virtualization Week is About to Begin
Even though I will not be actively blogging about SAP Virtualization Week, I did want to share one post with a welcome video. Those those of you that did not...
SDDPC is a Finalist for SNW Best Practices Award
I’m extremely excited to announce that my employer, San Diego Data Processing Corporation (SDDPC), has been announced as a finalist for a Storage Networking ...
Two Weeks Until the Release that Changes it All
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VMware Launch Event on April 21st – Sponsorship Opportunities Available
As many of you know (or may not know), VMware will be having a “Launch Event“* on Tuesday, April 21st. This is going to be an exciting event where VMware CE...
Virtualizing Mission Critical Applications Technical Roundtable
If your in the San Diego area and want to get a free breakfast, come meet me tomorrow morning at the Marriott Hotel Del Mar for a Technical Roundtable on Vir...
SAP Virtualization Week 2009
It has been confirmed that I will be speaking at SAP Virtualization Week this year, I will be discussing the City of San Diego’s implementation of SAP Netwea...
NetApp & VMware Webcast: Protect Your Virtualized Environment
</p> Live Webcast ...
Virtualization Congress 2009
Most of you already know that Alessandro Perilli from Virtualization.Info is putting on the Virtualization Congress event in Las Vegas this upcoming May. Li...
VMware Virtualization Online Forum
My session is just about start, 3:00PM Pacific Time I will be discussing Next Generation Server Computing for The City of San Diego. I invite everyone to joi...
VMworld.com – Ask the Experts
Today an ask the experts session went live on “Getting the Most ROI with Data Deduplication“, this was a presentation I recorded mainly focused on NetApp’s A...
VMworld 2008 – Highlights Reel
VMware has released a nice highlights reel from VMworld 2008. I have included it in this posting for your viewing pleasure. To view it please click the Read...
Virtualize your SAP Environment with NetApp and VMware
I recently did a TechTalk session with NetApp and VMware on Virtualizing your SAP Environments. If you are running SAP or thinking about deploying SAP, I st...
Speaking at NetApp/VMware Event
I’ll be giving a customer example presentation at the San Diego Go Green event which is put on by NetApp and VMware. If your new to virtualization, or would...
NetApp Accelerate Cancelled
**Sad to hear that NetApp Accelerate has been canceled. You can definitely tell our economy isn’t doing too good when conferences like these are canceled. Y...
EA1562 – Virtualizing SAP
If your attending VMworld 2008 and your planning on Virtualizing SAP, I’d highly recommend checking out my Breakout Session.
EMC
Want to help shape the future of EMC?
A friend and fellow VCDX, Brad Maltz, is currently working in the EMC Office of the CTO as the Senior Director of Converged Infrastructure. As he works on la...
Help steer what we do with EMC World
Things are in full swing for EMC World 2014. The venue is paid for, sessions are selected and content being tweaked, and tons of other fun/exciting things a...
Southern California EMC Forum 2012
EMC Forum 2012:
Phoenix Readers – Join Me for a Discussion on End User Computing
Sadly, this event has been canceled. I hope it gets rescheduled soon!
Accelerate Your Journey to Your Cloud with Application Modernization
Please join meon Thursday, August 16th at 8:00am PT as I talk about the Journey to full IT as a Service (ITaaS).Most people think that ITaaS s...
Big Regime Changes at EMC and VMware Coming
I typically do not post articles related to headline news stories, but this is one of the biggest announcements made by EMC and VMware since Diane Greene was...
Chad’s Choice Webcast on June 28th, 2012 – Don’t Miss!
To all of my EMC customers, fanboi’s or anyone just interested in hearing about some great new technology… Be sure to listen in to Chad’s Choice this Thursda...
Life Events Cause Priorities to Change
If you haven’t noticed I’ve been lacking in the content department for VMwareTips.com and for that, I apologize. Most of my readers and friends in the indust...
EMC Webcasts in June
Wow, this year is flying by and before you know it VMworld will be here! Until then, and all of the great things EMC has planned to show you, you should defi...
EMC Webcasts in May
Tomorrow starts another great series of VMware Focused webcasts from EMC. This month we cover everything from Virtualizing Oracle to Simplified Management, t...
EMC VNX Replicator now supported by VMware SRM 4.x
Just received notice this morning that EMC VNX Replicator has been approved for support for VMware Site Recovery Manager 4.0.x and 4.1.x. An excerpt of the m...
EMC Webcasts in March
EMC Webcasts are in full effect! Over 20,000 viewers have registered for these webcasts, why haven’t you!? Every Thursday we cover the hottest topics hitting...
EMC Webcasts in February
It’s the beginning of the month and you should know what that means…. new EMC virtualization focused webcasts! These awesome webcasts run every Thursday and ...
vSpecialist Rockstars are Worldwide
The EMC vSpecialist EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) team has finally submitted their answer to the vSpecialist Americas team hit song vSpecialists ...
EMC Webcasts in January
Every Thursday EMC puts on great webcasts dedicated to virtualization. This months installment includes a great customer reference discussing their adoption ...
Huge Things Coming from EMC
Although I cannot publicly discuss any of the huge things coming, I can invite you to register for our launch event on Tuesday, January 18th. I can guarantee...
Get to VMworld 2010 and Save Some Money
For those of you who haven’t purchased your pass to VMworld yet do I have a surprise for you! Being an employee of EMC combined with EMC being a great partn...
EMC Webcast on 6/24 – VAAI: Learn all about vStorage API for Array Integration
EMC is running a webcast hosted by Chad Sakac next Thursday and the topic should be of an interest to any VMware or Storage administrator. If you haven&#...
ESX 3.5 Tips
NetXen HP NC522SFP Network Flooding
I had a very fun weekend. It started at 4am Saturday with a migration of ~125 virtual machines from an old AMD based environment to a new Intel Nehalem based...
VMware Releases VI3 Update 5
Sometime yesterday ESX(i) Update 5 finally hit VMware Update Manager, about 2 days after the official announcement and release on the VMware website. This an...
VMware ESX 3.5, Patch ESX350-200904401-BG: Updates vmkernel vmx hostd etc
VMware recently released a patch, ESX350-200904401-BG which resolves a number of issues, which can be found in KB1010126.
Committing snapshots generates a content ID mismatch error
I had a big problem Monday AM on one of my core SAP VM instances, that also happens to have a SQL DB server on it. Our VCB process finishes up on late Sunday...
VMware Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC)
I recently ran into a situation with a customer where they needed to add another host to their cluster. Problem is, their original hosts had single core AMD...
VMware ESX 3.5 Update 4 Released
VMware has released the latest update to its ESX(i) 3.5 flagship product, Update 4. It is strongly recommended that you upgrade to VMware vCenter 2.5 Update...
VMware vCenter Mobile Access
I guess I posted a little too soon about Rove’s Mobile Admin release that has full support for VMware vCenter. VMware has just announced VMware vCenter Mob...
Installing the Performance Overview Plug-In in VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4
For those of you upgrading to vCenter 2.5 U4 and and are planning to use the new Performance Overview Plugin, there are some additional steps required to mak...
VMware vCenter 2.5 U4 Released
A few days ago VMware released vCenter 2.5 U4, the latest installment of their vCenter Server. I have yet to upgrade my environment(s), but I will be planni...
5000 Virtual Desktops using 10GB Storage in Minutes
Most people have never heard about NetApp’s Rapid Cloning Utility (RCU) for VMware. This tool is the magic behind the famous YouTube video that show how NetA...
Updated VI3 Reference Card
Many of you know that I’m taking my VCDX Enterprise Exam at 5pm tomorrow (02/03/2009), so I’ve been going over Forbes Guthrie’s VI3 Reference Card as much as...
ESX Patches – Resolve SAN LUN Issue
In a previous article I discuss how an ESX host can halt if LUN metadata updates are done the same time a LUN path fails. Thankfully VMware has released a p...
Another HealthCheck script for the Arsenal
In the VTMN Communities, William Lam, created a new HealthCheck script that I will be definietely adding to my HealthCheck Arsenal. More information on the ...
USB On Your Virtual Machine
Eric Sloof recently wrote about FabulaTech, which has a product called USB Over Network. This is a very nice software based client/server application that tu...
Mass VM Shutdown Script
Well, if you haven’t already figured out I’m big on shell scripts and Unix/Linux in general, so when my company informed me that they needed to bring down on...
SSH from ESX host to ESX host with No Password
Sometimes you need to script a job that SSH’s into another ESX host, problem is you will be prompted for a password—pretty much taking out all the automation...
SSH from an ESX host into NetApp OnTAP
Scott Lowe covered this over two years ago but I thought I’d revisit just in case there is someone out there looking to SSH from their ESX hosts directly int...
Issue: VMware ESX/ESXi SAN I/O Failure
In the twitter queue today I heard a new VMware KB has been released in regards to a potential SAN failure (FibreChannel and iSCSI). More information and th...
Defunct cimservera processes freeze VMware ESX 3.5
Earlier today Virtual IEF posted a blog about not being able to access an ESX host, not by ssh, not by VIC and not even through vCenter. Evidently this is c...
Random Reboots with VMware ESX 3.5 U3
This goes back to a posting on December 12th about VMware HA’s Virtual Machine Monitoring rebooting guests after a VMotion, which was originally brought up b...
Searchable VMware Hardware Compatibility List
Just like most of you, I was sick of having to download the VMware HCL lists in PDF format from the VMware website, then search through them for my system or...
VMware VI3 Network Communication Diagram
Jason Boche posted this network diagram on VI3, it shows exactly what ports VC, ESX and other services needed for a functioning enterprise use. This diagra...
ESX Reference Cards
A customer asked if I had a reference card with common ESX commands (RCLI, etc) so I sent him three cards, which I’m posting here now for you.
