Written by Sam McGeown on 20/9/2013
Published under VMware
John Troyer (@jtroyer) asked a question on Twitter last night about a CloudCred prize of $1000-2000: @jtroyer a nice lab setup! — Sam McGeown (@sammcgeown) September 19, 2013 @jtroyer I guess a couple of hosts, storage and a switch, wouldn't get HCL certified for that but I'm sure it's doable! — Sam McGeown (@sammcgeown) September 19, 2013 That got me thinking – was it possible to create an entire 2 host lab with storage on a $2000 budget?
Written by Simon Eady on 11/9/2013
Published under
South West VMware User Group: The Facts, The Figures, And The Events The South West VMware User Group launches in the UK, bringing the best of VMware and the user community to The West, South West and South Wales. The leadership team is pleased to announce the South West VMware User Group (VMUG). Meeting in Bristol at the crossroads to the South West, The West Country, South Wales and the Midlands, meetings will begin early in 2014, to bring together virtualization customers, end users and enthusiasts in an informal social setting for discussion, learning and engagement.
Written by Simon Eady on 6/9/2013
Published under VMware and vSphere
With vSphere 5.5 being announced at VMworld San Francisco I was very eager to see what was new and after devouring all of the great blog posts out there of the guys in attendance I wanted to summarize in my own way the aspects I think are great! **VMDK 2TB limitation removed! (also virtual mode RDMs) ** This has to be one of the best pieces of news as it has been in the rear trying to accommodate really large VMs (changes affect both VMFS and NFS)
Written by Sam McGeown on 2/9/2013
Published under VMware
After my previous post about studying and the exam experience of the VCAP5-DCA exam (and 3 weeks of waking up to check my phone for the email all night) I am pleased to say that I received my Exam Score last week and it was a pass! I was really pleased to see that I passed with a very decent margin too, which was great! The rushed nature of the exam and long wait for the results leaves you going over the exam in your head convincing yourself how badly you’ve done, so it came as a huge relief and surprise.
Written by Sam McGeown on 28/8/2013
Published under VMware
There’s not a lot more to say than the title of this post – if you create a new Virtual Switch using PowerCLI without specifying the NumPorts parameter, it defaults to 64 ports. This strikes me as odd when the default for a standard switch is 120. You can see in the screenshot below that when I create a Virtual Switch without the parameter, it creates it with 64 ports. Once you minus the 8 reserved for physical NIC ports (uplinks), CDP traffic, and network discovery it leaves you with 56 ports available for VMs.
Written by Simon Eady on 21/8/2013
Published under
Just a quick note to say that I made it in to a recent book release as a contributor and naturally I am delighted and proud! You can find out more here - vSphere Design Pocketbook
Written by Sam McGeown on 20/8/2013
Published under VMware
One of the many perks of being a vExpert is the cool vexpert.me URL shortener provided by Darren Woollard (@dawoo). There are several ways for vExperts to use it once they’ve signed up – there’s a PowerShell script by Jonathan Medd (@jonathanmedd) and Maish Saidel-Keesing (@maishsk) and now even a GUI interface based on the PowerShell. One thing I wanted to do was to automate the short links for my WordPress installation, so before attempting to write a plugin myself I had a quick search for YOURLS, the software Darren uses to create access.
Written by Sam McGeown on 14/8/2013
Published under VMware and vSphere
You’d be surprised how many times I see datastore that’s just been un-presented from hosts rather than decommissioned correctly – in one notable case I saw a distributed switch crippled for a whole cluster because the datastore in question was being used to store the VDS configuration. This is the process that I follow to ensure datastores are decommissioned without any issues – they need to comply with these requirements
Written by Sam McGeown on 9/8/2013
Published under VMware
Learning I started the TrainSignal VMware vSphere Optimize and Scale (VCAP5-DCA) Training course as part of my preparation for taking the exam which I took at the beginning of this week - I’m still waiting to hear the results. One thing I found when I started preparing is that there is an overwhelming volume of information - the Exam Blueprint is a great place to start as that lays out what will be tested.
Written by Simon Eady on 31/7/2013
Published under VMware and vSphere
It’s been a really great year so far and incredibly busy (no complaints though!) VMware products have featured very high on my to-do list so far this year, with new hosting and DR solutions either completed or well underway. The simplicity, resilience and strength of vSphere never gets old! I have also had the privilege to attend several London VMUG meetings all of which have been excellent! They have been superb opportunities to meet new people, put faces to Twitter names and learn more about current and forthcoming technologies orientated around visualization.