Tim's Tech Thoughts

Preparing Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 for the EWS Retirement

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000

The end of EWS (Exchange Web Services) in Exchange Online is almost here! Microsoft stopped adding features to EWS back in 2018, and starting October 1, 2026, they will begin blocking it tenant by tenant, with a hard stop on April 1, 2027. If you run Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 (VB365), this is a big deal, since EWS is still how Exchange Online mailboxes get backed up.

Veeam already has the step-by-step in KB4820 , so please go check it out for the official information and the immediate action you need to take.

Migrating 15 Years of WordPress to Hugo with AI

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

After 15 years of running this blog on WordPress, I decided it was time for a change. WordPress had served me well since 2011, but over the years it had become more than I needed. Between keeping plugins updated, managing security patches, dealing with the occasional PHP issue, and paying for hosting - it started to feel like I was spending more time maintaining the blog than actually writing. So in January 2026, I made the jump to Hugo, and I had some help from an unexpected partner - Claude AI.

Veeam CDP with a Workgroup VBR

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:38:57 +0000

Veeam Continuous Data Protection, or CDP, is a technology that allows VMware workloads to achieve near zero RPOs when replicating between ESXi hosts. It does this by integrating into VAIO (VMware API for IO), where the writes are split right before being written to disk. While it’s been a part of Veeam Backup and Replication for a couple versions, I still run across some common errors, and 99% of the time it’s DNS.

Changing to Linux Proxy for Veeam Backup for M365

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 19:50:57 +0000

A short video on how to move to using Linux proxy servers instead of Windows proxy servers after you upgrade to Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 version 8, and are utilizing the new proxy pools. This allows for easy scaling and more efficient processing of you M365 backups!

Upgrade Veeam backup for M365 from v7 to v8

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 18:41:13 +0000

A short how to video on easily upgrading from v7 to v8 of VB365 - including moving the standalone proxies into the new proxy pools, which allow for load balanced processing of your backup tasks!

You can find the requirements for version 8, postgres, and NATS here on Veeam’s website .

Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 Advanced Deployment - Architecture

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 13:34:30 +0000

Introduction

This blog series will cover deploying Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, specifically an advanced deployment. Most are already aware that Veeam is the #1 backup software for Microsoft 365, protecting more users than many other vendors combined! One of the great things about VB365, is that it can be as simple as a single server, or be scaled out to handle more than 100,000 users.

In the upcoming posts, we will cover the installation and configuration of each of the components in the advanced deployment.

Immutability with Veeam 365 backups and Synology

Fri, 10 May 2024 03:44:19 +0000

Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 is about to release version 8! There’s a lot of exciting features coming, including immutability to the primary repository, where v7 has immutability on backup copy repositories only. One requirement however is that for either of those, the backup repository must reside on object storage that supports object lock. Now, with many different options for object storage, including on-premises, this typically isn’t a problem at all - and, and object storage repository is actually more performant, and has better compression when compared to a local disk repository in Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 (VB365).

Run AI on your Synology

Wed, 08 May 2024 19:30:23 +0000

A ways back, Synology was kind enough to send me a DS923+ to test out. I’ve used a DS1817+ in my lab for quite some time now, so a unit with an upgraded CPU was welcome. The first thing I did was upgrade it to 32gb of ram, because that opens up the NAS to be useful for more than just storage, like running docker containers! So I thought, why not run my own AI on this 923+?

Protecting WordPress admin login with Cloudflare

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 21:20:40 +0000

Previously on Tim’s Tech Thoughts, I used the plugin MiniOrange to have 2 factor authentication required for logging into the WordPress admin. This worked fairly well, however during upgrades I had been accidently locked out more than once. Since I’ve been using Cloudflare for quite a while, and more recently starting using Cloudflare Tunnels for my lab and Mastodon server , I wanted to use the Zero Trust platform to also protect my wordpress site!

Cloudflare Tunnels and Mastodon

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:50:07 +0000

A couple months back, there was a lot of hype around Mastodon and the Fediverse - a de-centralized social platform that some people were heading towards away from Twitter. While I won’t be migrating off Twitter, I did want to see what the platform was all about, as well as have a way to continue to connect with those friends who had left for Mastodon.

I spun up an Ubuntu server in an Azure B series VM, with 1cpu and 2gb ram. Since this would be a single user server, I wasn’t concerned about performance, scale, or any uptime requirements. After spending a couple hours installing the Mastodon software, using Let’s Encrypt for an SSL cert, and pointing an available hostname to the IP of the Azure VM, I was up and running! Inside Azure, I disabled all ports except for 443 inbound, only opening 22 (ssh) when I needed to console in and run updates. This setup worked quite well for 3 months.

Upgrading Veeam CDP to v12

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 20:32:14 +0000

With the release of Veeam Backup and Replication v12 on 2/14/23, there’s going to be a lot of upgrades happening! For the installs that use Veeam’s CDP (Continuous Data Protection) for sub minute, snapshot-less replication, that’s means updating the IO filter driver on the VMware hosts.

In my lab, I’m running the latest build of Veeam Backup and Replication v11, and my hosts have the veecdp filter driver version 11.1.312. That information can be found by selecting the vSphere cluster, and navigating to Configure, and selecting I/O Filters.

Cloudflare Zero Trust Tunnels for the Homelab

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 21:39:22 +0000

Thanks to a recent vBrownbag session with Chris Colotti on Cloudflare Zero Trust, I decided to write up how I use Zero Trust Tunnels instead of a VPN to access my homelab resources.

Cloudflare Zero Trust encompasses a couple different technologies, but this post will focus only on the use of Tunnels. Previously, my homelab remote access was using an L2TP vpn into my router, which was then replaced by wireguard into a VM hosted within my lab. Both of these options required me to open a port in my router’s firewall and hope that this port wasn’t blocked on whatever public network I was on! (Many times I’ve come accross networks that block all common vpn ports outbound, or simply all ports but 53/80/443 outbound).

What is ChatGPT?

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 03:31:50 +0000

ChatGPT is a state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) model developed by OpenAI. It is a variant of the popular GPT-3 model, which was designed to perform a wide range of language tasks such as translation, summarization, and text generation. However, ChatGPT is specifically designed to support chat-based conversations, making it an excellent choice for building conversational AI applications.

At its core, ChatGPT is a machine learning model that uses a large dataset of text to learn the patterns and nuances of natural language. It uses a transformer-based architecture, which allows it to process input text in a way that is similar to how humans read and understand language. This allows ChatGPT to generate responses that are highly fluent and human-like.

Veeam Orchestrator & NetApp - Aggregate not found

Thu, 13 Oct 2022 22:06:37 +0000

Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator not only orchestrates recovery from Veeam backups, replication, and CDP replication; but it can also orchestrate recovery from HPE and NetApp Ontap storage arrays.

The process is actually quite simple - add the 2 arrays into Orchestrator by using the SVM address and vsadmin permissions. Veeam can then break replication, attach the snapshot to the DR cluster, and import the requested VMs into inventory, along with detailed testing of those VMs. In fact, it will also automate the testing of those VMs automatically while productions continues along without issues.

Beacn Mic Review

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 17:47:24 +0000

Recently, I decided to switch away from using my Yeti Nano microphone. While it worked well, I had to reduce the gain a lot and run it through Voicemeeter in order to get it to sound clean. But, being a condenser microphone, it was picking up a lot of background noises. So, my search for a dynamic microhome started.

While the Shure SM7b is the defacto standard, I didn’t want to invest that much in a microphone, as well as into XLR cables and an audio interface. That’s when I stumbled accross the new Beacn Mic, which is USB-C, and does all it’s processing onboard, not on my PC.

Kubernetes Homelab – New Cluster with vSphere CSI

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 19:59:01 +0000

From the previous post we have successfully set up the ubuntu VM template, deployed Rancher, and set up the requirements to deploy our template from Rancher - it’s now time to deploy the first cluster!

Creating the first cluster

From the Rancher main page, click on Add Cluster. Then, select vSphere under the Create a new Kubernetes cluster section.

Now give the cluster a name, in my case “tsmith-k8s” and choose how to divide up the cluster. I’m going to choose 1 management node and 3 worker nodes.

Kubernetes Homelab – Rancher Configuration

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 20:42:53 +0000

In the previous post , we covered the architecture of the lab, installing Rancher in an Ubuntu VM, and then setting up an Ubuntu template for consumption in Rancher.

In this post, I’ll show how setup a new node template to easily deploy nodes into a cluster.

vSphere Node Template

The first thing to do is to setup a node template inside Rancher so we can automatically consume the Ubuntu templates created in vSphere. To setup a new template, select the user icon in the upper right, and choose Node Templates from the drop down list. Then select Add Template.

Kubernetes Homelab - Getting Started

Sun, 06 Dec 2020 23:30:21 +0000

I’ve been learning a lot on Kubernetes these last couple months, and wanted to get my homelab setup to a point to makes deploying clusters easy and reliable. When I first started, I simply used minikube and docker on my desktop. However, the need for something more “robust” and “enterprise” quickly arose.

Being relatively new to Kubernetes (k8s), I first needed information. I’m in the middle of Kubernetes Fundamentals (LFS285) from LinuxFoundation.org. Additionally, I was lucky enough to have Nigel Poulton send a copy of The Kubernetes Book ( Klingon Edition - seriously!) for finding the hidden Klingon in the “code” in the background of the book cover. These 2 resources will keep me busy for the rest of this year, as well as many blogs on various Linux, docker, and kubernetes steps I’ve found along the way.

How to Lightboard without a Lightboard

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 19:13:55 +0000

Here’s 2 videos that show how you can create a faux lightboard with a greenscreen, OBS, Onenote, and camtasia (or any tools of your choice).

What to learn in Tech from the Experts at VMworld 2019

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 15:39:16 +0000

Hear from the Experts from VMworld 2019 about what they think you should learn if you are just starting in the IT field in 2019.

Tim Smith - @tsmith_co
Josh De Jong - @Eurobrew
Keith Townsend - @CTOAdvisor
Jim Jones - @k00laidIT
Ariel Sanchez - @arielsanchezmor
Angelo Luciani - @angeloluciani
Paul Woodward Jr - @ExploreVM

Add Org to Veeam Backup for o365 with Modern Auth and MFA

Tue, 19 Feb 2019 15:23:44 +0000

With the recent publicly available Veeam Backup for Microsoft o365 v3 beta, Modern Authentication is now supported for the account used to connect VBO to the o365 organization. This is great news, as this will allow for even better security for your o365 org!

See my previous article about the v3 beta changes and more about Modern Authentication.

This article will show you how to create an Azure app registration, setup the service account for MFA, and ensure the service account has the minimum required permissions for o365 for increased security.

Veeam Backup for O365 v3 beta available!

Mon, 18 Feb 2019 20:39:56 +0000

Last week, Veeam made the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 v3 beta publicly available, which means you can download and try out all the new features! VBO, as we call it, has seen huge growth over the last 2 years, and will continue to do so as people realize the need to protect their hosted email, as well as the need to adhere to company policies around retention and legal responsibilities.

Disable Welcome Email for O365 Group

Thu, 07 Feb 2019 19:18:09 +0000

Recently, I was helping a customer with using dynamic groups in Azure Active Directory. The customer didn’t want to backup their entire organization in Microsoft Office 365, but instead, wanted to backup all Executive email and onedrive content, while the rest of the organization would get only email backed up. So, the easiest way is to select groups are the source objects for the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 backup job. However, there were not any existing groups that encompassed the users in this manner.

Setting up additional Pi-Hole Blocklists & Forwarding for Homelab

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 21:16:25 +0000

Recently, I took a Raspberry Pi I had lying around (who doesn’t?) and decided to install Pi-Hole.

Pi-Hole is essentially a DNS server for your home, running on a Raspberry Pi. It’s job is to filter DNS requests to the internet so that advertising domains are blocked - thus reducing your traffic, and blocking pesky ads. I won’t cover the install, since it’s posted in numerous places, but essentially, I installed Raspbian on an SD card, and inserted the SD card. SSH’d into the Raspberry pi, and ran the command to install Pi-Hole.