Restarting the Management Agents on an ESX Server
It sometimes happens, you see errors about DRS not being able to apply resource settings, most likely do to an invalid fault. Well, the quick and easy fix f...
VM may unexpectedly reboot when using HA with Virtual Machine Monitoring
As mentioned on Scott Lowe and Duncan Epping’s sites, an issue has been uncovered with VMware ESX 3.5 Update 3 in regards to Virtual Machines rebooting when ...
NetApp Snapshots in ESX – Take 2
Alright, well I finally set aside some time to sit and think about my script that runs my snapshots (VMware Snapshots then NetApp Snapshots then remove VMwar...
Advanced Settings for VMware HA
After discussing the issue(s) about NFS.LockDisable and how those problems may be generated (ie: VMware HA initiation), a few comments came in about VMware H...
Common issues with NFS.LockDisable=1
After seeing a mention on Scott Lowe’s blog (blog.scottlowe.org) and on Storage Monkeys Blog (blogs.storagemonkeys.com) I’ve decided to discuss the issue(s) ...
NFS Datastores and what was their BIG issue…
This all started back about a year ago when I decided to move my datastores from Fibre Channel to NFS. The data was already on a NetApp FAS960c so I was enjo...
Changing the IP of your NFS Datastore
I’ve ran into some issues today trying to change the IP address of my NFS Datastore. Our filer has a nice 10GbE interface that I’m not using, so my thought w...
NetApp Snapshots in ESX
UPDATE: I have re-written this script for enhancements, these can be found on the post titled “NetApp Snapshots in ESX – Take 2“
Changing VLAN of a Port Group
In the event you need to change the VLAN of any of your Port Groups here is some good instruction on doing just that. Remember, VLANs are configured at the P...
Changing Service Console IP Address in ESX 3.5
Actually this is not that difficult, but remember you will require console access to the server. Be sure to put the machine in Maintenance Mode then Disconne...
ESXi 3.5 Tips
NetXen HP NC522SFP Network Flooding
I had a very fun weekend. It started at 4am Saturday with a migration of ~125 virtual machines from an old AMD based environment to a new Intel Nehalem based...
VMware Releases VI3 Update 5
Sometime yesterday ESX(i) Update 5 finally hit VMware Update Manager, about 2 days after the official announcement and release on the VMware website. This an...
Before Host Profiles there was vicfg-cfgbackup.pl
This last weekend I was reminded of a RCLI command that creates a backup of your ESXi Host configuration. A client had an ESXi host where the USB drive fail...
Committing snapshots generates a content ID mismatch error
I had a big problem Monday AM on one of my core SAP VM instances, that also happens to have a SQL DB server on it. Our VCB process finishes up on late Sunday...
VMware Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC)
I recently ran into a situation with a customer where they needed to add another host to their cluster. Problem is, their original hosts had single core AMD...
VMware ESX 3.5 Update 4 Released
VMware has released the latest update to its ESX(i) 3.5 flagship product, Update 4. It is strongly recommended that you upgrade to VMware vCenter 2.5 Update...
VMware vCenter Mobile Access
I guess I posted a little too soon about Rove’s Mobile Admin release that has full support for VMware vCenter. VMware has just announced VMware vCenter Mob...
Installing the Performance Overview Plug-In in VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4
For those of you upgrading to vCenter 2.5 U4 and and are planning to use the new Performance Overview Plugin, there are some additional steps required to mak...
VMware vCenter 2.5 U4 Released
A few days ago VMware released vCenter 2.5 U4, the latest installment of their vCenter Server. I have yet to upgrade my environment(s), but I will be planni...
5000 Virtual Desktops using 10GB Storage in Minutes
Most people have never heard about NetApp’s Rapid Cloning Utility (RCU) for VMware. This tool is the magic behind the famous YouTube video that show how NetA...
Updated VI3 Reference Card
Many of you know that I’m taking my VCDX Enterprise Exam at 5pm tomorrow (02/03/2009), so I’ve been going over Forbes Guthrie’s VI3 Reference Card as much as...
ESX Patches – Resolve SAN LUN Issue
In a previous article I discuss how an ESX host can halt if LUN metadata updates are done the same time a LUN path fails. Thankfully VMware has released a p...
Another HealthCheck script for the Arsenal
In the VTMN Communities, William Lam, created a new HealthCheck script that I will be definietely adding to my HealthCheck Arsenal. More information on the ...
USB On Your Virtual Machine
Eric Sloof recently wrote about FabulaTech, which has a product called USB Over Network. This is a very nice software based client/server application that tu...
Mass VM Shutdown Script
Well, if you haven’t already figured out I’m big on shell scripts and Unix/Linux in general, so when my company informed me that they needed to bring down on...
SSH from ESX host to ESX host with No Password
Sometimes you need to script a job that SSH’s into another ESX host, problem is you will be prompted for a password—pretty much taking out all the automation...
SSH from an ESX host into NetApp OnTAP
Scott Lowe covered this over two years ago but I thought I’d revisit just in case there is someone out there looking to SSH from their ESX hosts directly int...
Issue: VMware ESX/ESXi SAN I/O Failure
In the twitter queue today I heard a new VMware KB has been released in regards to a potential SAN failure (FibreChannel and iSCSI). More information and th...
Defunct cimservera processes freeze VMware ESX 3.5
Earlier today Virtual IEF posted a blog about not being able to access an ESX host, not by ssh, not by VIC and not even through vCenter. Evidently this is c...
Hyper-V vs. ESXi – Install and Configure
I came across a nice flash video doing a side by side comparison of the Microsoft Hyper-V install and the VMware ESXi install. The Hyper-V install was using...
Random Reboots with VMware ESX 3.5 U3
This goes back to a posting on December 12th about VMware HA’s Virtual Machine Monitoring rebooting guests after a VMotion, which was originally brought up b...
Searchable VMware Hardware Compatibility List
Just like most of you, I was sick of having to download the VMware HCL lists in PDF format from the VMware website, then search through them for my system or...
ESXi Free Edition & The RCLI
Well a few days back there were a lot of posts in regards to the Free Edition of ESXi and how in U3 the RCLI is now writable. This unfortunately was a bug, ...
VMware VI3 Network Communication Diagram
Jason Boche posted this network diagram on VI3, it shows exactly what ports VC, ESX and other services needed for a functioning enterprise use. This diagra...
ESX Reference Cards
A customer asked if I had a reference card with common ESX commands (RCLI, etc) so I sent him three cards, which I’m posting here now for you.
Restarting the Management Agents on an ESX Server
It sometimes happens, you see errors about DRS not being able to apply resource settings, most likely do to an invalid fault. Well, the quick and easy fix f...
VM may unexpectedly reboot when using HA with Virtual Machine Monitoring
As mentioned on Scott Lowe and Duncan Epping’s sites, an issue has been uncovered with VMware ESX 3.5 Update 3 in regards to Virtual Machines rebooting when ...
Access the ESXi Service Console
Here is a brief write-up on how to access the Service Console of VMware ESXi. As a disclaimer, this should only be done under the direct supervision of a VMw...
Advanced Settings for VMware HA
After discussing the issue(s) about NFS.LockDisable and how those problems may be generated (ie: VMware HA initiation), a few comments came in about VMware H...
Common issues with NFS.LockDisable=1
After seeing a mention on Scott Lowe’s blog (blog.scottlowe.org) and on Storage Monkeys Blog (blogs.storagemonkeys.com) I’ve decided to discuss the issue(s) ...
NFS Datastores and what was their BIG issue…
This all started back about a year ago when I decided to move my datastores from Fibre Channel to NFS. The data was already on a NetApp FAS960c so I was enjo...
Changing the IP of your NFS Datastore
I’ve ran into some issues today trying to change the IP address of my NFS Datastore. Our filer has a nice 10GbE interface that I’m not using, so my thought w...
NetApp Snapshots in ESX
UPDATE: I have re-written this script for enhancements, these can be found on the post titled “NetApp Snapshots in ESX – Take 2“
Changing VLAN of a Port Group
In the event you need to change the VLAN of any of your Port Groups here is some good instruction on doing just that. Remember, VLANs are configured at the P...
Changing Service Console IP Address in ESX 3.5
Actually this is not that difficult, but remember you will require console access to the server. Be sure to put the machine in Maintenance Mode then Disconne...
EVO:RAIL
Changing ESXi Hostname on an EVO:RAIL Appliance
The other day I did a VSPEX Blue (EMC’s flavor of EVO:RAIL Appliance) install for a customer that couldn’t conform to the hostname standards set forth by the...
Good Reading
Help a Good Friend, Stephen Hunt
Many of you know that we lost a good man last week in a tragic accident, James Ruddy. Unfortunately Stephen Hunt was also in the vehicle at the time, he sus...
vSphere-Land Voting for Top Blogs 2013
As most of my vFriends would know, I’m a huge fan of blogging and social media in general. I think it’s a great mechanism to reach out to the masses for the ...
Win Access to VMworld 2012 Sessions
Attention all VMware Junkies! For those of you that were unable to attend VMworld 2012, here is your chance to get access to all of the content available fr...
VMware Press – Win a FREE BOOK!
I just wanted to give a quick shout out to VMware Press, they made VMworld 2012 San Francisco a lot of fun by providing a bundle of their books for some give...
Big Regime Changes at EMC and VMware Coming
I typically do not post articles related to headline news stories, but this is one of the biggest announcements made by EMC and VMware since Diane Greene was...
Life Events Cause Priorities to Change
If you haven’t noticed I’ve been lacking in the content department for VMwareTips.com and for that, I apologize. Most of my readers and friends in the indust...
vSphere-land Voting for Top Blogs
As most of my vFriends would know, I’m a huge fan of blogging and social media in general. I think it’s a great mechanism to reach out to the masses for the ...
EMC Webcasts in June
Wow, this year is flying by and before you know it VMworld will be here! Until then, and all of the great things EMC has planned to show you, you should defi...