Using a Managed Service Account in Windows

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 21:17:49 +0000

Recently, I had a question about using a managed service account for Veeam’s Backup for Office 365, so I thought I would write about how to setup a managed service account, and switch services over to that account.

If you aren’t aware, managed service accounts exist in newer window’s domains. The account’s password is managed by Active Directory and the server allowed to use it, and is changed regularly, while us human’s have no way to access the password.

Can't mount NFS volume in vSphere

Mon, 29 Oct 2018 16:27:18 +0000

Yesterday, I was working with Veeam Availability Orchestrator .next beta, and ran into a fun issue. During a Recovery plan test, the VMs are brought into vSphere using Veeam’s Instant VM Recovery. If you’re not familiar with IVR, Veeam is able to mount the deduped, compressed backup, and present to vSphere via an NFS mount, and then adding the VM into inventory - all running from the backup, not production storage.

Talking vCommunity at VMworld 2018

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 15:39:08 +0000

I was fortunate enough to have time with Paul Woodward Jr and Angelo Luciani to talk about the VMware community while hanging out in the aptly named Hang Space at VMworld 2018. Be sure to follow each of them on twitter if not already!

Horizon View Bug - Host disconnected during Space Reclamation

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 15:14:12 +0000

**Guest post by Tim Shipp ** First and most importantly, huge thank you to Tim for allowing me to do this. You’re the best!Quick background on myself and the environment. I am a Systems Engineer for a company in seacoast New Hampshire. I have been working in IT for a while, and in the VMware ecosphere since 2006. I have worked in the insurance realm, global enterprise, airline, and managed services. The environment this issue was seen on is newly built. My colleague and I built the infrastructure and deployed View 7.4 onto vSphere 6.5 over the last month. There are approximately 15 desktop pools. Most are Linked Clone persistent desktops running Windows 7.

HPE ML110 Gen10 Review

Wed, 26 Sep 2018 20:34:49 +0000

HPE was kind enough to send an ML110 Gen10 my way to review, no strings attached. So, I wanted to get to know this server, and spend some time with it. From the hardware to the management software, and firmware updates, this was a fun server to get hands-on time with.

Design

Starting around the G3 generation is when HPE (then HP) servers started looking stylish. This new ML100 Gen10 is no exception and is by far the best-looking server I’ve seen. While looks don’t matter when it comes to selecting a machine to serve a purpose, HPE seemed to realize that this SMB focused server would likely sit visibly in open office spaces, as a lot of small businesses don’t need a server closet, let alone a server room.

ESXi on ARM and Amazon RDS on-premises?

Wed, 19 Sep 2018 18:50:31 +0000

I got the opportunity to sit down with Keith Townsend ( The CTO Advisor) to talk about announcements at VMworld 2018. Among those announcements was ESXi on ARM, as well as Amazon RDS (relational database services) on vSphere on-premises.

Be sure to follow Keith on Twitter and check out his blog:

https://twitter.com/CTOAdvisor https://www.thectoadvisor.com/

Intro to VMware Cloud Foundation

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 16:02:35 +0000

I sat down with Heath Johnson from VMware to find out more about VMware Cloud Foundation at VMworld 2018 in Las Vegas.

Cloud Foundation is vSphere with vSAN, NSX, and the vRealize automation, all easily deployed and managed easily, and available as a single sku.

VMworld 2018 - vSphere 6.7 update 1 features

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 20:37:25 +0000

Today was the first day of VMworld 2018, and this will be the first post in a series on the event.

Announced was vSphere 6.7 update 1. While an update release typically wouldn’t warrant a blog post, this one almost feel like the completion on what 6.7 should have been. Here’s the key features:

Fully Featured HTML5 client
vCenter Server converge tool
Enhancements for HCI and vSAN
Enhanced content library
vMotion for NVIDIA Quadro vDWS (Grid) VMs

Fully Featured HTML5 client

Starting out as a VMware Fling, the HTML5 client was welcomed by admins tired of the slowness of the flash based web client. However, the fling, and eventual official HTML5 client wasn’t fully featured. Many tasks, still had to be performed in the C# client, and then the flash client when the C# client was deprecated. Now with update 1 for vSphere 6.7, the HTML5 client is fully featured. All admin tasks can now be done in a single, responsive console.

How to install Nutanix CE on VMware

Thu, 16 Aug 2018 02:59:47 +0000

Nutanix CE, or Community Edition, is the free community supported hypervisor of Nutanix. Nutanix CE allows you to create a hyper-converged infrastructure on your own hardware, running AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor.) Nutanix in production can use Acropolis, Hyper-V, or VMware as the hypervisor of choice.

Recently Veeam released support for Nutanix’s AHV hypervisor, allowing for agentless backups of virtual machines running in Acropolis. Since I don’t have a Nutanix cluster at home, I decided to make one! Since I run a lot of VMware based workloads, I decided to install Nutanix CE inside a VMware virtual machine.

v101tv - Veeam Availability Orchestrator Install

Fri, 10 Aug 2018 19:54:17 +0000

In this video, follow along as we install Veeam’s Availability Orchestrator and walk through the initial configuration wizard. Stay tuned for more videos on VAO.

Underwater Computing

Fri, 10 Aug 2018 16:10:30 +0000

I decided to start a new category – Friday Funny! My goal is every Friday to post something related to tech that is humorous (at least to me). To start off this new addition to the blog, I give you – Underwater Computing!

A ways back, maybe in 2005, I was working for a small VAR. We took care of SMBs in Ohio, and were really hands on. Each engineer had dedicated clients, and we did everything for them, instead of specializing across all clients. Because of this, most clients had our cell numbers. (I don’t even think I had a smartphone at that time!)

HPE Discover 2018 Recap with Friends

Thu, 21 Jun 2018 21:14:05 +0000

I got to sit down with Matt Crape and Luigi Danakos on the last day of HPE Discover 2018 to recap the show and share our thoughts. Bure sure to Follow them on twitter and check out Luigi’s blog post.

Matt: Twitter - @MattThatITguy Blog - http://42u.ca

Luigi Danakos: Twitter - @nerdblurt Blog - http://blurt-this.com Mentioned post - http://blurt-this.com/how-hpe-is-star…

Veeam Architecture in a HPE Datacenter

Thu, 21 Jun 2018 00:51:06 +0000

While out at HPE’s Discover 2018, I wanted to talk about what Veeam architecture would look like in a HPE datacenter. This architecture features 3PAR / Nimble arrays, which Veeam has deep integration with, as well as StoreOnce for archival storage. For the primary backup repository, as well as the backup proxy, an Apollo 4000 series server is used.

https://youtu.be/AvS5lsNAJtg

Synology in the Homelab – NFS 3 vs 4.1

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 19:34:53 +0000

Recently, I purchased a Synology 1817+ to be used as storage for my homelab. Previously, I was using an older, and much slower Synology, RS812, as well as a running vSAN on my single host. While vSAN performance was great, I ran into multiple issues trying to run on a single host, with FTT=0 and Force Provisioning set to On. Cloning, Restores, etc would fail due to trying to use it in an unsupported manner. So, enter the Synology 1817+!

Veeam Restore To Azure

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 01:01:54 +0000

Now that the Veeam Azure proxy is deployed, and we have some workloads protected, it’s time to test a restore. There are a couple ways to initiate a restore within the Veeam console, but all roads lead to the same powerful wizard. I typically right click on the VM in Inventory, and select the Restore to Microsoft Azure Menu item.

The Path to Azure

Next, we will select the Azure Deployment Model to use. The default is the newer Azure Resource Manager. Continue on to choose the subscription you want to restore into. In my case, I have a single Azure subscription in Veeam which was added in when we deployed the Azure Proxy. Take notice of the region that is listed. This is where you want your VM (in my case DC1) to be restored into. Be sure the “Use Azure Proxy VM” box is checked.

Veeam Restore To Azure - Proxy Setup

Thu, 09 Nov 2017 03:46:20 +0000

There are many reasons to run virtual machines in the public cloud, and more and more companies are taking advantage of the flexibility and scalability that it offers. So, in this small series, we are going to look at using Veeam to restore your Hyper-V or VMware virtual machine up into Azure.

First things first, Veeam can restore any virtual machine that it backed up directly to Microsoft’s Azure by simply entering your Azure credentials, and selecting some options. This may not be the prefered path, especially if you don’t have the best bandwidth. But, by provisioning a Veeam proxy server in Azure ahead of time, we can greatly speed up the restore process.

Ravello On Oracle Cloud

Thu, 21 Sep 2017 20:24:40 +0000

Earlier this year, I was invited out to Oracle to hear the Ravello and Oracle Cloud teams present their vision for the future. As I mentioned in my blog, I was quite surprised about what they had planned, and what they had already in place! Check out the blog post here: /2017/ravello-and-the-oracle-cloud-journey/

Today’s big announcement, is the availability of Ravello on Oracle Cloud!

What’s the big deal? Well, quite a bit actually. Previously, Ravello was known for running lab and test/dev environments on top of existing cloud services, like AWS and Google Cloud. This was a big hit with the VMware community because you could install nested (virtualized) ESXi servers into the cloud, and run applications on top of those nested ESXi servers. This was groundbreaking, as previously there was no way to run ESXi or VMware VMs on a public cloud infrastructure. But, Ravello wasn’t done.

VMware Cloud on AWS

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 05:59:57 +0000

It seems like lately, all the buzz had been around the cloud, especially public cloud. At VMworld 2017 , there is certainly no exception to that. In fact, in the morning keynote, AWS was onstage alongside Pat Gelsinger announcing VMware Cloud on AWS.

What is VMware Cloud on AWS?

Simply put, it’s running the VMware SDDC suite on AWS resources . Once deployed, the underlying infrastructure is managed by AWS and VMware, allowing the customer to focus on simply consuming the resources paid for. Maintenance is handled in a way that is non-intrusive and at no loss of capacity. Without having to worry about the infrastructure, capital expenses, and storage expansion, workloads can thrive on public cloud.

vCenter is dead! Long live vCenter!

Sun, 27 Aug 2017 18:31:12 +0000

VMworld 2017 kicks off today at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV. Normally there are some major announcements that are made each year during the first general session, and I"m looking forward to those. However, last week VMware dropped some news on their blog…

Goodbye Windows vCenter

That’s right! VMware announced that the windows based vCenter server would be deprecated in the next major version release. a couple years back, VMware introduced the VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance) which runs the vCenter server functions on a Linux based VM appliance. At first, the VCSA could not scale to support the same number of hosts and VMs as the Windows server, but eventually, that changed.

HPE Discover 2017 - Synergy & The Machine

Thu, 08 Jun 2017 16:16:36 +0000

This week I have been at HPE Discover 2017 in Las Vegas. HPE released new details on their prototype memory-centric computing platform, The Machine. The Machine is the world’s first computing system that allows any CPU to access any RAM, on any blade. They do this using a Photonics network - a newly designed technology that converts the electrical signals directly to optical to create an ultra low latency network for the bus. In the prototype, they have 160TB of RAM accessible to be able to manipulate some of the world’s biggest data loads.

Nothing but ClearSky Ahead

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 18:42:58 +0000

This last week, I was fortunate enough to attend a Tech Field Day event, in Boston, Massachusetts. During the event, ClearSky invited us to their headquarters and took the time to present their vision and solution. I must admit, I had not heard of ClearSky prior to the event, but doing some quick reading, my appetite was whet to learn more.

The Lowdown:

Founded in 2014, ClearSky aims to provide storage in a way that is a little outside the box. Most storage admins are aware that the majority of data on their storage arrays is cold data - blocks that aren’t accessed frequently. Hot data, blocks that change very rapidly, is where performance metrics truly matter. Rather than supply boxes of drives to hold all your data, ClearSky instead will provide a box that acts as a storage gateway. With options like Fibre Channel and iSCSI, this box is full of SSD, sized to cache all your hot data. Then, it’s connected to ClearSky metropolitan data centers, via redundant, low latency, dedicated 1gb/s lines to the arrays that hold all the data. The initial buy-in starts at 20TB, and after that is a pay as you go model for additional storage.

Ravello and the Oracle Cloud Journey

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 17:09:16 +0000

I was invited out to attend the first ever Ravello Blogger Day at Oracle headquarters in San Francisco, California. The event was arranged by the Tech Reckoning team lead by John Troyer.

To be completely honest, I was apprehensive to attend an Oracle event. While I have used Ravello for lab and testing work the past couple years, when they were acquired by Oracle I thought the end was near. Ravello was a great solution to running VMware-based workloads on public cloud infrastructures like AWS or Google Cloud, but no news seemed to come since the acquisition. Oracle, a massive player in the Database space, is not known for being mover or shaker in the industry, and in fact, is the butt of a lot of licensing jokes. But, with the recommendation from the Tech Reckoning team, I decided to attend. And boy am I glad!

Time for a Change

Fri, 02 Jun 2017 19:38:07 +0000

After 15 years of working with various IT consulting companies, or VARs (Value Added Resellers) - I’ve decided it’s time for a change. While I’ve enjoyed the time, and the opportunity to work with lots of different technology and products, what I’ve found is as an IT generalist, you sometimes feel like you can’t dive deep enough into certain areas. To change that, I’ve decided to dive deep into a product I love and focus on it and it’s ecosphere. Thus, the big news:

Talking about Community at VeeamOn 2017

Sat, 20 May 2017 20:53:36 +0000

Last week was Veeam’s Availability conference, VeeamOn, in New Orleans, LA. I was able to get some time with Nigel Hickey and Matt Crape on the showroom floor and talk about the community that surrounds IT and virtualization. I am currently a VMUG leader for Cincinnati, OH. Nigel is a VMUG leader for Houston, TX. Matt Crape is a VUG (Veeam User Group) Leader in Ontario Canada.

https://youtu.be/QyDYyDlDGjs&rel=0

Ransomware Talk with fellow Veeam Vanguards

Thu, 18 May 2017 16:59:39 +0000

While at VeeamOn 2017, I had an opportunity to talk with my fellow Veeam Vanguards. With the hot topic of WannaCry ransomware the week before, we decided to sit down and talk about ransomware, employee education, and backup protection from encryption. Thanks to Ian Sanderson and Dean Lewis .

VeeamON 2017 - New Announcements from Day 1

Thu, 18 May 2017 16:52:45 +0000

On Tuesday, VeeamOn was kicked off the morning general session. If you aren’t familiar, VeeamOn is the premiere availability conference, hosted this year in New Orleans; running for 2 days, with a third day dedicated for partner sessions. Peter McKay, co-CEO of Veeam took the stage, and started sharing some statistics with the over 3000 attendees. Here’s just some of those stats about Veeam:

74% penetration of Fortune 500 companies
Over 400,000 customers
73 Net Promoter score!
87% Renewal rate of support agreements
33% growth in Q1
Planning to add 800 new employees over the next 12 months

v101tv - vSphere Cluster Configuration

Mon, 17 Apr 2017 18:20:05 +0000

In this episode, we cover some of the cluster level features, such as HA, DRS, and DPM - and talk about predictive DRS, as well as demonstrate live in the lab and HA failover, and DRS working to meet VM resource requirements.

VMware discontinues vSphere Data Protection

Thu, 06 Apr 2017 19:28:14 +0000

On April 5th, VMware announced that they would discontinue VDP, vSphere Data Protection - VMware’s integration backup solution. Now, VMware will not have an integrated backup solution but instead will rely (as they should) on partner solutions that utilize official vSphere APIs.

https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2149614

Several years ago, VMware had 2 versions of VDP - standard and Advanced, and both were based on EMC Avamar technology. I’ve played around with it and had it deployed at a couple small customers. However, the product was not the best in terms of recovering from backup. In 2015, VMware dropped the Advanced, and put all the features into standard, and offered it for free with most vSphere subscription levels.

McAfee Web Gateway and Microsoft Offline Root CA Certificate

Fri, 24 Mar 2017 19:15:30 +0000

I ran into an interesting problem these last couple days trying to work with a certificate and McAfee’s Web Gateway. Following the instructions to create a subordinate CA certificate and import into the Web Gateway console, I received an error:

“Verifying certificate chain failed: unable to find valid certification path to requested target. Chain for certificate “webgateway.domain.local” has to start from certificate “CAserver02.domain.local” towards root certificate.”

The End Goal:

McAfee’s Web Gateway is a filtering solution to ensure the security of the client organization while accessing resources on the internet. One option is to enable SSL Filtering, which is basically a man-in-the-middle attack, but on purpose. With SSL filtering enabled, the Web Gateway will inspect HTTPS traffic by unencrypting the packets, inspecting, and then re-encrypting with the client’s certificate. In this case, a Microsoft CA certificate.

Veeam Vanguard 2017

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 17:36:14 +0000

I was informed earlier this month that I was awarded the title of Veeam Vanguard again, for the 2017 year. This is indeed a great honor and I appreciate all the hard work that the team over at Veeam has done to make this the best program out there.

For those not familiar with what a Veeam Vanguard is:

The Veeam Vanguard Program is a hand-selected list of people of all backgrounds who Veeam feels embraces our brand best in their communities. Some Vanguards are bloggers, some are active on our Veeam Forums, some are active on Spiceworks sharing a lot of Veeam-specific information and the list goes on for all of the ways Vanguards have engaged. - Rick Vanover

Veeam Cloud Connect - Service Provider Setup

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 19:19:04 +0000

Veeam has always been a great product for backup and replication, and in the recent past, they had introduced Cloud Connect, as a way to have integrated offsite backups to a hosted provider. What makes Cloud Connect really special, is that all communication to the cloud provider is over a single port. No need for VPNs or advanced networking.

There are many Cloud Connect providers as well, all competing for your business. Some offer just basic storage offsite, while others offer redundant storage replicated to another geographic region.

Veeam Architect - Repository Types

Sat, 11 Feb 2017 22:00:21 +0000

In the previous Veeam Architect post, we talked about the different transport modes available to move our data from the production VMs, into the backup files, which will be stored in a backup repository that we define. But, there are a couple different options for a backup repository in Veeam Backup and Replication, so which should you choose? The one that best fulfills your requirements of course!

A backup repository is simply a location where Veeam stores it’s backup files. When choosing to add a backup repository in the Veeam console, you will see there are some options:

v101tv - vSAN Configuration

Sat, 11 Feb 2017 21:24:10 +0000

Now that the VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance) is installed and networking is configured on our hosts, it’s time to setup vSAN and go over some of the options.

Awarded vExpert title for 2017

Wed, 08 Feb 2017 21:25:58 +0000

I was honored today to see the announcement that I was awarded the title vExpert for the 5th year in a row.

vExpert is a title that VMware awards to those that have made significant contributions to the VMware community. The title doesn’t show a particular level of technical expertise; but rather shows that those awarded have a strong desire to share what knowledge they have with others. Most vExperts either blog, are VMUG leaders, speak at local events, contribute on the VMTN boards, or even speak at large events like VMworld.

v101tv - VCSA Configuration

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 19:19:11 +0000

Now that VCSA is installed, it’s time to start adding in hosts and configure them, as well as configuring a virtual distributed switch.

Veeam Architect - Proxy Transport Modes

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 19:55:49 +0000

Veeam, the leader in virtualization backups, has a couple different ways of gathering your production data and transporting it to the Backup Repository. In this post, we will look at all three methods, and show the data path for each, and see what some benefits of each mode are. First, let’s take a look at how the backup process works.

How Veeam backs up virtual machines:

Veeam can backup both VMware and Hyper-V virtual environments. For the sake of simplicity, we will only focus on a VMware environment for this post. By using supported API calls, Veeam processes a virtual machine backup as follows: (extremely simplified)

Secondary Storage is Cohesity's Primary Goal

Mon, 19 Dec 2016 20:23:34 +0000

Cohesity is a company I had heard of before but really didn’t know anything about. Thankfully, this week during Tech Field Day 12, I was able to sit and listen for to what they do, and why they do it. In short, Cohesity wants to be the secondary storage in your data center. Their strategy is to be the landing zone for all the data for secondary storage and to analyze, protect, replicate, and move that data if needed.

Time to bring back the middleman

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 03:23:52 +0000

Who is the middle man? In a lot of circles, the middle man is someone that is a threat. The man in the middle attacker, the one who takes your data in transit and uses it for nefarious purposes. In other circles, he’s seen as the useless figure in a transaction. Someone who is preventing you from getting what you want directly from the source, instead forcing you to deal with the terms and conditions they set. Sometimes the middle man is no person, but is software - like middleware. Software that allows one platform to communicate with another by translating the data between the two systems. But recently, I’ve been introduced to a new middle man. One who deals in an area I didn’t think middle man should be, and you know what? I like him!

HPE Discover 2016 - Day 2

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 20:06:23 +0000

On the second day of Discover 2016, I was able to walk the show floor, as well as attend some coffee talk sessions. The major themes of the day were IOT, and the Intelligent Edge.

Internet Of Things

The Internet Of Things is nothing new. We have had all sorts of connected devices available over the last several years. However, 2016 has certainly shown the most rapid growth in IOT devices and purchases. Everything from smart homes to shopping carts - internet connected smart devices are certainly here to stay and will grow even more rapidly in 2017.

HPE Discover 2016 - Day 1

Wed, 30 Nov 2016 12:55:26 +0000

Hewlett Packard Enterprise kicked off its Discover 2016 event this week in London. I am grateful that I am able to attend as a guest of HPE as an independent blogger. Here’s a recap of the first day’s events and announcements:

What’s HPE’s Strategy and vision?

Jason Newton, Vice President of Pan-HPE Marketing was able to present to the independent blogger panel and talk about HPE’s strategy and vision. It is just a little over a year ago that HPE split from HP, and became an independent company. Realizing that one company can’t do it all, HPE has made the choice to focus on what they do great, instead of trying to be everything to everyone. Things are now moving at such a fast pace in the industry, and new companies are popping up all over the market, and HPE’s goal is not to compete with some of these great solutions provided but to be in front of them. For example, HPE has no intention of providing its own container platform, instead it’s partnering with Docker, in order to provide a great solution for Docker to run on and integrate deeply with.

v101tv - Install VCSA

Sat, 19 Nov 2016 20:39:10 +0000

We’ve got ESXi installed and configured, now it’s time to get the VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance) deployed into our lab so we can manage multiple ESXi servers in a single pane of glass.

All Your Protocols Are Belong To Us

Fri, 18 Nov 2016 19:55:03 +0000

In the storage wars, we typically hear about block vs file, iSCSI vs Fibre Channel, SAN vs NAS, and so on. The truth is, none of that really matters; at least, not as much as some make it out to. What’s really important, as with most IT decisions, is using solutions that allow the business the ability to consume, transform, and utilize its data as effectively and efficiently as possible. While there are many different ways to allow the business to do so, I Want to focus on the different storage protocols that allow that data to be accessible.

Tech Field Day 12 - Kickoff

Sat, 12 Nov 2016 19:50:34 +0000

Next week is the start of Tech Field Day 12 , and I am honored to be selected as a delegate! I’ve attended some previous Tech Field Day events, both at VMworld, but this will be my first full event.

What is Tech Field Day? It’s an event put on by Gestalt IT Media, that brings bloggers, writers, and thought leaders in contact with various IT related companies, products, and solutions. Each event lasts a couple days, and they are broadcast live, and also uploaded for future viewing. The great thing about these events is not only the sponsors who take time out of their schedules to present to us, but also the other thought leaders in the room. The questions, feedback, and conversations that arise have been really thought-provoking.

Composable Infrastructure and HPE's Synergy

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 01:22:03 +0000

Recently, HPE invited me out to California for HPE Tech Day, and also the Nth Symposium . I had a great time, and was happy to see what HPE has been up to!