EMC Webcasts in May
Tomorrow starts another great series of VMware Focused webcasts from EMC. This month we cover everything from Virtualizing Oracle to Simplified Management, t...
Storage Saavy in SoCal? Want a Job?
At EMC we’re constantly growing…and with the launch of our VNX and VNXe storage lines, we’re growing like CRAZY!
EMC Webcasts in March
EMC Webcasts are in full effect! Over 20,000 viewers have registered for these webcasts, why haven’t you!? Every Thursday we cover the hottest topics hitting...
Get Your Read On
I just wanted to spend some time to tell you about two great books recently released by Pearson publishing. Both are focused on VMware vSphere 4 and will hel...
EMC Webcasts in February
It’s the beginning of the month and you should know what that means…. new EMC virtualization focused webcasts! These awesome webcasts run every Thursday and ...
EMC Webcasts in January
Every Thursday EMC puts on great webcasts dedicated to virtualization. This months installment includes a great customer reference discussing their adoption ...
2010 Wrap-Up
Wow, where has the time gone? It seems like it was just yesterday that I was dabbling with VMware GSX to give some extra workstations to application develope...
EMC Webcasts in December
EMC is putting on some great webcasts in December all around virtualization, consider this an early Christmas present! Join some of the biggest names in the ...
Have a Passion for Virtualization? We’re looking for you!
I’m truly honored to be part of such a great team and organization. On February 1, 2010 I joined EMC as a vSpecialist working within Chad Sakac’s organizatio...
Oracle now supports RAC on VMware…kinda
Oracle is finally starting to get it, earlier this week they updated Metalink note 249212.1 to include support for Oracle RAC 11.2.0.2 and later. But...
vSphere-Land Top 25 List
That time of the year has come around again…. Eric Siebert over at vSphere-Land has opened voting for his Top 25 list, this is a great list of the best virtu...
VMware vExpert 2010
With great honor and enthusiasm I proudly received notification that I was selected to be a VMware vExpert for 2010. Thank you John Troyerfor building such a...
VMware Certified Professional vSphere 4 Study Guide
After almost 8 long months the time is upon us! The McGraw-Hill published VMware Certified Professional vSphere 4 (VCP410) Study Guide is now available for p...
Announcing New Windows 3.1 Training
New Once in a Lifetime Windows 3.1 Training Offer http://www.trainsignal.com/windowstraining.aspx
Chapter 3 – A New Beginning…
The first decade of a new century of a new millennium has recently ended.
VMwareTips.com 2009 Holiday Giveaway Extravaganza – WINNERS
First of all, thank you very much to our sponsors for putting this together, EMC/IOMEGA and VEEAM.
Vote for VMwareTips.com
Wow, I cannot believe it is already 2010. I believe this year is going to bring some great things. For me it will bring a new home and the beginning of a new...
Pre-Order VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference
VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference, written by Scott Lowe, Jase McCarty and Matthew Johnson is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I wa...
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Released Today
I know this isn’t a topic on virtualization, however I know a lot of companies that were waiting for Exchange 2010 so they could merge their upgrade and virt...
The New Player on the vBlock
VMware, EMC, Cisco, VCE, Intel, Acadia….whew! what does it all mean?!
What’s New with Rick @ VMwareTips
VMwareTips and the website…
Train Signal vSphere Video Launch!
I’m proud to announce the release of the latest series of video based training from Train Signal… VMware vSphere! This video series will include over 18 hour...
VCDX, VMworld and Consulting…Oh My!
Just wanted to write a brief post apologizing to my readers for the lack of updates the past week or two. Many of you know that I passed my VCDX Design Exam...
Google Calendar Sync
I know this isn’t related to Virtualization, but it is still pretty cool. At the office I use Outlook, which is connected to an Exchange 2007 server. I hav...
Cisco UCS Design Flaw? No Northboard FCoE Connectivity
Today Scott Lowe wrote a post on his blog explaining how Cisco UCS lacks Northbound FCoE connectivity, explained here;
Amazon Purchases a $850,000,000 Shoe
This really has nothing to do with Virtualization, but it is still an interesting story. Today Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, announced to his employees that Amazo...
Pre-Order Mastering VMware vSphere 4
Scott Lowe’s forthcoming book, Mastering VMware vSphere 4, is now available for pre-order via Amazon! Click here to see all the details. The book is availabl...
Congratulations to our Winners!
The time has come, over 200 people registered to win a TrainSignal VMware ESX Training Kit and we now have three winners! Each registrant was assigned an ID...
Day Two – Arrived in Palo Alto, CA
The past couple days have been amazing! Yesterday we woke up in Ventura and drive up the California coast, seeing San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay and Hearst Castl...
Day One – Driving to VMware vSphere Launch
Most of you should already know that I will be covering the VMware vSphere Launch at the VMware HQ on Tuesday, April 21st. We’ll my girlfriend Mandy and I ar...
SDDPC is a Finalist for SNW Best Practices Award
I’m extremely excited to announce that my employer, San Diego Data Processing Corporation (SDDPC), has been announced as a finalist for a Storage Networking ...
VMware Launch Event on April 21st – Sponsorship Opportunities Available
As many of you know (or may not know), VMware will be having a “Launch Event“* on Tuesday, April 21st. This is going to be an exciting event where VMware CE...
Lots of New Exciting Things Happened This Week
Hey people, sorry the site hasn’t been as active as it has in the past, I wanted to at least provide you with a weekly update. As most of you know, I’m the ...
Rove Mobile Admin 4.2 – VMware vCenter Support Added
Rove has provided me with a demo of their Mobile Admin management tool, unfortunately I have been unable to install and use it due to my busy schedule lately...
Working on a Book with Scott Lowe
About a month ago, Scott Lowe announced that he will be writing a book focused on virtualization. It is with a great deal of enthusiasm, that I get to tell y...
Congratulations! You have received a VMware vExpert Award!
A special thank you to all of you that made this award possible! I’d like to especially thank God, my parents and all my loyal fans! :) Well, this morning ...
No News is Good News….right?
Well, its been 10 days since I’ve taken the VCDX Enterprise Admin Exam, and I still haven’t heard from the VMware Certification department on the results. P...
5000 Virtual Desktops using 10GB Storage in Minutes
Most people have never heard about NetApp’s Rapid Cloning Utility (RCU) for VMware. This tool is the magic behind the famous YouTube video that show how NetA...
VMwareTips.com Overwhelming Growth
Every month since the inception of VMwareTips.com I have been shocked. Thank you to the 8,430 unique visitors that made this month even bigger than last! I ...
My HDD Failed – But ddrescue Saved the Day
On Tuesday morning my HDD failed on my PC at the office. Most of my important data is in a NFS volume on a FAS6030, but my PC still had some important stuff...
Storage Efficiency Article in Tech OnTap
Well, my article in NetApp’s Tech OnTap was published this morning. It was pretty exciting being asked by the #1 Employer in the United States to write an a...
NetApp – #1 Best Company to Work For
As featured today in Fortune Magazine, NetApp was announced to be the #1 Best Company to Work for in 2009. This is not surprising, their work ethics and ...
Cloning a Physical Linux PC that uses LVM
I know this isn’t virtualization related, but a colleague of mine was attempting to clone 20 HP x4600 desktops running RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 and was havi...
VMwareTips.com Now On virtualization.alltop.com
I just received word that VMware Tips is now being syndicated on virtualization.alltop.com. This site is very similiar to what VMware’s Planet V12n is, but t...
VMwareTips.com Goes Mobile!
VMwareTips.com is now available on your mobile phone’s web browser! Including your Windows Mobile, Apple iPhone and any other device supporting Mobile Web 2....
Happy New Year
A very special Happy New Year to all of my readers, I know its been a little slow the past week but after the holidays things will pick up on the site. I hop...
VM Storage – RAID Protection and Performance
In the VM blogging world today there was some discussion on which RAID level to use with your virtual environment (Professional VMware Blog & Roger Lund’...
Sun VirtualBox 2.1.0
For those of you that have read my prior post on Sun VirtualBox, you would already know that I think it is a viable alternative to VMware Server. Although I...
EMC Documentum not supported in VMware
How could this be?! EMC, owner of VMware does not support its own product to run virtualized? You got it daddy-o!
The New Name for VMware Virtual Infrastructure
Well, yesterday I posted an article about a new name for VI4 — I’m not sure if I sparked something somewhere but the cats out of the bag….being under NDA I’v...
Someone unwrapped their present from Veeam
Like two little kids, Rich Brambley from VM /ETC and Jason Boche from boche.net couldn’t resist. They opened their presents a little early. It sounds like ...
A Present for My Readers – Happy Holidays
Not to let the entire cat out of the bag, but some of you have probably already speculated this. The next release of VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI4) wil...
VMware – 2008 Year in Review
Rodos posted a very nice blog covering the big events that involved VMware in 2008. Like he states, I do not believe this is the entire list, but I tell you...
Hyper-V Puts VMs At Risk During Migration
A very cool video was sent over to me by an employee of VMware, it shows in a demo of Hyper-V an application failure because Hyper-V did not check the CPU co...
Hyper-V vs. VMware = Monday Debate
This morning when I came into work my twitter box was flooded and there was a lot of heat distributed across the virtualization blogging world. This all sta...
Free Holiday Gift from Veeam
Just like Scott Lowe and probably thousands of others, Veeam notified me that they are giving away another free tool on December 22nd:
VMware VCDX Enterprise Administration Exam
I finally received an email this afternoon from VMware in regards to the VCDX exam, it finally sounds like they’ve gotten it straightened out with Pearson VU...
VMworld.com – Ask the Experts
Today an ask the experts session went live on “Getting the Most ROI with Data Deduplication“, this was a presentation I recorded mainly focused on NetApp’s A...