During the Tech Day briefing, I was introduced to a term I hadn’t heard before - Composable Infrastructure.

Let’s start with the definition:

A composable infrastructure is a framework whose physical compute, storage and network fabric resources are treated as services. In a composable infrastructure, resources are logically pooled so that administrators don’t have to physically configure hardware to support a specific software application. Instead, the software’s developer defines the application’s requirements for physical infrastructure using policies and service profiles and then the software uses application programming interface (API) calls to create (compose) the infrastructure it needs to run on bare metal, as a virtual machine (VM) or as a container. ( http://searchitoperations.techtarget.com/definition/composable-infrastructure )

Veeam Replication – VM Failover

Mon, 24 Oct 2016 01:35:59 +0000

Part 1 here: Veeam Replication – Installation Part 2 here: Veeam Replication – Configuration Part 3 here: Veeam Replication - VM Replication

The last part of the Veeam portion of the Replication Roundup, is VM Failover. While Veeam has failover plans, and has some powerful advanced settings, for the series, replication and failover will be done using the minimum amount of work.

To get started, select Replicas from the tree on the left, and right click on the VM. Choose “Failover Now” to initiate the failover process.

Docker - Tech Field Day Extra @ VMworld 2016

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 02:43:22 +0000

While attending VMworld 2016 in Las Vegas this year, I was invited to sit on the Tech Field Day panel for Monday. One of the companies presenting was Docker .

Mike Coleman from Docker presented to the panel and did a great job. While I am familiar with containers conceptually, I have not yet implemented them in a lab or production environment. And, being from the Ops side of DevOps, I was in no rush to jump onto the container bandwagon. However, That’s about to change.

Why VSAN All-Flash is the right choice

Mon, 19 Sep 2016 02:55:21 +0000

VMware’s HCI (Hyper-Converged Infrastructure) solution is VSAN - or Virtual SAN. It’s a kernel based solution built right into the ESXi Hypervisor, that allows each server to consume local storage, and pool it together and share it back out to the VMware cluster. A minimum of 2 hosts is required (plus another witness appliance) or simply 3 or more hosts to maintain quorum. 4 hosts are typically recommended, in order to maintain availability when 1 host is in maintenance mode or offline. Local disks in each host are combined into Disk Groups, which consists of 1 SSD, and 1 or more capacity drives (SSD or HDD)

VMworld Day 1

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 02:25:01 +0000

After Partner Exchange, VMworld officially kicked off Sunday night, with a welcome reception in the Solutions Exchange. The welcome reception is a great time to get a layout of the solutions exchange, and to start talking with some of the vendors at VMworld. Accompanied by drinks and hor devours, VMware makes it’s customers feel at home and energized for the week ahead.

Starting off VMworld, we were able to hear from Pat Gelsinger, and Michael Dell, who both talked about the future of VMware, and the concerns around the Dell / EMC acquisition. If you aren’t aware, here’s some backstory:

VMworld Benefit - Community!

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 00:05:45 +0000

This year will be my 5th year attending the largest virtualization conference in the world, VMworld 2016. I still remember my first year - arriving into San Francisco in 2012 wide-eyed and overwhelmed. My hotel was a good 25-minute walk away from a convention center that was mostly underneath the ground.

Once I finally found my way into the Moscone Center, I was quickly at a loss for what to do first. Yes, I had filled out my calendar with sessions, time in the Solutions Exchange, and maybe some time to eat in there too. But, I wasn’t getting some of the “value-add” that I was reading about.

VMworld Videos

Sun, 28 Aug 2016 23:23:29 +0000

Since I recently started up v101.tv to provide videos and whiteboard sessions to introduce people to virtualization and it’s related eco-sphere, I decided to also create some videos while out at VMworld 2016 in Las Vegas.

Please subscribe and follow along, as I’ll be posting videos throughout each day on the different events and happenings at VMworld.

See the playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhpeOholBnSunmVQ6fZPl9fBL-UGSAw0Z

VMworld 2016 Partner Day

Sat, 27 Aug 2016 17:48:26 +0000

What is Partner Day at VMworld?

Previously, VMworld held a separate event called PEX, Partner Exchange, to engage and train VMware partners. Now, they have integrated into the VMworld conference, taking place on the days previous to the conference start.

Partner Day is Saturday and Sunday, with partner bootcamps running on the first day, and then partner specific sessions on Sunday before the kickoff of VMworld.

Who should attend?

If you work for a partner, you are the target audience. Customers are not permitted into this event.

v101tv – Initial ESXi Configuration

Mon, 15 Aug 2016 23:28:53 +0000

Now that ESXi is installed on our server, let’s log into each of the vSphere clients - C# client, and the embedded HTML5 host client, to view the configuration options for our server.

v101tv - Intro to virtualization and ESXi install

Sun, 14 Aug 2016 19:26:32 +0000

Here’s the very first video of the new v101.tv - a channel dedicated to sharing the knowledge of anything related to virtualization. You’ll find podcasts, installation and configuration walk-throughs, and whiteboard sessions. Stay tuned for the next videos!

VMworld 2016 - Coming soon

Fri, 05 Aug 2016 03:31:28 +0000

It’s that time of year again - time to get excited about heading to VMworld 2016!

VMworld is the premier virtualization conference in the world, debuting VMware’s products, vision, ecosystem partners, and community all in one place. The event lasts 5 days, and could certainly fill more.

Location:

VMworld has been in San Francisco for the last handful of years at the Moscone Center, but this year, it’s back in Las Vegas. This will be my first time to VMworld at Las Vegas, as VMware had an agreement to be in the Moscone Center for some years. I’m excited to say the least! While the San Fran venue provided plenty of space, hotels were quite expensive in the area. In Las Vegas, however, hotels are much, much cheaper!

Veeam SureBackup - Failed to create process with net logon

Tue, 05 Jul 2016 19:07:31 +0000

Recently, I was setting up a Veeam SureBackup job for a client and received an error when running the application group for the domain controllers, which will be the cornerstone of all the other SureBackup jobs.

The job would run properly, spinning up the VM in a sandbox environment. SureBackup would verify vmtools were running, that the VM was pingable, and then would start the application tests. Since this was a domain controller, the tests are set to:

VCAP-DCV Deploy – Objective 1.2 Configure Identity Sources for Single Sign-On

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 21:19:35 +0000

Now that a Platform Services Controller installed, and vCenter Server installed; it’s time to configure single sign-on sources for our SSO domain.

SSO, or Single Sign On, was introduced in vSphere 5.1 and provides a more secure way of authenticating into the vSphere environment. SSO is now connected to multiple authentication domains, like active directory, and will exchange authentication for tokens which are used to access multiple vSphere services.

Top vBlog 2016 Results - I'm in top 100!

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 18:16:21 +0000

Yesterday Eric Seibert, Eric Wright, and John Troyer announced live the top 25 vBlog results for 2016. If you missed it, you can watch the recording here and see the post here .

Obviously, I am not in the top 25 - but I hope to be able to produce that amount of useful content in the future. Hats off to Duncan Epping and William Lam who maintain the #1 and #2 spots.

This year, I made it into the Top 100! I’m thankful to all those who have voted, not only for me - but for all those whose content they have found useful. I’m resolved this coming year to make time to blog more, and share quality content with you all.

VCAP-DCV Deploy – Objective 1.2 Deploy vCenter Server

Thu, 30 Jun 2016 20:01:58 +0000

Now that the Platform Services Controller (PSC) is installed, it’s time to install the vCenter server. For the lab, we will be installing vCenter 6 onto Windows 2012 R2.

After mounting the ISO image, autorun will give us the option to install vCenter. Choose vCenter Server from the External Deployment section.

Configure the name of the vCenter server - this will be hard coded into the SSL certificate.

VCAP-DCV Deploy – Objective 1.2 Deploy and Configure a Platform Services Controller

Wed, 18 May 2016 02:27:53 +0000

Objective 1.2 deals with the managing infrastructure. In this blog, I will cover the installation of a Platform Services Controller on a dedicated server, instead of the simple install option, where the PSC is deployed with vCenter on the same server.

What is a Platform Services Controller?

“Platform Services Controller (PSC) is a component of the VMware Cloud Infrastructure Suite. PSC deals with identity management for administrators and applications that interact with the vSphere platform.”

VCSA won't boot - fsck failed

Tue, 10 May 2016 17:58:42 +0000

Today I logged into my lab after a power outage and noticed that vCenter was not up. I accessed to host directly, and opened to console to the VCSA server. The VCSA server was not able to mount the filesystem, and had this on the screen:

fsck failed. Please repair manually and reboot. The root file system is currently mounted read-only. To remount it read-write do:

bash# mount -n -o remount,rw /

Attention: Only CONTROL-D will reboot the system in this maintenance mode. shutdown or reboot will not work.

Give root password for maintenance (or type Control-D to continue)

When I typed in the root password, I was not presented with the bash prompt, which meant I could not run the recommended command. Instead, now on the console, I see:

Disaster Recovery - Have a Plan

Fri, 22 Apr 2016 14:40:26 +0000

. Disaster Recovery. It’s a phrase that’s tossed around IT circles like candy at a parade. Everyone wants it, and lots of vendors offer it. What exactly is it? Seems simple enough to answer - Disaster Recovery is the ability to recovery from a disaster, and in our case, recover data and systems. But, what constitutes a disaster?

Tornado, flood, hurricane, fire - these are our typical “smoking hole” scenarios, and are usually what comes to mind when we think of the “disaster” in disaster recovery. But what about others? Are disasters limited to naturally occurring disruptions? Aren’t all disruptions to the business some form of disaster?

VCAP-DCV Deploy – Objective 1.1 Perform Advanced ESXi Host Configuration – Part 3

Wed, 30 Mar 2016 21:13:47 +0000

To finish off objective 1.1, we have three things to cover:

Edit system swap / scratch configuration
Configure ESXi to use a central syslog server
Manage / edit the core dump configuration of an ESXi host

Edit system swap / scratch configuration

ESXi has a swap location to use in case RAM usage is too high, and it needs to swap out to disk. We can configure the location to be used during the swapping. The scratch partition is used to store vm-support output, which you need when you create a support bundle.

VCAP-DCV Deploy – Objective 1.1 Perform Advanced ESXi Host Configuration – Part 2

Wed, 09 Mar 2016 16:54:24 +0000

In part 1 , we covered using Auto Deploy to install ESXi onto our physical hosts. In part 2, we will cover unattended installations.

Sometimes known as a scripted install, or a kickstart, this deployment method automates the install process, which in turn makes it easy to deploy multiple hosts quickly.

Here’s a sample ks.cfg file that will automatically accept the EULA, install ESXi on the first hard disk, and overwrite any vmfs volume on that disk. Then, sets up the mgmt ip statically to 192.168.10.11, and sets the root password to “password”.

VCAP-DCV Deploy - Objective 1.1 Perform Advanced ESXi Host Configuration - Part 1

Fri, 04 Mar 2016 17:05:29 +0000

To kick off the series on the blueprint for the VCAP-DCV exam, I thought I would start at the beginning. I will split objective 1.1 into 3 parts:

Objective 1.1 - Perform advanced ESXi Host Configuration

Skills and Abilities

(Part 1) Configure and Manage Auto Deploy configurations
- Determine use case for Stateless vs Stateful installs
- Create / Modify rules and rule sets
- Create and associate Host Profiles for an Auto Deploy reference host
(Part 2) Configure Kernel Boot Parameters for scripted install according to a deployment plan:

VCAP-DCV Deploy - Study Guide Series

Fri, 04 Mar 2016 16:56:10 +0000

Since I hold a VCAP-DCD for 5.5, and want to upgrade to the VCIX-DCV 6, I have to study and take the VCAP-DCV Deploy test. Thankfully, VMware has made the process easy - I don’t have to upgrade the VCAP-DCD first to 6.0, as it will count towards my VCIX!

So, in order to assist me in studying, I decided to start a study guide series, following the objectives on the test’s blueprint (beta as of now).