Top Referrers Last 30 Days
Thanks to a pingback from Duncan over at Yellow-Bricks.com I was intrigued to see who my top referrers were as well. So, here is my top-ten list. Unfortune...
Product Review : vKernel Chargeback
Recently my employer found the need to assess virtual machine utilization, to be used for FY10 budget planning. So, I started my search for the best product...
NetApp Customer Success Story
I was recently interviewed by NetApp for a Customer Success Story, it was in regards to server virtualization and utilizing NetApp storage. This success sto...
Product Review : Sun xVM Server
Just like everyone else, Sun has joined the Virtualization marketplace. A couple weeks back I reviewed Sun VirtualBox which takes a stab at VMware Server wit...
Product Review : Sun VirtualBox
I never was really interested in Sun VirtualBox until I went to a Product Roadshow put on by Sun Microsystems about 2 weeks ago. As soon as I returned to my ...
Product Review : Vizioncore vFoglight
I’ve been using a demo version of vFoglight for about 2 weeks now and I am overwhelmed with how much this product can do. The installation is extre...
Product Reviews Coming Soon
It has been a few days since I’ve blogged, I apologize for not devoting as much time this week as I should have. But, on a lighter note, I do plan on writing...
GoToAssist Express
Its not often that I talk about non virtualized things, but a recent run-in with this new piece of software created by Citrix has me delighted. Most tech hea...
Hyper-V
VMware vCenter XVP Manager
vmware Labs has released vCenter XVP Manager and Converter, their first stab into management of non-VMware virtualized environments. vCenter XVP Manager allo...
USB On Your Virtual Machine
Eric Sloof recently wrote about FabulaTech, which has a product called USB Over Network. This is a very nice software based client/server application that tu...
Hyper-V vs. ESXi – Install and Configure
I came across a nice flash video doing a side by side comparison of the Microsoft Hyper-V install and the VMware ESXi install. The Hyper-V install was using...
Hyper-V Puts VMs At Risk During Migration
A very cool video was sent over to me by an employee of VMware, it shows in a demo of Hyper-V an application failure because Hyper-V did not check the CPU co...
Hyper-V vs. VMware = Monday Debate
This morning when I came into work my twitter box was flooded and there was a lot of heat distributed across the virtualization blogging world. This all sta...
Linux
My HDD Failed – But ddrescue Saved the Day
On Tuesday morning my HDD failed on my PC at the office. Most of my important data is in a NFS volume on a FAS6030, but my PC still had some important stuff...
VMware Workstation & Ubuntu 8.10 Ctrl-Alt-Ins not working
Well, if some of you haven’t heard (from twitter) – I recently lost my HDD. Which not only stinks, but it is a huge pain having to rebuild to exactly how you...
Local Events
Western PA VMUG User Conference
It’s with great honor that I accepted a request to speak at the Western PA VMUG User Conference, tomorrow in the Moon Township suburb of Pittsburgh. I’m not ...
Kansas City VMUG – Tuesday, December 11th, 2012
It’s with great pleasure to let all of my readers know that I’ll be speaking at the Kansas City VMware Users Group on Tuesday, December 11th. It’s with even ...
Southern California EMC Forum 2012
EMC Forum 2012:
Phoenix Readers – Join Me for a Discussion on End User Computing
Sadly, this event has been canceled. I hope it gets rescheduled soon!
Microsoft
Google Calendar Sync
I know this isn’t related to Virtualization, but it is still pretty cool. At the office I use Outlook, which is connected to an Exchange 2007 server. I hav...
Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 have been RTM
Many of you know that I’m not the biggest Microsoft fan, however some announcements today will definitely create some waves so I feel that all of my readers ...
Monitoring
Do You vRealize What’s in a vName?
VMworld is upon us, a joyous time of year of new product announcements, new features, networking with friends, indulging in delicious cuisine and of course… ...
VMware vCenter Mobile Access
I guess I posted a little too soon about Rove’s Mobile Admin release that has full support for VMware vCenter. VMware has just announced VMware vCenter Mob...
Rove Mobile Admin 4.2 – VMware vCenter Support Added
Rove has provided me with a demo of their Mobile Admin management tool, unfortunately I have been unable to install and use it due to my busy schedule lately...
Installing the Performance Overview Plug-In in VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4
For those of you upgrading to vCenter 2.5 U4 and and are planning to use the new Performance Overview Plugin, there are some additional steps required to mak...
Defunct cimservera processes freeze VMware ESX 3.5
Earlier today Virtual IEF posted a blog about not being able to access an ESX host, not by ssh, not by VIC and not even through vCenter. Evidently this is c...
Product Review : vKernel Chargeback
Recently my employer found the need to assess virtual machine utilization, to be used for FY10 budget planning. So, I started my search for the best product...
Product Review : Vizioncore vFoglight
I’ve been using a demo version of vFoglight for about 2 weeks now and I am overwhelmed with how much this product can do. The installation is extre...
NetApp
NetApp SnapManager for VI 2.0 (SMVI)
For those of you using NetApp for your back-end virtual machine storage, there is a new version of their SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure (SMVI) tool t...
NetApp, VMware and SQL TechTalk – Q&A Transcript
Most of you know that I was the featured guest on a Live TechTalk last week, NetApp has furnished me with the transcripts from the Q&A of the event – for...
VMware vSphere and the vStorage API
During my trip to Palo Alto for the VMware vSphere Launch I met with some NetApp engineers at their Executive Briefing Center in Sunnyvale. This was perhaps...
The Things You’ll Find When You Google Yourself
My boss asked me today to provide a list of things I’ve done the past year for my upcoming performance review. I typed up all I knew off the top of my head,...
REAL Systems Engineers Don’t Need GUIs
Today I needed a little amusement. In an article posted on Tech Target, Beth Pariseau discusses the new upcoming NetApp System Manager (NSM). In a comment f...
NetApp Battles the Competition
In a clever marketing video NetApp produced (in house), NTAP takes on DD and e2 in an 8 Mile style rap battle. This was quite entertaining, thanks for the 4 ...
Goodbye Backup Agents….Goodbye VCB
I’ve been quite busy the last couple weeks, so busy that I’ve neglected VMwareTips.com for far too long! Today I’d like to tell you about an exciting upcomi...
SAP Virtualization Week 2009
It has been confirmed that I will be speaking at SAP Virtualization Week this year, I will be discussing the City of San Diego’s implementation of SAP Netwea...
5000 Virtual Desktops using 10GB Storage in Minutes
Most people have never heard about NetApp’s Rapid Cloning Utility (RCU) for VMware. This tool is the magic behind the famous YouTube video that show how NetA...
NetApp & VMware Webcast: Protect Your Virtualized Environment
</p> Live Webcast ...
Storage Efficiency Article in Tech OnTap
Well, my article in NetApp’s Tech OnTap was published this morning. It was pretty exciting being asked by the #1 Employer in the United States to write an a...
NetApp – #1 Best Company to Work For
As featured today in Fortune Magazine, NetApp was announced to be the #1 Best Company to Work for in 2009. This is not surprising, their work ethics and ...
SSH from an ESX host into NetApp OnTAP
Scott Lowe covered this over two years ago but I thought I’d revisit just in case there is someone out there looking to SSH from their ESX hosts directly int...
NetApp SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure and VIBE
So, I’ve already had a couple posts including some shell scripts that I wrote that will quiesce your Virtual Machines then initiate a NetApp level snapshot. ...
NetApp Snapshots in ESX – Take 2
Alright, well I finally set aside some time to sit and think about my script that runs my snapshots (VMware Snapshots then NetApp Snapshots then remove VMwar...
VMworld.com – Ask the Experts
Today an ask the experts session went live on “Getting the Most ROI with Data Deduplication“, this was a presentation I recorded mainly focused on NetApp’s A...
NetApp Customer Success Story
I was recently interviewed by NetApp for a Customer Success Story, it was in regards to server virtualization and utilizing NetApp storage. This success sto...
Virtualize your SAP Environment with NetApp and VMware
I recently did a TechTalk session with NetApp and VMware on Virtualizing your SAP Environments. If you are running SAP or thinking about deploying SAP, I st...
Speaking at NetApp/VMware Event
I’ll be giving a customer example presentation at the San Diego Go Green event which is put on by NetApp and VMware. If your new to virtualization, or would...
NetApp Accelerate Cancelled
**Sad to hear that NetApp Accelerate has been canceled. You can definitely tell our economy isn’t doing too good when conferences like these are canceled. Y...
Common issues with NFS.LockDisable=1
After seeing a mention on Scott Lowe’s blog (blog.scottlowe.org) and on Storage Monkeys Blog (blogs.storagemonkeys.com) I’ve decided to discuss the issue(s) ...
NFS Datastores and what was their BIG issue…
This all started back about a year ago when I decided to move my datastores from Fibre Channel to NFS. The data was already on a NetApp FAS960c so I was enjo...
Changing the IP of your NFS Datastore
I’ve ran into some issues today trying to change the IP address of my NFS Datastore. Our filer has a nice 10GbE interface that I’m not using, so my thought w...
NetApp Snapshots in ESX
UPDATE: I have re-written this script for enhancements, these can be found on the post titled “NetApp Snapshots in ESX – Take 2“
Networking
vCloud Director and vCloud Networking and Security Product Update
In case you may have missed it, VMware made a couple big announcements today around vCloud Director and vCloud Networking and Security (vCNS).
Advisory – ESX 4.1 + HP FLEX-10 + Broadcom bnx2x = Bad News
Two local customers have ran into the same situation in the past month….both are running on a HP c-Class blade infrastructure leveraging Virtual Connect/FLEX...
NetXen HP NC522SFP Network Flooding
I had a very fun weekend. It started at 4am Saturday with a migration of ~125 virtual machines from an old AMD based environment to a new Intel Nehalem based...
Cisco Nexus 1000V Beta (Upgrade Spoiler!)
I was just invited by Cisco to be part of the BETA for the next release of the Nexus 1000V. I’ll provide more details about the BETA after I install and tes...
Fast Network Throughput in ESX
Doing some speed tests of IP based storage gave me some good results. First I enabled Jumbo frames on my dedicated IP storage Ethernet card, then I set the M...
VMware VI3 Network Communication Diagram
Jason Boche posted this network diagram on VI3, it shows exactly what ports VC, ESX and other services needed for a functioning enterprise use. This diagra...
Virtualizing your DMZ
Today I got into a heated discussion with a “Virtualization Expert” at Gartner today about the risks associated with virtualizing your DMZ, primarily into th...
Changing VLAN of a Port Group
In the event you need to change the VLAN of any of your Port Groups here is some good instruction on doing just that. Remember, VLANs are configured at the P...
Changing Service Console IP Address in ESX 3.5
Actually this is not that difficult, but remember you will require console access to the server. Be sure to put the machine in Maintenance Mode then Disconne...
Press
VMware Press – Win a FREE BOOK!
I just wanted to give a quick shout out to VMware Press, they made VMworld 2012 San Francisco a lot of fun by providing a bundle of their books for some give...
SRM
vmware 2011 Mega Launch
It is 9am Pacific Time on Tuesday, July 12th 2011 and I sure hope you’re tuned into the vmware Mega Launch so greatly titled “Raising the Bar, Part V”. If yo...
EMC VNX Replicator now supported by VMware SRM 4.x
Just received notice this morning that EMC VNX Replicator has been approved for support for VMware Site Recovery Manager 4.0.x and 4.1.x. An excerpt of the m...
Security
vCloud Director and vCloud Networking and Security Product Update
In case you may have missed it, VMware made a couple big announcements today around vCloud Director and vCloud Networking and Security (vCNS).
vmware 2011 Mega Launch
It is 9am Pacific Time on Tuesday, July 12th 2011 and I sure hope you’re tuned into the vmware Mega Launch so greatly titled “Raising the Bar, Part V”. If yo...
SSH from ESX host to ESX host with No Password
Sometimes you need to script a job that SSH’s into another ESX host, problem is you will be prompted for a password—pretty much taking out all the automation...
VMware VI3 Network Communication Diagram
Jason Boche posted this network diagram on VI3, it shows exactly what ports VC, ESX and other services needed for a functioning enterprise use. This diagra...
Virtualizing your DMZ
Today I got into a heated discussion with a “Virtualization Expert” at Gartner today about the risks associated with virtualizing your DMZ, primarily into th...
Storage
Extending an EagerZeroedThick Disk
Today a coworker asked me about extending an EagerZeroedThick disk, as they had a customer inform them that extending an EagerZeroedThick disk actually turne...
Chad’s Choice Webcast on June 28th, 2012 – Don’t Miss!
To all of my EMC customers, fanboi’s or anyone just interested in hearing about some great new technology… Be sure to listen in to Chad’s Choice this Thursda...
vmware 2011 Mega Launch
It is 9am Pacific Time on Tuesday, July 12th 2011 and I sure hope you’re tuned into the vmware Mega Launch so greatly titled “Raising the Bar, Part V”. If yo...
VAAI Train Running Late Today
Another one of those posts today that most likely will not affect most, however there is a known issue with the vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) mi...
EMC Webcast on 6/24 – VAAI: Learn all about vStorage API for Array Integration
EMC is running a webcast hosted by Chad Sakac next Thursday and the topic should be of an interest to any VMware or Storage administrator. If you haven&#...
EMC Celerra Plug-in for VMware v1.1 – View Integration
Just a little teaser of what we’re working on here at EMC. This is the next version of the EMC Celerra Plug-in for VMware which is v1.1 and offers great new ...
vMotion over Distance support with EMC VPLEX Metro
Last month at EMC World we released a storage virtualization product unlike any other. EMC VPLEX not only virtualizes back-end storage from other vendors it ...
NetXen HP NC522SFP Network Flooding
I had a very fun weekend. It started at 4am Saturday with a migration of ~125 virtual machines from an old AMD based environment to a new Intel Nehalem based...
VMware ESXi 4 and HP Servers
I’m proud to say that HP has full support for ESXi 4 installed on SD or USB Flash memory. They even offer the installable ISO pre-built with their CIM provi...
NetApp SnapManager for VI 2.0 (SMVI)
For those of you using NetApp for your back-end virtual machine storage, there is a new version of their SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure (SMVI) tool t...
Cisco UCS Design Flaw? No Northboard FCoE Connectivity
Today Scott Lowe wrote a post on his blog explaining how Cisco UCS lacks Northbound FCoE connectivity, explained here;
VMware vSphere and the vStorage API
During my trip to Palo Alto for the VMware vSphere Launch I met with some NetApp engineers at their Executive Briefing Center in Sunnyvale. This was perhaps...
The Things You’ll Find When You Google Yourself
My boss asked me today to provide a list of things I’ve done the past year for my upcoming performance review. I typed up all I knew off the top of my head,...
Committing snapshots generates a content ID mismatch error
I had a big problem Monday AM on one of my core SAP VM instances, that also happens to have a SQL DB server on it. Our VCB process finishes up on late Sunday...
Fast Network Throughput in ESX
Doing some speed tests of IP based storage gave me some good results. First I enabled Jumbo frames on my dedicated IP storage Ethernet card, then I set the M...
Goodbye Backup Agents….Goodbye VCB
I’ve been quite busy the last couple weeks, so busy that I’ve neglected VMwareTips.com for far too long! Today I’d like to tell you about an exciting upcomi...
5000 Virtual Desktops using 10GB Storage in Minutes
Most people have never heard about NetApp’s Rapid Cloning Utility (RCU) for VMware. This tool is the magic behind the famous YouTube video that show how NetA...
NetApp & VMware Webcast: Protect Your Virtualized Environment
</p> Live Webcast ...
Idealstor Releases VMware vCenter Backup Solution
Idealstor, a leading developer of disk-to-disk backup solutions, announced today the release of iBac VIP for VMware Virtual Center. iBac VIP for Virtual Cen...
ESX Patches – Resolve SAN LUN Issue
In a previous article I discuss how an ESX host can halt if LUN metadata updates are done the same time a LUN path fails. Thankfully VMware has released a p...
Issue: VMware ESX/ESXi SAN I/O Failure
In the twitter queue today I heard a new VMware KB has been released in regards to a potential SAN failure (FibreChannel and iSCSI). More information and th...
HP MSA1500 Ruined My Customers Week
A customer of mine with a small ESX deployment ran into some major grief this week with their MSA1500. Unfortunately for them, it took 3 days for them to pi...
NetApp SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure and VIBE
So, I’ve already had a couple posts including some shell scripts that I wrote that will quiesce your Virtual Machines then initiate a NetApp level snapshot. ...
VM Storage – RAID Protection and Performance
In the VM blogging world today there was some discussion on which RAID level to use with your virtual environment (Professional VMware Blog & Roger Lund’...
NetApp Snapshots in ESX – Take 2
Alright, well I finally set aside some time to sit and think about my script that runs my snapshots (VMware Snapshots then NetApp Snapshots then remove VMwar...
Common issues with NFS.LockDisable=1
After seeing a mention on Scott Lowe’s blog (blog.scottlowe.org) and on Storage Monkeys Blog (blogs.storagemonkeys.com) I’ve decided to discuss the issue(s) ...
NFS Datastores and what was their BIG issue…
This all started back about a year ago when I decided to move my datastores from Fibre Channel to NFS. The data was already on a NetApp FAS960c so I was enjo...
Changing the IP of your NFS Datastore
I’ve ran into some issues today trying to change the IP address of my NFS Datastore. Our filer has a nice 10GbE interface that I’m not using, so my thought w...
NetApp Snapshots in ESX
UPDATE: I have re-written this script for enhancements, these can be found on the post titled “NetApp Snapshots in ESX – Take 2“
Training
VMware VCAP4-DCD BETA Exam Experience
Just like Jason Boche and Chris Dearden I was able to take part in the VCAP4-DCD Beta experience. I took my exam in San Diego on Tuesday (11/9) which was a l...
VCAP4 and VCDX4 Certifications
Have you been wanting to start down the VCDX3 track and were a little hesitant because you knew the VCDX4 would be shortly approaching? Well here is some inf...
Pre-Order VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference
VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference, written by Scott Lowe, Jase McCarty and Matthew Johnson is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I wa...
Train Signal vSphere Video Launch!
I’m proud to announce the release of the latest series of video based training from Train Signal… VMware vSphere! This video series will include over 18 hour...
VMUG
Western PA VMUG User Conference
It’s with great honor that I accepted a request to speak at the Western PA VMUG User Conference, tomorrow in the Moon Township suburb of Pittsburgh. I’m not ...
Kansas City VMUG – Tuesday, December 11th, 2012
It’s with great pleasure to let all of my readers know that I’ll be speaking at the Kansas City VMware Users Group on Tuesday, December 11th. It’s with even ...
San Diego VMware User Group Meeting Tomorrow
Friday, July 24th is another San Diego VMware User Group meeting. I strongly urge you to come join us as we discuss all things VMware, this includes a discu...
San Diego VMUG Meeting Tomorrow
Just wanted to post that the San Diego VMUG is tomorrow morning, if your in the San Diego area I suggest you stop by and check it out. More information can ...
VMware
Do You vRealize What’s in a vName?
VMworld is upon us, a joyous time of year of new product announcements, new features, networking with friends, indulging in delicious cuisine and of course… ...
So Long vCloud Hybrid Service, Hello vCloud Air!
In a stunning turn of events VMware has ditched the vCloud Hybrid Service name for a shorter, simpler, to the point name of vCloud Air.