Veeam Replication - VM Replication

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 21:43:22 +0000

Part 1 here: Veeam Replication - Installation Part 2 here: Veeam Replication - Configuration

Now that we have Veeam installed, and configured with both site’s vCenter servers, lets get the replication job created. In the navigation tree on the left, select Backup and Replication, and choose to create a new replication job.

Give the backup job a name, and a description. To keep the lab simple, we will assume the virtual networks are the same name, and that the VM will not need to be given a new IP address at the secondary site.

Veeam Replication - Configuration

Fri, 12 Feb 2016 21:49:43 +0000

Part 1 here: Veeam Replication - Installation

Now that we have Veeam installed in a virtual machine, it’s time to configure it to talk to our vSphere environment to enable replication. To do this, we will be adding both our primary site, and secondary site’s vCenter appliances into the console.

First, lets navigate to the Backup Infrastructure tab, and select Managed Servers. Here, choose VMware vSphere.

Now, we can enter the details for our primary site’s vCenter server. Name or IP is acceptable. A short description is always nice for environments that will scale out.

Veeam Replication - Installation

Fri, 22 Jan 2016 21:43:55 +0000

To continue on the Replication Roundup series, and not too far behind the Veeam ON conference, it only make sense to highlight Veeam Availability Suite’s replication. As a reminder, This series is not to compare / contrast features of each, but to simply highlight the process from start to finish to get a VM replicated.

Veeam version 9 was just released, and thus - we are using version 9 for the series. Let’s get started with the installation of Veeam Backup and Recovery.

Veeam Endpoint Backup - VeeamON

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 18:25:09 +0000

One of the sessions I attended at VeeamON was the Veeam Endpoint Backup Free - tips and tricks. I wanted to share some of the thoughts from this session.

To start, what is VEB free? Well, it’s a great backup utility for use on physical machines, including simple servers, desktops, and laptops.

Milestones

V1
- Announced at VeeamON 2014
- 20,000 downloads within the first 48 hours
V1.1
- Most features added were from community feedback
- 1 click upgrades added
- 10,000 downloads within the first 24 hours (new installs)
- Windows 10 support added
  - 7 days after Windows 10 release!
V1.1.2
- 200,000 downloads total for VEB
- Windows 10 Compatible (Windows certified)

Tips and Tricks

Backup to rotated media
- It’s a great cheap way to start. It’s offline, and reliable. In this scenario, the end user rotates their own media, and the backups occur (if selected) when the media is next inserted.
Backup with cmd prompt
- To increase flexibility for strange and 1 off schedules, jobs are able to be started via cmd prompt. Simply add the switch /backup to start the next incremental backup, or /standalone to kickoff a full backup.
USB recovery media and backup target
- Why not make an all-in-one recovery drive? By making your USB device recovery media, the rest of the free space is automatically partitioned. You can simply use that partition as your backup target, and have a portable, bootable recovery tool, with all your backups.
Manual Bare Metal Recovery
- Great for when you need to recover to dis-similar hardware. It’s easy to customize, and allows you to choose to not inject the original machines drivers into the new OS restore. Also, you can choose to shrink the partition, and re-arrange; in case you are restoring to a smaller SSD or HDD. It’s possible to even use this method as an alternative way to P2V a physical machine, by restoring to a VM, and choosing to discard drivers.
Dynamic Volumes Restore
- Veeam Endpoint Backup allows you to backup Microsoft dynamic volumes, and restore them as simple volumes on the target machine.
VEB + VBR Free
- Using Veeam Endpoint Backup and Veeam Backup and Recovery Free allows you to take advantage of using a Veeam Repository as a backup target for all of your endpoint jobs, as well as use the Veeam explorers (AD, Exchange, SQL, SharePoint) to restore application items.

VeeamON - v9 Announcements

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 00:21:24 +0000

This week, I’m out at in Las Vegas for the 20125 VeeamON conference. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as this is my first time, but let me tell you, Veeam has done a great job. More posts for VeeamON this week, but this one is going to focus on new features that were announced for version 9.

EMC VNX / VNXe storage snapshots

Backup directly from storage snapshots, making your time on VMware snapshots limited. Netapp and HP already supported.

Cloud Connect Replication

Just like Cloud Connect for offsite backups, now you can utilize a Cloud Connect provider to act as your DR site. This continues to utilize a single port, SSL 443 to the remote site. When you failover a whole site, or a single VM, you can maintain IP connectivity without re-IPing the VMs, as Veeam will work as a proxy for network traffic, virtually extending your L2 network to those failed-over VMs.

Primary Storage Integration

Now, if using an NFS data store in vSphere, you can do backups directly from the SAN via NFS, just like direct SAN backup for block storage. This feature started from the Netapp integration, and now extends to all NFS solutions.

Backup Storage Integration

HP Catalyst now supported to HP StoreOnce appliances. Like DDboost for DataDomains, now Veeam is aware of the deduplicated blocks on the appliance, and no longer needs to send unnecessary bits to the appliance.
DDboost 5.6 support, and DDboost over WAN now supported.
Per VM backup streams for deduplication appliances. This allows multiple IO streams from Veeam to the deduce appliance, instead of a single stream. Deduce appliances are setup to receive from multiple stream, but max out a single stream quite quickly - for instance, Data Domain will max a single stream at about 150MB/s, but can do 4 times that when using multiple streams. Now, each VM will have it’s own VBK file and chain, instead of all VMs in the job being grouped into a single VBK chain.

Veeam Explorers

Veeam Explorer for Oracle now announced. Granular Oracle database restores.
Explorer for Exchange - e-discovery enhancements for legal searches
Explorer for Active Directory - Now able to recover Group Policy Objects (GPOs), AD integrated DNS zones, and Configuration partitions.
Explorer for SQL - Now able to recover individual tables.

ROBO Enhancements

Stand alone console - no need to remote into the Veeam server. Now, you can install a console on your workstation, and access remotely.
File level Recovery now mounted at local site, instead of at Veeam Server
Pushing agent to VMs can now be accomplished at the remote site, instead of over the WAN for each VM.

Tape Support

Parallel processing to multiple drives now supported.
Global Media pool
GFS media pools (Grandfather, Father, Son)

Scale Out Backup Repository

Scale out backup repository allows you to utilize multiple backup repositories as a single repository. Now, when adding storage, no need to edit jobs, or size for future growth. You simple add another repository into the scale out repository.
Backup jobs automatically updated to use the scale out repository when already using a member repository.
Options to keep VM chain on the same member repository to help negate data loss.
VBKs per VM instead of per job - allows for the backup to write to all repositories in parallel to increase performance.

Bitlooker

Exclude blocks from backup for deleted files
Due to image backup, not file backup, we were backing up blocks of files that were deleted from the MFT, but not yet removed from the disk.

Un-named Feature

Ability to exclude directories of files in the VM from the backup.
Masking allowed to exclude particular types of files.
Adds RAM overhead to running jobs.

These are LOTs of great features that have been added into a great product. I’m thoroughly looking forward to getting hands on with them in my lab, and will have more posts for these features.

vSphere 6.0 Replication – Failover

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 21:45:02 +0000

Be sure to visit parts 1, 2, and 3:

Now that everything has been up and replicating for a while, it’s time to do a failover. As you can see, we even have our multiple points in time.

Failing over a virtual machine with vSphere Replication is quite easy. At the DR site, under vSphere Replication, simply right click on the VM, and choose Recovery.

VMworld 2015 - VCDX Unwrapped #SDDC5027

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 21:24:28 +0000

I attended the session VCDX Unwrapped at VMworld in San Francisco this year. This was a panel discussion type session, which are always laid back, and provide abundant time for questions.

Moderator:

Aiden Dalgleish #010

Panelists:

Matt Vandenbeld #107
Simon Long #105
Duncan Epping #007
Jason Nash #049

Aiden started off by asking the panelists what are some of the qualities of a VCDX? While the answers were all short, they were all in agreement: Confidence (in your design, and yourself), and be a continuous learner. The comment was made that “if you think you know everything, chances are you don’t know much.”

VMworld 2015 - Day 1 Keynote

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 22:04:26 +0000

While VMworld kicked off Sunday with the Welcome reception, and even some sessions, Monday is the first full day.

The day started off with the General Session / Keynote, with multiple speakers, including:

Carl Eschenbach (VMware President)
Bill
Raghu Raghuram
Yanbing Li
Ray O’Ferrel
Kit Colbert

Carl Eschenbach started with some stats about this years VMworld - specifically that this year there were more than 23,000 attendees.

He continued on with this years theme : Ready for Any. Specifically One Cloud. Any Application. Any Device. And this theme carries throughout all of this years announcements.

VMworld 2015 - Kickoff

Mon, 31 Aug 2015 18:08:45 +0000

It’s that time again. VMworld 2015 kicked off Saturday with the Welcome Reception. But, the unofficial start was earlier in the day.

vBreakfast started off the day at Mel’s Diner. This is the 4th year for this great get together organized by Shane Williford . vBreakfast tweetup is a great time to meet with your fellow tweets in person, and too meet new ones. And, the food is fantastic.

Starting off the afternoon was VMunderground Opening Acts . Opening Acts is a great way to get the lowdown on the trends that matter in Virtualization. This year, there were six separate panels. They covered:

VMworld 2015 - Planning

Tue, 25 Aug 2015 02:35:12 +0000

It’s that time of year again, time for thousands to flock to San Fransisco, at the Moscone convention center for VMworld.

If you haven’t, be sure to register !

This year, will be my 4th year at VMworld - and preparing ahead of time makes for a much better trip. So, here’s my tips for a more successful visit.

Wear layers and bring a jacket.
- Yes, You will be in California, but San Francisco is a little different. Here, the temperature drops quite a bit once the sun goes down.
Comfortable shoes are a must!

vSphere 6.0 Replication – VM Replication

Fri, 24 Jul 2015 20:19:10 +0000

Be sure to visit parts 1 and 2:

Now that we have vSphere Replication installed, and our primary and DR site’s connected, it’s time to get a VM replicating. In my nested lab, I have a VM running Tiny Linux that we will replicate.

First step, is the right click on the VM, and choose “All vSphere Replication Actions”, and then “Configure Replication.” vSphere replication has the ability to replicate to a cloud provider, but in our case, we will be replicating to another vCenter server. Click Next. Select the target site. VMware allows for replication within the same vCenter site - but we will replicate to out DR site.

vSphere 6.0 Replication – Configuration

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 18:03:58 +0000

In Part 1, vSphere 6.0 Replication - Installation , we successfully deployed the vSphere Replication OVA to both the main and DR sites. In part 2, we will configure the sites, and replicate a VM.

First, log out and back into the vSphere web client, to ensure the vSphere Replication plugin is working properly. The Replication link should be listed in the navigator bar on the left. We will navigate there, and select our vCenter server and click manage.

vSphere 6.0 Replication - Installation

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 13:34:49 +0000

The first product in our Replication Roundup is vSphere Replication. vSphere Replication is VMware’s product for VM based replication, and is included in licensing Essentials Plus and up.

The Lab Setup:

For our lab, we have 2 vCenter 6.0 servers, and 2 ESXi 6.0 servers, 1 for each site. Each ESXi host is added into the respective vCenter server. In this post, we will cover installation, and connecting the 2 sites together, making the environment ready to replicate VMs once configured.

Replication Roundup - Kickoff

Thu, 05 Mar 2015 18:09:11 +0000

Since replication is a staple to any DR scenario, I wanted to cover various replication products installation, and failover procedures.

This blog series is intended to inform about the features and procedures of each product, and while some comparisons will be made, it is not intended to say one product is better than any other, or to announce a ‘winner’.

Each company’s disaster recover plan varies, and so, one product may be better suited for that company than another. When choosing a replication platform for your DR plan, it’s important to consider the following (in no particular order):

Veeam and DataDomain using DD Boost

Wed, 11 Feb 2015 19:44:05 +0000

In a previous article , I talked about how to setup Veeam to use a linux proxy, to transfer data via NFS to an EMC DataDomain to increase thoughput. Results may vary, but I would see an increase of 50% or more.