Accelerate Your Journey to Your Cloud with Application Modernization
Please join meon Thursday, August 16th at 8:00am PT as I talk about the Journey to full IT as a Service (ITaaS).Most people think that ITaaS s...
Big Regime Changes at EMC and VMware Coming
I typically do not post articles related to headline news stories, but this is one of the biggest announcements made by EMC and VMware since Diane Greene was...
Chad’s Choice Webcast on June 28th, 2012 – Don’t Miss!
To all of my EMC customers, fanboi’s or anyone just interested in hearing about some great new technology… Be sure to listen in to Chad’s Choice this Thursda...
VMware ESX 3.0.3 Patch Released
For those of you still running the VI 3.0 suite of vmware products will be happy to know that vmware hasn’t forgotten about you. There was a recent release o...
Share Your VMware Experience and Win a MacBook
It’s really that simple, sign-up for the VMware Customer Program between now and September 30th, 2009, and you will be entered into a raffle to win a MacBook...
New VMware Download Center
If you haven’t already, go check out the new VMware Download Center. This new website makes it a lot easier to find the product download you’re looking for....
NetApp, VMware and SQL TechTalk – Q&A Transcript
Most of you know that I was the featured guest on a Live TechTalk last week, NetApp has furnished me with the transcripts from the Q&A of the event – for...
Congratulations! You have received a VMware vExpert Award!
A special thank you to all of you that made this award possible! I’d like to especially thank God, my parents and all my loyal fans! :) Well, this morning ...
Virtualizing Mission Critical Applications Technical Roundtable
If your in the San Diego area and want to get a free breakfast, come meet me tomorrow morning at the Marriott Hotel Del Mar for a Technical Roundtable on Vir...
SAP Virtualization Week 2009
It has been confirmed that I will be speaking at SAP Virtualization Week this year, I will be discussing the City of San Diego’s implementation of SAP Netwea...
VI4 Client Federation
Just wanted to throw a little hint of whats to come with VI4 later this year. The VI4 Client (vSphere Client) will include Federation capabilities. For thos...
5000 Virtual Desktops using 10GB Storage in Minutes
Most people have never heard about NetApp’s Rapid Cloning Utility (RCU) for VMware. This tool is the magic behind the famous YouTube video that show how NetA...
NetApp & VMware Webcast: Protect Your Virtualized Environment
</p> Live Webcast ...
VMware vExpert – Nominations Begin
In the twitter world today we found out that the VMware VVP (VMware Virtualization Professional Program) is officially called vExpert. Also heard that voting...
EMC Documentum not supported in VMware
How could this be?! EMC, owner of VMware does not support its own product to run virtualized? You got it daddy-o!
The New Name for VMware Virtual Infrastructure
Well, yesterday I posted an article about a new name for VI4 — I’m not sure if I sparked something somewhere but the cats out of the bag….being under NDA I’v...
A Present for My Readers – Happy Holidays
Not to let the entire cat out of the bag, but some of you have probably already speculated this. The next release of VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI4) wil...
VMware – 2008 Year in Review
Rodos posted a very nice blog covering the big events that involved VMware in 2008. Like he states, I do not believe this is the entire list, but I tell you...
Hyper-V Puts VMs At Risk During Migration
A very cool video was sent over to me by an employee of VMware, it shows in a demo of Hyper-V an application failure because Hyper-V did not check the CPU co...
VMware Virtualization Online Forum
My session is just about start, 3:00PM Pacific Time I will be discussing Next Generation Server Computing for The City of San Diego. I invite everyone to joi...
Hyper-V vs. VMware = Monday Debate
This morning when I came into work my twitter box was flooded and there was a lot of heat distributed across the virtualization blogging world. This all sta...
ESXi Free Edition & The RCLI
Well a few days back there were a lot of posts in regards to the Free Edition of ESXi and how in U3 the RCLI is now writable. This unfortunately was a bug, ...
VMware VI3 Network Communication Diagram
Jason Boche posted this network diagram on VI3, it shows exactly what ports VC, ESX and other services needed for a functioning enterprise use. This diagra...
ESX Reference Cards
A customer asked if I had a reference card with common ESX commands (RCLI, etc) so I sent him three cards, which I’m posting here now for you.
Restarting the Management Agents on an ESX Server
It sometimes happens, you see errors about DRS not being able to apply resource settings, most likely do to an invalid fault. Well, the quick and easy fix f...
VM may unexpectedly reboot when using HA with Virtual Machine Monitoring
As mentioned on Scott Lowe and Duncan Epping’s sites, an issue has been uncovered with VMware ESX 3.5 Update 3 in regards to Virtual Machines rebooting when ...
Free Holiday Gift from Veeam
Just like Scott Lowe and probably thousands of others, Veeam notified me that they are giving away another free tool on December 22nd:
VMware VCDX Enterprise Administration Exam
I finally received an email this afternoon from VMware in regards to the VCDX exam, it finally sounds like they’ve gotten it straightened out with Pearson VU...
Virtualizing your DMZ
Today I got into a heated discussion with a “Virtualization Expert” at Gartner today about the risks associated with virtualizing your DMZ, primarily into th...
NetApp Snapshots in ESX – Take 2
Alright, well I finally set aside some time to sit and think about my script that runs my snapshots (VMware Snapshots then NetApp Snapshots then remove VMwar...
VMworld.com – Ask the Experts
Today an ask the experts session went live on “Getting the Most ROI with Data Deduplication“, this was a presentation I recorded mainly focused on NetApp’s A...
NetApp Customer Success Story
I was recently interviewed by NetApp for a Customer Success Story, it was in regards to server virtualization and utilizing NetApp storage. This success sto...
Virtualize your SAP Environment with NetApp and VMware
I recently did a TechTalk session with NetApp and VMware on Virtualizing your SAP Environments. If you are running SAP or thinking about deploying SAP, I st...
Speaking at NetApp/VMware Event
I’ll be giving a customer example presentation at the San Diego Go Green event which is put on by NetApp and VMware. If your new to virtualization, or would...
Access the ESXi Service Console
Here is a brief write-up on how to access the Service Console of VMware ESXi. As a disclaimer, this should only be done under the direct supervision of a VMw...
Advanced Settings for VMware HA
After discussing the issue(s) about NFS.LockDisable and how those problems may be generated (ie: VMware HA initiation), a few comments came in about VMware H...
Common issues with NFS.LockDisable=1
After seeing a mention on Scott Lowe’s blog (blog.scottlowe.org) and on Storage Monkeys Blog (blogs.storagemonkeys.com) I’ve decided to discuss the issue(s) ...
NFS Datastores and what was their BIG issue…
This all started back about a year ago when I decided to move my datastores from Fibre Channel to NFS. The data was already on a NetApp FAS960c so I was enjo...
Changing the IP of your NFS Datastore
I’ve ran into some issues today trying to change the IP address of my NFS Datastore. Our filer has a nice 10GbE interface that I’m not using, so my thought w...
NetApp Snapshots in ESX
UPDATE: I have re-written this script for enhancements, these can be found on the post titled “NetApp Snapshots in ESX – Take 2“
Changing VLAN of a Port Group
In the event you need to change the VLAN of any of your Port Groups here is some good instruction on doing just that. Remember, VLANs are configured at the P...
EA1562 – Virtualizing SAP
If your attending VMworld 2008 and your planning on Virtualizing SAP, I’d highly recommend checking out my Breakout Session.
Changing Service Console IP Address in ESX 3.5
Actually this is not that difficult, but remember you will require console access to the server. Be sure to put the machine in Maintenance Mode then Disconne...
VMware HA
vmware 2011 Mega Launch
It is 9am Pacific Time on Tuesday, July 12th 2011 and I sure hope you’re tuned into the vmware Mega Launch so greatly titled “Raising the Bar, Part V”. If yo...
Random Reboots with VMware ESX 3.5 U3
This goes back to a posting on December 12th about VMware HA’s Virtual Machine Monitoring rebooting guests after a VMotion, which was originally brought up b...
Advanced Settings for VMware HA
After discussing the issue(s) about NFS.LockDisable and how those problems may be generated (ie: VMware HA initiation), a few comments came in about VMware H...
Common issues with NFS.LockDisable=1
After seeing a mention on Scott Lowe’s blog (blog.scottlowe.org) and on Storage Monkeys Blog (blogs.storagemonkeys.com) I’ve decided to discuss the issue(s) ...
NFS Datastores and what was their BIG issue…
This all started back about a year ago when I decided to move my datastores from Fibre Channel to NFS. The data was already on a NetApp FAS960c so I was enjo...
VMworld
VMworld Day 2 – Quick Review
Better late than never, right? I’m about 36 hours past due on this, but the crazy that is VMworld is in full effect and I’m finally just getting caught up o...
VMworld Day 1 – Quick Review
There’s already a ton of great bloggers out there that are getting into deep in-depth reviews of their first day of VMworld 2015, so I’m going to take a diff...
VMworld 2015 Itinerary
“Ready for Any”
VMworld 2015 – Session Voting Now Open!
Planning is in full swing for what will be the 12th Annual VMworld Conference, which will be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco and the Fira Gran Vi...
VMworld 2014 San Francisco – Live Blogging
Here we are, VMworld 2014. No Limits is the theme, and already new products (VMware EVO), new names (vRealize, vCloud Air) and ton’s of other awesome things ...
Do You vRealize What’s in a vName?
VMworld is upon us, a joyous time of year of new product announcements, new features, networking with friends, indulging in delicious cuisine and of course… ...
So Long vCloud Hybrid Service, Hello vCloud Air!
In a stunning turn of events VMware has ditched the vCloud Hybrid Service name for a shorter, simpler, to the point name of vCloud Air.
VMworld 2014 Itinerary
“Turn Down for What?!”
VMworld 2014 Public Voting Now Open
Boy, time really seems to be going by faster the older I get. I can’t believe it’s already been a year and we now preparing for VMworld 2014. This year I’ve ...
VMworld 2013 San Francisco – Live Blogging
All Systems Go. VMworld 2013 has kicked off and things are in full swing. We’re about 10 minutes away from the Monday morning General Session beginning and t...
VMworld 2013 Itinerary
An event 10 years in the making! 2013 marks the 10th VMworld Conference here in the US and it has officially begun. I arrived into San Francisco yesterday a...
VMworld 2013 – Ask the Experts Panel Sessions
Wow…another year, and another VMworld coming up. I can’t believe how fast time goes by, and how fast things evolve in the tech industry. I know it’s cliche ...
VMworld 2013 Public Voting Now Open
It’s that joyous time of year again! VMworld is fast approaching and Public Voting is NOW OPEN. This year I’ve submitted three different Ask the Expert sess...
Win Access to VMworld 2012 Sessions
Attention all VMware Junkies! For those of you that were unable to attend VMworld 2012, here is your chance to get access to all of the content available fr...
VMworld 2012 San Francisco – Live Blogging
Hello and Welcome to VMworld 2012 in San Francisco! I’m going to try something a little different these next few days. I’ve created this aggregated page that...
VMworld 2012 Itinerary
Here we go again! 2012 marks the 9th VMworld Conference (I remember Steve Herrod, then Senior Director of R&D, giving a technical overview of ESX and exp...
VMworld 2012 – INF-VSP1504 – Ask the Expert vBloggers
It’s that time of year again, and for the 5th year I’ll be hosting Ask the Expert vBloggers at VMworld 2012 in San Francisco! This is really a great session...
VMworld 2012 Session Voting
As many of you know I’m currently on my honeymoon and I certainly shouldn’t be blogging, but this is too important to pass up! VMworld 2012 Session Voting is...
Life Events Cause Priorities to Change
If you haven’t noticed I’ve been lacking in the content department for VMwareTips.com and for that, I apologize. Most of my readers and friends in the indust...
VMworld 2011 Madness
144 Bottles of Water, 48 Cans of Monster Lo-Carb, 50 Bags of Single Serve Chips, 270 Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, 144 Bottles of 5-Hour Energy and 300 Or...
Have a Question? Ask the Expert vBloggers!
This year at VMworld I have the extreme honor to be moderating a panel discussion with some fellow bloggers that in my opinion are experts in virtualization,...
VMworld 2011 Is Coming… Are You Ready?
We’re just at a month to go until VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas, NV and the official countdown has started within the vSpecialist compound! Boy do we have a lot ...
vmworld 2011 – time to vote!
it’s that time of year again! vmworld 2011 is fast approaching and some great sessions are now up for public vote! Included in all of those great sessions ar...
VMworld 2010 – Day 0
Day 0 is over and the official first day of VMworld 2010 is upon us. As I type this I’m getting ready to head over to Moscone for the first general session o...
VMworld 2010 is here!
First off I need to apologize for the lack of content lately. It goes without saying that becoming a vSpecialist for EMC has definitely filled my schedule m...
VMworld 2010 – What’s on Your Mind?
With VMworld 2010 right around the corner we’d love to hear what’s on your mind in regards to virtualization and your environment. We in the vSpecialist orga...
Get to VMworld 2010 and Save Some Money
For those of you who haven’t purchased your pass to VMworld yet do I have a surprise for you! Being an employee of EMC combined with EMC being a great partn...
VMworld 2009 – Ask the Experts (TA2259) Recap
First of all, thank you to our excellent panel; Duncan Epping, Tom Howarth, Scott Lowe and Chad Sakac.
VCP4 Beta Exam Information for VMworld Attendees
You may have heard me on Friday via Twitter that I’ve passed the VCP4 Beta (along with a list of others). Today I received an e-mail making it official, alon...
VMworld 2009 Datacenter
Attendees to VMworld 2009 will get to see a make-shift datacenter consiting of 512 Cisco UCS blades and a number of other equipment from major manufactures l...
VMworld 2009 Schedule
VMworld is about to get under way! This is probably one of the busiest weeks of my year, and the preparation typically takes 1-2 weeks in itself!
VMware Customer Program – Win a Flip MinoHD
Just received some inside information from VMware! For those of you that sign-up for the VMware Customer Program during VMworld (Aug 31-Sept 3), you’ll autom...
VMworld 2009 Pocket Guide
Attending VMworld 2009? Get you hands on the pocket guide, which is packed with all the information you need to know about VMworld 2009. Including a local ar...
VMworld TA2259 – Ask the Experts is a HIT!
Back by popular demand! Oh wait, the event hasn’t even happened yet!
VMworld 2009 Underground Party on Sunday
If you’re flying into San Francisco on Sunday like many of us are, then be sure to attend the Official VMworld 2009 Sunday Night Extravaganza. This will be ...
VCDX and VCP Testing at VMworld 2009
Jon Hall from VMware Certification wrote a post on the VMTN Communities page the other day, which Duncan Epping made me aware of.
VMworld 2009 Sessions Scheduled
I have received final confirmation, dates and times have been scheduled for the three VMworld 2009 sessions I will be speaking at.
Third VMworld Session Added – Virtualizing SQL
I just received final confirmation that I will be speaking at a third session this September at VMworld 2009. Come join me, Hemant Gaidhani (VMware) and Cha...
VMworld Sessions & Labs Opened for Public Access
Tony Dunn and the rest of the VMworld.com team have opened up a number of breakout sessions and labs from VMworld Europe 2009 and VMworld 2008 for public acc...
Two Sessions Approved for VMworld 2009
Just received some exciting news from VMware, my two submissions have been approved and are scheduled for VMworld 2009! Looks like I have some work ahead ...
REAL Systems Engineers Don’t Need GUIs
Today I needed a little amusement. In an article posted on Tech Target, Beth Pariseau discusses the new upcoming NetApp System Manager (NSM). In a comment f...
VMware vSphere 4.0 – Configuration Maximums
A lot of information about the upcoming 4.0 release of VMware’s Enterprise Virtualization product, vSphere, has been released at VMworld Europe 2009. I’d li...
VMworld Europe 2009 – Less than 3 Hours To Go!
Let me first say how jealous I am to all of you that are in Cannes, France right now. Not only are you in a part of the world that I would like to visit, yo...
VMworld 2008 Confessionals
Tony Dunn over at VMware has finally published the VMworld 2008 Confessionals to the vmworld.com website. I encourage you to check all of them out, some are ...
Someone unwrapped their present from Veeam
Like two little kids, Rich Brambley from VM /ETC and Jason Boche from boche.net couldn’t resist. They opened their presents a little early. It sounds like ...
VMworld 2008 – Highlights Reel
VMware has released a nice highlights reel from VMworld 2008. I have included it in this posting for your viewing pleasure. To view it please click the Read...
EA1562 – Virtualizing SAP
If your attending VMworld 2008 and your planning on Virtualizing SAP, I’d highly recommend checking out my Breakout Session.
View
Do You vRealize What’s in a vName?
VMworld is upon us, a joyous time of year of new product announcements, new features, networking with friends, indulging in delicious cuisine and of course… ...
VMware View 4.6 Released
vmware just dropped another dot release to their flagship desktop virtualization product, View. vmware View 4.6 is now officially available for download. Alt...
VMware View 4.5 is Now Available
One week after the finish of VMworld 2010 US Edition VMware drops one of the most anticipated releases of their flagship desktop virtualization product, VMwa...
VMware ALERT: View customers using PCoIP are advised to NOT apply Update 2 to ESX 4.0 (yet)
Everyone in the virtualization blogosphere has already covered this but I figured I should let my loyal readers know…
EMC Celerra Plug-in for VMware v1.1 – View Integration
Just a little teaser of what we’re working on here at EMC. This is the next version of the EMC Celerra Plug-in for VMware which is v1.1 and offers great new ...
VMware View 4 Available for Download
For my last post before leaving for the holiday I’d like to announce that VMware View 4 is available for download.
VMware View 4 Released Along with New VMware Website
Being on the west coast of the US typically means I’m a little late on getting to the newest announcements, especially since this one came around 5am PST whi...
Workstation
VMware Workstation 7 Tech Preview
Update – Since Workstation 7 has now hit RC and is publicly available I can repost this blog! Download the RC for yourself and check out the forums at http:...
VMware Workstation & Ubuntu 8.10 Ctrl-Alt-Ins not working
Well, if some of you haven’t heard (from twitter) – I recently lost my HDD. Which not only stinks, but it is a huge pain having to rebuild to exactly how you...
vCenter
vSphere 5 Video Series – Install vCenter 5.0 in Around 5 Minutes
In this video we’re going to cover the installation, configuration and usage of the VMware vCenter 5.0 Server Appliance (vCSA). The vCSA is a brand new produ...
vmware 2011 Mega Launch
It is 9am Pacific Time on Tuesday, July 12th 2011 and I sure hope you’re tuned into the vmware Mega Launch so greatly titled “Raising the Bar, Part V”. If yo...
Thinapped vSphere Client
The VMware Labs team released a little gem of something that I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time. Taking the full install of the vSphere Client and c...
VMware vCenter XVP Manager
vmware Labs has released vCenter XVP Manager and Converter, their first stab into management of non-VMware virtualized environments. vCenter XVP Manager allo...
VMware vSphere 4.1 is Available!
Just about an hour ago VMware lifted the NDA on VMware vSphere 4.1 and made available all of the information on this latest release as well as the bits for d...
VMware vCenter Server 4.0 Update 2
VMware has just dropped the second major update bundle (Update 2) for their flagship virtualization management product, VMware vCenter server. This update a...
vMotion over Distance support with EMC VPLEX Metro
Last month at EMC World we released a storage virtualization product unlike any other. EMC VPLEX not only virtualizes back-end storage from other vendors it ...