Well, now there is no need, assuming you are licensed on your Data Domain for DD Boost.

What is DD Boost?

From EMC.com :

EMC Data Domain Boost distributes parts of the deduplication process to the backup server or application clients, enabling client-side deduplication for faster, more efficient backup and recovery. Without it, the backup server or application client would send all data—unique or redundant—to an EMC Data Domain system for deduplication processing.

Data Domain Replication issues

Thu, 20 Nov 2014 20:29:23 +0000

Recently, I had a pair of Data Domains that were having replication issues. After the offsite was seeded, and taken to it’s location - we noticed that the pre-comp remaining value would get down to 150 GiB or so, and then would jump back up to it’s original number of about 2,300GiB.

What was happening is the replication was starting over, because it lost communication with the other Data Domain.

Estimating bandwidth requirements for Zerto Replication

Sat, 15 Nov 2014 02:14:40 +0000

One thing that I run across quite a bit is customers that want to implement Zerto for their replication needs, but are unsure of what the bandwidth requirements would be for their organization. Luckily, Zerto provides a WAN sizing tool just for that.

First thing, we want to make sure we are collecting the needed statistics in vCenter.

In the vSphere Web Client, select the vCenter object, and select your vCenter server.
Select the Manage tab, and then under General, choose Edit.
Set all statistics to level 2

Welcome new Sponsor - VMTurbo

Sat, 04 Oct 2014 19:20:34 +0000

Just after VMworld this year, VMTurbo signed up as a sponsor for this blog. If you aren’t familiar with VMTurbo, I highly recommend you try out some of their free tools to start!

I will be adding some posts on the Virtual Heath Monitor in the near future, stay tuned!

From VMTurbo’s site:

Virtual Health Monitor :

Virtual Health Monitor by VMTurbo is a free virtualization monitoring and reporting tool for virtual environments. It provides single pane of glass visibility into VM and infrastructure health.

Enable Remote Desktop via Powershell Remotely

Thu, 04 Sep 2014 19:59:31 +0000

Many times throughout my projects, I find it necessary to enable remote desktop on machines that I do not have console access to - usually because I myself am working remotely on the customer.

While there has always been the method of editing the registry remotely to enable Remote Desktop, this method requires the server to be rebooted. So, what’s the method to avoid server downtime?

The answer is powershell.

EVO:RAIL - Installation

Thu, 28 Aug 2014 16:38:09 +0000

Here at VMworld 2014, one of the hands on labs was the new EVO:Rail. The lab walks through the process of the installation and then creating some VMs and managing them.

Installation Overview:

Connect to the IP of the EVO:Rail cluster to start the installation process.

Choose to customize the installation to assign IP addresses and passwords.

Assign hostnames:
- Host prefix
- Separator
- Iterator
- TLD
These settings will build the fqdn of each host - in the example we will receive 4 hosts named:
- host01.localdomain.local
- host02.localdomain.local
- host03.localdomain.local
- host04.localdomain.local
Configure the name of the vCenter server.

VMware's new product: EVO:RAIL

Mon, 25 Aug 2014 21:20:37 +0000

At VMworld this morning, VMware announced it’s latest product, EVO:RAIL .

So just what is EVO:RAIL?

EVO:RAIL is a hyper-converged solution for business of many sizes. Partnering with multiple hardware vendors, and utilizing vSphere with VSAN, VMware is able to provide a single product for your datacenter.

With 4 nodes, the EVO:RAIL appliance comes pre-loaded, and you can have VMs spun up in minutes from powering on. These 4 nodes will meet the following minimum specs:

Veeam rescues 1400 computer objects in AD

Thu, 31 Jul 2014 19:52:21 +0000

*disclaimer* Veeam is a sponsor of this blog - but has not requested, or had any part in this entry.

Working for a consulting firm, I work with many different backup solutions. In this particular case, the client uses Veeam Backup & Recovery.

The problem:

Late in the afternoon, I was alerted by our client that there was an accidental deletion of an entire OU in Active Directory. AD is not yet at the 2008 level, so we don’t have the recycle bin. Unfortunately, replication to the other DCs had already occurred, so we could not rely on them to restore the objects. Users were already unable to log on to PCs, and loss of network resources was rampant.

vSphere 101 - NTP Settings

Wed, 23 Jul 2014 13:54:27 +0000

I come across a lot of virtual environments (and physical) that don’t have NTP (Time Servers) setup properly. If you’ve ever worked in Active Directory, you know how important synchronized time can be - let alone with so many other applications for synced log time, etc…

By default, all domain joined machines will contact the PDC emulator (Domain controller holding the PDC role) to synchronize time, and all VMs will use VMware tools.

VSAN Storage Profile Missing

Wed, 16 Apr 2014 02:14:31 +0000

Recently, I was moving my lab away from the VSAN beta code, and onto the ESXi 5.5 update 1 bits. I started fresh with my hosts, and simply upgraded my vCenter server. However, I ran into an issue once I had enabled VSAN. I had no storage profiles.

If I clicked on refresh, it came back with the error :

“there was a problem encountered while resyncing the VSAN providers”

Veeam and DataDomain

Sun, 23 Mar 2014 22:58:28 +0000

I’ve done a fair amount of installs of this combination, Veeam and EMC’s DataDomain deduplication device. The solution is a wonderful combination - but the number 1 complaint is that it is slow……..slower than it should be.

Why is it slow? Well, the short answer is because of the CIFs implementation on the Data Domain. From testing, transferring data via CIFS is about 45% slower than transferring files using NFS.

VSAN Announcement and Release

Thu, 06 Mar 2014 21:44:19 +0000

During the vmware.com/now event today, VMware announced some exciting news! Here’s a quick rundown of some main points.

VSAN will be Generally Available the week of March 10th!
VSAN Licensing and pricing will be announced at GA
Now scalable to 32 Nodes!
4.4 PB of VSAN space!
Performance has been tested all the way to 2 million IOPs!
The VSAN Team has some awesome jackets! :)

Expect more news to follow after the GA release.

Voting Open for Top Virtualization Blogs

Sat, 22 Feb 2014 21:22:40 +0000

It’s official, the vSphere-land.com top virtualization blogs voting is here again.

Please be sure to vote for your favorite bloggers (and me!).

From vSphere-land:

There are over 300 blogs dedicated to VMware and virtualization, here’s your chance to pick your favorites and determine the top blogs. The last voting was a year ago and new bloggers are springing up every month. When casting your votes please keep the following in mind about the blogs.

VSAN - Installation

Thu, 23 Jan 2014 20:43:13 +0000

Installation of VMware’s Virtual SAN (VSAN) couldn’t be easier. No, really!

To start with, in my lab environment, I have 4 servers that will participate in the VSAN cluster, and 3 of which will provide storage resources to the VSAN cluster.

3x DL160 G6 with:
- 128GB SSD
- 3x 250GB SATA drives (or larger)
1x DL360 G6

At this point, I have already added all 4 servers into a cluster with HA off.

VSAN - Overview

Tue, 07 Jan 2014 15:11:34 +0000

This is part 1 in a new series covering VMware VSAN. Stay tuned for more!

VMware VSAN (Virtual SAN) is a new storage offering from VMware, not to be confused with the VMware VSA (Virtual Storage Appliance), which serves a different purpose entirely. VSAN is a scale out storage solution that utilizes the local storage of the ESXi hosts, and presents a single datastore to the cluster. Driven by Storage Profiles, the options for VM performance and redundancy are on a per VM basis.

Veeam and Server 2012 DeDuplication

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 15:09:06 +0000

With a wide range of deduplication appliances out there for a backup target, one option is simply server 2012. Server 2012 has a deduplication feature now, that is set per volume, and can offer great results when used as a backup repository for Veeam.

See Justin’s Post for setting up dedupe on Server 2012.

Veeam has excellent per job inline deduplication, which ensures that each backup file is not storing redundant data. By using that in conjunction with Server 2012 per volume deduplication, we can achieve up around 70% and more deduplication. That’s some big savings!

XP can't connect via vSphere 5.5 C# Client

Mon, 09 Dec 2013 16:14:58 +0000

Windows XP is going away, but yet quite a lot of people still use this for various reasons. Something that might pop up is after upgrading to vSphere 5.5, you install the vSphere client on your XP machine and try to connect, only to get an error:

An unknown connection error occurred. (The Client could not send a complete request to the server. (The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send.

Veeam Announces Support for vSphere 5.5

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:19:15 +0000

Veeam announced today Veeam 7 R2. The update now adds support for vSphere 5.5.

Find all the information, and downloads from Veeam’s website , or directly from the KB Article .

This update also has a list of other new features for VMware and Hyper V. This is great, and not too far behind the release of 5.5 from VMware. For many people, this is the only thing that was preventing an update to vSphere 5.5.

Zerto: Moving a VM between VPGs

Wed, 13 Nov 2013 14:05:33 +0000

Having worked with Zerto for a while now, I have come to love VPGs (Virtual Protection Groups). However, sometimes the need arises to move a VM out of a VPG, and into it’s own, or into another VPG.

Right now, there is no “click to move” a VM between the VPGs, but that doesn’t mean it is not possible to do without forcing re-sync of all that data. It’s quite simple actually.

Running Nested ESXi 5.5 on VSAN

Tue, 05 Nov 2013 22:06:41 +0000

With vSphere 5.5 now out, it was time to refresh my lab. I have ESXi 5.5 installed on a DL160 G6, with 1 SSD and 3 SATA drives, so I decided to make a single node VSAN instance. (3 nodes is a minimum for a supported configuration).

The plan was to spin up some nested ESXi instances, like my usual lab setups, but I ran into a problem. I could not get ESXi 5.5 to install - it kept failing. Here is what I was receiving:

Tech Field Day VMworld - Asigra and Simplivity

Wed, 30 Oct 2013 15:16:31 +0000

**This article got lost in my Drafts folder, but I wanted to make sure to publish as a lot of work went into putting on these events from the Tech Field Day team, and the Vendors**

I had the privilege of attending two Tech Field Day Events while at VMworld 2013 this year. I was able to sit in on discussions for Asigra, and Simplivity.

Asigra

While Asigra is a name I have heard, I admittedly know nothing of their product. In fact, even after the event, I didn’t know much more about the product. The entire time was used to talk about their licensing methodology - and it was NOT a waste of time.

Upgrading vCSA (vCenter Appliance) from 5.1 to 5.5

Fri, 18 Oct 2013 15:42:19 +0000

VMware has made updating the vCSA (vCenter Server Appliance) very easy - and with the popularity of the vCSA growing daily, its a good thing.

First thing is first, we want to update our vCSA 5.1 appliance to the latest build of 5.1.

Log into the admin webpage of the console https://vCSA_Name_or_IP:5480
Click on the Update tab
Click Check Updates
Click Install Updates

Verify after the update that you are on the latest build

VMworld Overview

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 17:26:49 +0000

With VMworld wrapping up today, now is a good time to talk about all the events that went on this week.

During VMworld, there are some General Sessions in the morning, where VMware makes it’s product announcements, and also has an innovators session on Thursday. This year, VMware announced some major product enhancements, and add-ons.

NSX - Time to virtualize your network, not just your compute and storage.
VSAN - Leverage your local storage in your hosts to create a datastore with the SSD used as read/write cache. Great for ROBO (Remote Office / Branch Office) deployments, VDI, and other scenarios.
and more - I will be getting some articles together in the next month of the new features.

The Hands on Labs, and regular sessions were great this year. I highly recommend attended the “Ask the vExperts” sessions that are here every year. This gives you the opportunity to ask some vExperts any questions relating to your environment, or anything regarding their product expertise.

VMworld 2013 Day Zero

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 17:57:12 +0000

VMworld 2013 is here!

Saturday started off with most people arriving and registering. The backpacks this year are quite nice, and different from years past in shape.