VMware Releases VI3 Update 5
Sometime yesterday ESX(i) Update 5 finally hit VMware Update Manager, about 2 days after the official announcement and release on the VMware website. This an...
vCenter Chargeback Uninstallation – Rogue Plug-in
Doing a proof of concept of VMware vCenter Chargeback, install and usage went great and product does everything you’d expect it to do. Although I’d would’ve ...
Upgrade VMware vCenter 2.5 to 4.0 Video
During an upgrade of vCenter 2.5 to 4.0 at a customer site I decided it would be a good idea to record the steps required. In this video you will see how to...
VMware vCenter 2.5 -NOT- on SQL 2008
I had a situation this past week where a customer was attempting to upgrade their vCenter 2.5 U3 install to U4 and during the installer (just after where it ...
vFabric
Accelerate Your Journey to Your Cloud with Application Modernization
Please join meon Thursday, August 16th at 8:00am PT as I talk about the Journey to full IT as a Service (ITaaS).Most people think that ITaaS s...
vForum
VMware Online Virtualization Forum
Just a little note telling all of my readers to register and listen to my session on how The City of San Diego utilizes Virtualization for Consolidation and ...
VMware Virtualization Online Forum
My session is just about start, 3:00PM Pacific Time I will be discussing Next Generation Server Computing for The City of San Diego. I invite everyone to joi...
VMworld.com – Ask the Experts
Today an ask the experts session went live on “Getting the Most ROI with Data Deduplication“, this was a presentation I recorded mainly focused on NetApp’s A...
vSphere
Do You vRealize What’s in a vName?
VMworld is upon us, a joyous time of year of new product announcements, new features, networking with friends, indulging in delicious cuisine and of course… ...
Extending an EagerZeroedThick Disk
Today a coworker asked me about extending an EagerZeroedThick disk, as they had a customer inform them that extending an EagerZeroedThick disk actually turne...
Chad’s Choice Webcast on June 28th, 2012 – Don’t Miss!
To all of my EMC customers, fanboi’s or anyone just interested in hearing about some great new technology… Be sure to listen in to Chad’s Choice this Thursda...
vSphere 5 Video Series – Install vCenter 5.0 in Around 5 Minutes
In this video we’re going to cover the installation, configuration and usage of the VMware vCenter 5.0 Server Appliance (vCSA). The vCSA is a brand new produ...
vSphere 5 Video Series – Installing ESXi 5.0 in Under 5 Minutes
This is going to be the first of many in my vSphere 5 Video Series where I’ll cover the basics to getting vSphere 5.0 installed, configured and operating. In...
vmware 2011 Mega Launch
It is 9am Pacific Time on Tuesday, July 12th 2011 and I sure hope you’re tuned into the vmware Mega Launch so greatly titled “Raising the Bar, Part V”. If yo...
VAAI Train Running Late Today
Another one of those posts today that most likely will not affect most, however there is a known issue with the vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) mi...
vSphere Doesn’t Like OVF with SCSI ID of X:15
In a very random situation that most customers probably wouldn’t even encounter, we’ve came across a bug while importing an OVF that has a VMDK with a SCSI A...
Patch for vmware vSphere 4.0
vmware has recently released a patch for their vSphere 4.0 product line, which affects both ESX and ESXi.
Thinapped vSphere Client
The VMware Labs team released a little gem of something that I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time. Taking the full install of the vSphere Client and c...
VMware vSphere 4.1 U1 Released
Yesterday, February 10th, VMware made available for general consumption U1 to their vSphere 4.1 product line. This update includes all prior patches as well ...
Advisory – ESX 4.1 + HP FLEX-10 + Broadcom bnx2x = Bad News
Two local customers have ran into the same situation in the past month….both are running on a HP c-Class blade infrastructure leveraging Virtual Connect/FLEX...
Oracle now supports RAC on VMware…kinda
Oracle is finally starting to get it, earlier this week they updated Metalink note 249212.1 to include support for Oracle RAC 11.2.0.2 and later. But...
VMware vSphere 4.1 is Available!
Just about an hour ago VMware lifted the NDA on VMware vSphere 4.1 and made available all of the information on this latest release as well as the bits for d...
EMC Webcast on 6/24 – VAAI: Learn all about vStorage API for Array Integration
EMC is running a webcast hosted by Chad Sakac next Thursday and the topic should be of an interest to any VMware or Storage administrator. If you haven&#...
VMware ALERT: View customers using PCoIP are advised to NOT apply Update 2 to ESX 4.0 (yet)
Everyone in the virtualization blogosphere has already covered this but I figured I should let my loyal readers know…
VMware vCenter Server 4.0 Update 2
VMware has just dropped the second major update bundle (Update 2) for their flagship virtualization management product, VMware vCenter server. This update a...
VMware ESX(i) 4.0 Update 2
You’ve guessed it, VMware has released Update 2 of their flagship bare-metal virtualization product ESX and ESXi. This update addresses a number of issues fo...
vMotion over Distance support with EMC VPLEX Metro
Last month at EMC World we released a storage virtualization product unlike any other. EMC VPLEX not only virtualizes back-end storage from other vendors it ...
VMware ESX(i) 4.0 Patch Bundle 06
As handful of patches have just been released by VMware for their flagship bare-metal virtualization products ESX and ESXi.
NetXen HP NC522SFP Network Flooding
I had a very fun weekend. It started at 4am Saturday with a migration of ~125 virtual machines from an old AMD based environment to a new Intel Nehalem based...
ESX 4.0 Update 1A
A new patch has been made available for ESX 4.0 Update 1, this is called Update 1A. It only affects ESX and not ESXi. Here is an except of the alert put out ...
Strange vCenter 4.0 U1 and ESXi 4.0 U1 SSL Issue
Last week I came across a problem that really stumped me, it even stumped the Tier-1 and Tier-2 support at VMware. I’m posting the symptoms on here in a hop...
Pre-Order VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference
VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference, written by Scott Lowe, Jase McCarty and Matthew Johnson is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I wa...
VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 1 Released
This is a couple days past due, but VMware has released Update 1 of their flagship vSphere product line.
Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Freeze on VMware vSphere 4
Although this issue has been resolved with vSphere 4 U1, for those of you that haven’t upgraded please be aware of a known issue with Windows 2008 R2 and Win...
VMware ESXi 4 and HP Servers
I’m proud to say that HP has full support for ESXi 4 installed on SD or USB Flash memory. They even offer the installable ISO pre-built with their CIM provi...
Before Host Profiles there was vicfg-cfgbackup.pl
This last weekend I was reminded of a RCLI command that creates a backup of your ESXi Host configuration. A client had an ESXi host where the USB drive fail...
Cisco Nexus 1000V Beta (Upgrade Spoiler!)
I was just invited by Cisco to be part of the BETA for the next release of the Nexus 1000V. I’ll provide more details about the BETA after I install and tes...
vCenter Chargeback Uninstallation – Rogue Plug-in
Doing a proof of concept of VMware vCenter Chargeback, install and usage went great and product does everything you’d expect it to do. Although I’d would’ve ...
VMware vSphere 4 – Enterprise Plus – 2 Month SnS
A big issue for companies making the upgrade to vSphere 4 Enterprise Plus from their existing VI3 Enterprise License wasn’t the low $295 price per CPU (VMwar...
Upgrade ESXi 3.x to 4.0 Video
This is the 2nd of the vSphere Upgrade video set. In this video I will cover how to upgrade you ESXi hosts with VMware Update Manager. Upgrading your ESX hos...
Upgrade VMware vCenter 2.5 to 4.0 Video
During an upgrade of vCenter 2.5 to 4.0 at a customer site I decided it would be a good idea to record the steps required. In this video you will see how to...
VMware vSphere is Available for Download
I know I’m a little late in the game today to announce this, but I was busy with meetings and whatnot. But, the day we’ve all been waiting for has come (some...
Pre-Order Mastering VMware vSphere 4
Scott Lowe’s forthcoming book, Mastering VMware vSphere 4, is now available for pre-order via Amazon! Click here to see all the details. The book is availabl...
VMware Announces General Availability for vSphere on Thursday
VMware is pleased to announce the general availability for VMware vSphere 4 is May 21, 2009. VMware vSphere 4 extends the previous generation VMware platform...
VMware vSphere and the vStorage API
During my trip to Palo Alto for the VMware vSphere Launch I met with some NetApp engineers at their Executive Briefing Center in Sunnyvale. This was perhaps...
VMware vSphere Launch POV Video
I have finally retreived the video from my Sony HD Cam and converted it for view online! Boy this was a long process…the video is 80 minutes long and featur...
Photos from vSphere Launch
I was finally able to find some time to get all my photos from my camera phone uploaded to Flickr, I should have the full HD video posted soon as well. Don’t...
Watch the vSphere Launch and Win a TrainSignal ESX Training Kit
No gimmicks, the title says it all. Register to win one of three FREE TrainSignal VMware ESX Server Training Kits valued a...
I Love Being Part of a BETA
It has been an awesome experience being part of the BETA Program for the next release of VMware’s Hypervisor. From finding huge system crippling issues, all ...
Two Weeks Until the Release that Changes it All
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VMware Launch Event on April 21st – Sponsorship Opportunities Available
As many of you know (or may not know), VMware will be having a “Launch Event“* on Tuesday, April 21st. This is going to be an exciting event where VMware CE...
VMware vCenter Mobile Access
I guess I posted a little too soon about Rove’s Mobile Admin release that has full support for VMware vCenter. VMware has just announced VMware vCenter Mob...
VMware vSphere 4.0 – Configuration Maximums
A lot of information about the upcoming 4.0 release of VMware’s Enterprise Virtualization product, vSphere, has been released at VMworld Europe 2009. I’d li...