At 2pm, the #v0dgeball tournament began. While the vExperts team was who I was rooting for, the EMC team took the win in the double elimination tournament. All proceeds from the event go to a charity. This year, over $14,000 was raised for Wounded Warriors. How awesome is that? If you weren’t aware of v0dgeball I highly recommend attending next year.

Veeam v7 Released!

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 20:51:35 +0000

This week Veeam released v7 , which will bring with it a lot of extra features!

I am excited to upgrade the lab and clients, and will be sure to post on that. The WAN Acceleration and Backup Copy Jobs look great so far. The copy jobs can offsite your VMs from multiple backup jobs - it doesn’t matter if they are in the same backup job or not! I’ll have more to share when I get back from VMworld and upgrade the lab.

VMworld - What to know before you go

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:00:26 +0000

With VMworld comming up very quickly, I thought I would create a quick post about some things to know before you go.

Items to remember:

Clothing
- Jacket - S.F. can get chilly in the evenings. Don’t forget to pack something to keep warm.
- Shoes - Make sure they aren’t brand new - break those puppies in! You will be doing a LOT of walking.
Tech
- Battery Pack - Your phone will drain quick - especially if you are trying to keep up with the twitter feed #vmworld!
- Charger - Same as above!
- Laptop / Tablet - Helpful if you are going to do the BYOD Hands-on-Labs
Misc
- Business Cards - Seems old school, but sometimes its the easiest. Put your Twitter handle on there, so others can add you later when they have more time
- Luggage space - Never under estimate the volume of SWAG. If you are going to gather it - don’t forget you have to take it home!

So, you’ve got all you need and are ready to go. Here are some tips for when you are there.

Don’t do the Hands-on-Labs. Seriously! They are available online, so take them when you get home and have time. Use this time at VMworld to attend all the sessions you can.

vSphere 101 - Remove Getting Started tabs

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 13:18:08 +0000

In the old client, removing the “Getting Stated” tabs from each windows was easily accessed from the view menu. Thankfully, the option is also easy to access in the vSphere Web Client.

The “Getting Started” are the default tab whenever you select an object in the client. It usually contains a brief explanation of that particular object, and then some basic tasks and help links. While it can be quite handy, I find it gets in the way.

vSphere 101 - Updating the vCSA (Virtual Center Server Appliance)

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:29:54 +0000

This week on vSphere 101, I am going to walk through the process of updating your vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA).

The vCSA is a linux based vCenter appliance, that doesn’t require a windows license, and has SSO and the databases all running within the same VM. It is a great solution for labs, SMBs, etc. Updating vCenter on Windows is straight forward, but how about the vCSA?

First, login to the administrative page for the vCSA, which would be http://(vCSA_IP_here):5480 and login with your credentials. (default - root / vmware)

vExpert 2013 awarded

Wed, 29 May 2013 13:25:17 +0000

Last night, John Troyer (@jtroyer ) announced the new list of vExperts for 2013 here .

I am ecstatic and humbled to be selected to be a member of this great group for the first time!

The VMware community has been a wonderful community to be involved in, and I don’t know of any other place where people are so willing to ask and offer advice and answers for problems and questions that others have.

Veeam v7 Features Announcement

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:39:41 +0000

Today, Veeam released all of it’s product enhancements for version 7, which will be released later this summer. I am excited to implement some of these new features for my clients! Here’s the list:

vCloud Director Support Using the vCD API, Veeam will display the vCD infrastructure directly in Veeam Backup & Replication™, backup all vApp metadata and attributes, restore vApps and VMs directly to vCD, and support restore of fast-provisioned VMs.

vCloud Lab - Planning

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:09:00 +0000

With the release of vSphere 5.1, comes a new version of vCloud as well. I thought this would be a great chance to put up a vCloud lab at home, and to share the steps for others who want to learn the setup and management of vCloud, but don’t have a lot of physical boxes sitting around.

While this process can be done in VMware Workstation, I am going to be using a single physical ESXi 5 server to house the entire lab.

Upcoming Webinar - The Perfect Storm: Bloggers and Virtualization

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:33:10 +0000

Webinar: April 18 @ 12pm Eastern

Join Eric Siebert, noted blogger, author, VMware vExpert and the proprietor of vSphere-land.com where he has been running his popular top blog voting for 4 years that determines the most popular bloggers in the VMware vUniverse.

Join us online and learn:

How the blogger community has evolved over the years
Why VMware has been so successful with their blogger community
What drives people to blog about VMware & virtualization technology
Why you should pay attention to what bloggers are writing
The influence that bloggers have on the virtualization industry
What are some of the top blogs related to VMware & virtualization
How you can become an impactful blogger

All participants will receive a free NFR (not for resale) license for Unitrends Enterprise Backup

Training Resources - TrainSignal

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:02:06 +0000

*Disclaimer: While TrainSignal is sponsoring my blog, the views expressed in this post are my own.

Recently, TrainSignal revamped their website, and delivery method of training classes. Previously, training was available by ordering a specific class, and receiving some DVDs - either physically, or as a download. They have stepped up the game, and its a good move!

Now, they are offering access to ALL of their courses for a monthly fee, which is all delivered via streaming video on the site. There is also an offline player available.

SSH can't be disabled on ESXi server

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:40:12 +0000

This is something I have come across a couple of times, but yet couldn’t find a lot on it when I searched - so I thought I would add to the search results.

Randomly, I will get an error when I go to stop the SSH service on an ESXi 5 server:

“Call ‘HostServiceSystem.Stop’ for object “serviceSystem7117” on vCenter Server Servername failed”

While the vSphere client shows that the service is stopped, the ESXi server still has an alert that SSH is enabled for the host.

HP P2000 G3 and VAAI with vSphere 5.0 and 5.1

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 19:34:11 +0000

HP’s P200 has been around a little while, and has had a bit of improvements done with firmware updates. While adding VAAI support to a P2000 is a little older news, I thought I would still write about it since I recently upgraded one and want to point out the differences for ESXi 5.0 and 5.1

For the P2000 G3 to support VAAI, we need to update the firmware to at least version TS230P008. The latest version can be found here ( TS240P004 ).

Voting open for the 2013 top VMware and Virtualization blogs!

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:17:16 +0000

vSphere-land is at it again, and has started the process for the top virtualization blogs for 2013. This is a great way for community members to vote about resources they have found helpful. From vSphere-land’s site:

“There are over 200 blogs dedicated to VMware and virtualization, here’s your chance to pick your favorites and determine the top blogs. The last voting was a year ago and new bloggers are springing up every month.”

vSphere 5.1 Lab - Installing the vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA)

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 01:31:52 +0000

Now that we’ve got some VSA’s sharing storage, and some nested ESXi hosts, it’s time to get vCenter up and running.

VMware has a vCenter appliance, which scales quite nicely. One benefit of the vCSA is that it doesn’t require a Windows license - otherwise, the benefits for most running this or the Windows service are negligible.

Step 1: Download the vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA)

This download is located within your “my VMware” under downloads, and vSphere. ( a trial can be downloaded here )

Outlook unable to connect to Exchange 2010

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 13:00:01 +0000

Recently, I was doing a simple Exchange migration from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010. Once I moved all the mailboxes to the new exchange server, we noticed issues with Outlook. The version of Outlook was 2003.

These were the issues being reported:

Random Outlook freezing and locking
Error - “Your Exchange Server administrator has blocked the version of Outlook that you are using. Contact your administrator for assistance.”
Error - “Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Unable to open the Outlook window. The set of folders could not be opened.”
Error - “The connection to the Microsoft Exchange Server is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.”

So, I decided to check all the normal things for Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2003 compatibility:

vSphere 5.1 Lab - Nested ESXi 5.1

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:55:02 +0000

Now that I’ve got some shared storage setup for the lab environment, it’s time to get some ESXi 5.1 hosts. Since this is a lab environment, I want to run some nested ESXi 5.1 hosts.

Running nested means installing a hypervisor inside of another hypervisor. This could be XenServer, Hyper-V, or ESXi. Obviously, I recommend the later! You can install and run VMs on top of the nested ESXI install, and they can be 64bit, but that depends on the CPU.

Windows 8 and vSphere client

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 19:24:38 +0000

So, you’ve upgraded to Windows 8, and are wanting to connect to your VM console via vSphere. Uh Oh! A wild error message appears!

“The VMRC console has disconnected…attempting to reconnect”

What’s happening?

Well, the short story is that when connecting to the console, the vSphere client uses an Internet Explorer plugin, which is not compatible with IE 10 (which Windows 8 comes with). Unfortunately, there is no way to view the console at this point with vSphere.

Veeam Job fails after upgrade to vSphere 5.1

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:47:32 +0000

Now that vSphere 5.1 is been out a little while, there are more and more upgrades happening. One problem that I run across while upgrading is that the Veeam backup job fails the next morning if you aren’t aware of what happens.

During the upgrade to vSphere 5.1, the ESXi servers now have a different UUID. Since Veeam uses the UUID to distinguish objects, it now sees different UUIDs, and the backup job will fail:

Windows 8 Start Menu Replacement

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 13:55:22 +0000

Most people have realized by this point that Windows 8 lacks a traditional start menu. The reaction to the new start screen has been very mixed, and I find myself of the “what in the world were they thinking?!?!” side. However, there is hope!

I’ve tried a couple different start menu replacements during the beta of windows 8, but in my opinion, only one lives up to daily use.

ClassicShell

vSphere 5.1 Lab - HP StoreVirtual VSA Install

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:00:12 +0000

Next, I needed some shared storage to eventually present to my nested ESXi servers. I decided to use HP’s StoreVirtual VSA (Formerly LeftHand) because I work with it fairly often, and because it’s the only VSA supported for SRM.

HP offers the VSA for a trial period of 60 days - plenty of time to work with it. It is available here .

Once extracted, there is a setup.exe in the vsatrial folder. Normally, this setup would unzip the .ovf and .vmdk files, ask for vSphere credentials, disk size, etc - however, currently the setup wizard will not run if it detects ESXi 5.1. To get around this, simply access the .ovf and related files in your %temp% directory where the wizard extracted them.

vSphere 5.1 Lab - Initial Setup

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 20:03:57 +0000

With the release of vSphere 5.1 now, and some of the new features, I decided to dedicate a new series of posts just to 5.1, and install it all in my lab environment - from the ground up.

First off - this is a clean slate - I won’t be doing any upgrades - everything will be a fresh install.

Hardware:

HP ML370 g5

Dual Xeon E5345 Quad Core
32 GB RAM
8x 146 GB SAS 10k in Raid 5
8x 146 GB SAS 10k in Raid 10

Since I am using a single server, I will be running mutiple nested ESXi servers. (See previous post - Creating a Nested ESXi 5 Environment )

Windows 8 Pro/Ent Won't activate (MAK key)

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 01:47:04 +0000

Recently, I have been playing around with Windows 8. And, since it went RTM on Aug 1st, I figured I would install it fresh. I downloaded Windows 8 Pro from my subscription, and made sure to copy down my license key.

The install went quick and painless, and I decided to sign in with a windows live account to test the functionality of that vs a local account. When I went to change my account picture, I received a message that I can’t customize my account until windows is activated.

Veeam Encounter - Part 1

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 18:28:55 +0000

I’ve been using various products along the way to backup Virtual Machines in VMware Environments. However, it wasn’t until mid 2011 that I was really introduced to Veeam. So, I figured I would share my experience.

At my previous job, we were to treat all VMs as physical machines - installing a backup agent inside the VM, and backing them up through the network to a dedicated backup location - usually a tape or tape library. This was a fine solutions a couple years ago - but is obviously outdated now for a lot of networks.

EMC VNXe 3100 - An Introduction

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:51:36 +0000

Recently, I got my hands on the EMC vnxe 3100. It’s a great SAN solution for SMBs, and very easy to setup and administer.

Having worked mostly with Equalogic and HP SAN solutions, The Unisphere interface on the EMC VNXe’s was refreshing and simple.

Physical Setup:

Couldn’t be easier. EMC ships a handy quick start guide, with full color pictures (you aren’t going to read anything anyway). They also include labels to be applied to the cabling on the back - not need to supply your own. After connecting power, network, and then attaching the second cabinet, it was time to power on.

Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2003 Slowness

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:21:47 +0000

It’s been a little while since I have had to migrate Exchange 2003 to 2010, and I ran into a familiar problem again - so I thought I would share.

I migrated a couple users over from the Exchange 2003 server onto the Exchange 2010 server, and the next day users were complaining of slowness. It would take about 30 seconds or more for messages to be deleted, moved, and any sort of update to the mailbox. It doesn’t seem like much, but when you are upgrading, and the new is slower than the old, the users notice.

Passed VCP510 Exam

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:12:59 +0000

This morning I took the VCP510 exam and passed!

This was a little tougher than the VCP4 exam. 85 questions, and it took me an hour. Lots of good questions. This is one thing that I have liked about VMware, is that they make it near impossible to pass these without hands-on experience (either production, or a lab).

Good luck if you are going to take it soon - remember, you have until the end of February to pass otherwise you will have to take the “What’s New” course.

vSphere VSA Raid requirements relaxed!

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:51:32 +0000

Today VMware announced on it’s blog that the RAID 1o requirements will be dropped, and that VMware will be supporting RAID 5 and RAID 6 as well.

See the blog here , and see the updated documentation here .

So, this means that you will be able to use more of your local storage!

Before, with RAID 10 and the VSA mirroring the 2 ESXi server’s local storage, it meant that you could only use 25% of your actual storage.

Changing Local Admin Passwords on the network

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:55:30 +0000

Every so often, it’s good practice to change passwords. I think that everyone it IT is aware of that. One of the most overlooked passwords is the local Administrator’s password on every machine on the network.

Sure, your user’s are required to change theirs every 90 days, and you change your domain Administrator’s password at times as well. The local Administrator on your member servers and all your PCs is usually overlooked, or avoided, because you don’t have time to touch all those machines…

Switching to Linux?

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 17:47:53 +0000

I’ve been getting frustrated with Windows lately - like everyone has at some point or another.. So I decided I would attempt to run Linux on my laptop instead. (I’m dual-booting for now).

I’ve dabbled with Ubuntu every year or so, but I still a linux beginner. I don’t like the Unity interface of Ubuntu, but I found out that I can continue to use gnome, or more specifically gnome-shell.

Creating a Nested ESXi 5 Environment

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:00:16 +0000

**UPDATED for ESXi 5.1 HERE**

Since vSphere 5 was released earlier this year, it is now time to get ready to pass the VCP exam. I am a VCP for both 3.5 and 4, and decided I would post some updates along the way as I study before taking the VCP 5 exam.

The first thing I did was create a lab environment. I currently use 2 whitebox ESXi 5 servers, attached to iSCSI storage.

Exchange 2010 Distribution Group Management

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:47:07 +0000

One of the things I like about Exchange distribution groups is that they can be manged by the list’s owner, taking a bit of work off the IT department, and allowing managers to maintain their department groups. However, the process is slightly different for Exchange 2010. In Exchange 2010, the permission to manage the lists is now in RBAC (Role Based Access Control).

By default, in Exchange 2010, users cannot manage distribution lists (a good thing). Enabling them to do so is a simple task. We use the MyDistributionGroups management role. This is one of the builtin RBAC roles in Exchange 2010. This role allows users to view, modify, add, and remove members to groups that they are assigned owner of; as well as creating new and removing existing distribution groups. All of those options sound pretty good, except for creating new and removing existing groups - good thing we can fix that!

vSphere 5 VSA – Virtual San Appliance – Part 3

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:04:14 +0000

Management and Maintenance

As if getting the VSA installed wasn’t easy enough, VMware has made the VSA virtually (no pun intended) management free.

With your Datacenter selected, simply click back on the VSA Manager tab, and you will be presented with the page below:

In the top window, is the VSA Cluster settings. All self explanatory here - the IP information your set during setup, and the capacity of your VSA storage. Above that is “Enter Maintenance Mode”, “Enter Shutdown Mode”. Clicking these here will put the entire cluster into the selected mode. (more on these modes below).

vSphere 5 VSA – Virtual San Appliance – Part 2

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:21:41 +0000

Installation and Configuration

Now it’s time to install the VSA. Remember, we need 2 (or 3) fresh ESXi 5.0 installs, joined to our vCenter server.

Now, for the easy part… (it’s actually all easy)

Installation:

Run the VSA setup from the CD on your vSphere server.
Click next and “I accept” through the first screen and agreements.
Enter in your name or IP address of your vCenter server.
Enter your License key (or blank for trial).
Next to install, and then Finish!

I told you it was easy!

vSphere 5 VSA - Virtual San Appliance - Part 1

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:59:48 +0000

With the release of vSphere 5, comes VMware’s VSA (Virtual Storage Appliance).

What exactly is it? Well, it’s VMware’s answer of providing shared storage to SMBs that don’t purchase a physical SAN or NAS. It will use the local storage in each ESX box, and present it to the VSA VM, and that in turn will present it back to the ESX servers as shared storage. Each ESX server will have a VSA VM running, and each will contain a replica of the other’s storage.

vSphere 5 vRAM Changes

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:39:34 +0000

Thanks to the numerous traffic about vSphere 5’s vRAM “tax” - VMware has changed the entitlements.

(Take a look at Justin’s post here explaining vRAM “tax” and how it works.)

Basically, VMware has made 3 changes:

Increased vRAM entitlements for all vSphere editions.
Capped the amount of vRAM counted in any given VM
More flexible in calculating and reporting hitting the limit

The fist one being the most important - and it was quite an increase for Enterprise and Enterprise+ and the Free hypervisor. Here is VMware’s chart: vSphere editionPrevious vRAM entitlementNew vRAM entitlementvSphere Enterprise+48 GB96 GBvSphere Enterprise32 GB64 GBvSphere Standard24 GB32 GBvSphere Essentials+24 GB32 GBvSphere Essentials24 GB32 GBFree vSphere Hypervisor8 GB32 GBvSphere DesktopUnlimitedUnlimited Enterprise and Enterprise+ have doubled, up to 96GB. The rest have increased only by 8GB. However, keep in mind that this is a per license limit. Your ESXi server will have at least 2 CPUs, meaning 2 vSphere licenses. So, This means that a typical Essentials vSphere server will an entitlement of up to have 64GB of vRAM available.

Vmware View client for Android

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 02:37:55 +0000

New on the Android market today: VMware View - Tech Preview for Android.

From the market:

VMware View Client for Android makes it easy to access your Windows virtual desktop from your Android with the best possible user experience on the Local Area Network (LAN) or across a Wide Area Network (WAN).

This client supports PCoIP only, and is fantastic! I had been using Wyse Pocket Cloud to access Vmware View via RDP, and the performance was fine - but using VMware’s PCoIP client is so much faster!

MCITP: Server Administrator

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:06:18 +0000

Today I took 70-646, Windows Server 2008: Server Administrator and PASSED! I am now an Microsoft Certified IT Professional, Server Administrator.

I liked this last test in the bunch. Instead of just 50 multiple choice questions, it was 22, and had 5 case studies. The case studies were what I liked. They gave you a good deal of information about what the client’s needs, and requirements are - and what you were implementing. Then, you had 5 - 7 questions about designing a solution.

Re-register Microsoft VSS - Failed Backups

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:43:32 +0000

Recently, I had a Windows 2008 R2 server, running Backup Exec, that was constantly failing during snapshot processing backing up the system state. The backups would show the following error:

AOFO: Initialization failure on: "System$State". Advanced
Open File Option used: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy
Service (VSS).
V-79-10000-11226 - VSS Snapshot error. The Microsoft
Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshot provider
selected returned: "Unexpected provider error". Ensure
that all provider services are enabled and can be started.
Check the Windows Event Viewer for details.

Also, the service “Volume Shadow Copy”, which is set to manual, would be in a stopped state. In the windows application event log, I found event ID 12293:

Vmware View and Right Shift

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 22:13:33 +0000

I’ve noticed on several occasions that the right shift key doesn’t seem to work in RDP sessions when I am using a VMware View desktop with PCoIP. The first couple times, I thought I was just mistyping the password, but after checking in the username field, sure enough the right shift key was not recognized, and it was not making my letters uppercase. Left shift worked just fine, but for some reason, I seem to favor the right shift key.

Asus eee Transformer Tablet

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 22:10:13 +0000

I acquired an Asus Transformer tablet, and wanted to share my thoughts on it. Here are the specs:

Nvidia Tegra 2 1Ghz dual core CPU, 1 GB RAM
16GB or 32BG storage
Android 3.0 Honeycomb
Wifi 802.11b/g/n, bluetooth, and GPS
10.1" IPS display with 178⁰ viewing angle
Micro SD slot
Mini HDMI port
Headphone jack
12.98mm thick, and 680g
Rear 5MP camera, and front 1.2MP camera

There are a couple other android tablets out there, with the Motorola Xoom being the most well known, but what drew me to this tablet was it’s transforming ability. The tablet has a keyboard dock with touchpad - that has 2 USB ports, an SD slot, and more batteries. When docked, the tablet is now a netbook running android with up to 16 hours of battery life!

What is AdminSDHolder?

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 03:31:24 +0000

AdminSDHolder is a container inside active directory that maintains a master list of permissions for objects that are members of privileged groups in active directory. Below are some of the groups:

Administrators
Domain Admins
Enterprise Admins
Schema Admins
Domain Controllers
Server Operators
etc.

Basically, every hour, windows will compare the security permissions of an account (that is a member of a privileged group) to the permissions listed on the AdminSDHolder object, and if they are different, reset them. The AdminSDHolder object is in Active Directory under “System” (you will have to enable advanced features from the view menu in AD to view this folder).

Public Folders not replicating from Exchange 2007 to 2010

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 23:44:57 +0000

I’ve been working on an exchange migration recently, and was at the point that I needed to replicate the public folders to the new 2010 server from 2007. This particular Exchange Server had only a few public folders, so I went the manual route. On the Exchange 2007 Server, I opened up Public Folder Management Console from the toolbox, and right clicked on each folder, chose properties, and edited the replication tab entry.

Microsft iSCSI Target 3.3 now available for 2008 R2

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 02:22:51 +0000

Microsoft released their iSCSI target software earlier this month for Windows Server 2008 R2. This used to be only for windows 2008 Storage Server. This is good news for those who wish to have a Windows 2008 Server host storage for ESX, or Hyper V. You won’t get the bells and whistle’s like you would with a EqualLogic or EMC SAN, and you won’t get the performance either; what you will get, is cheap, easy storage with a feature or two.

VM’s NIC shows as a removable device

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 22:35:02 +0000

It was pointed out to me by a co-worker that the NIC in a VMware virtual machine shows up as a removable device in the system tray. While this may not seem like a big deal, it actually can be. If you choose to ‘eject’ the nic, not only does it disappear from windows; but it will also no longer be in the hardware list of the VM’s settings. A new nic would have to be added, and then windows would see a new mac address, and it’s static IP will be lost. This can be a larger problem if the VM is a Terminal Server, and has multiple users logging on.

VMware Cloud Foundry

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 01:10:38 +0000

VMware just launched Cloud Foundry , which is a PaaS. Platform as a Service. According to the FAQ, there will be three offerings:

CloudFoundry.com - a complete hosted PaaS environment.
CloudFoundry.org - an open source cloud.
CloundFoundry Micro - a downloadable instance to run on the desktop for developers.

[caption id=“attachment_95” align=“alignnone” width=“300” caption=“VMware Cloud Foundry - from cloudfoundry.com”] [/caption]

The website didn’t contain a lot of details, but The Console, VMware’s Executive Blog breaks it down very well. I recommend reading it!

Read Only Domain Controller

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 00:44:40 +0000

With Windows Server 2008, there is the option to promote a member server to a RDOC, or Read Only Domain Controller. Just as the name suggests, it is a domain controller that is non-writable; read-only copy. The purpose of a RODC is actually simple: Security.

Instead of putting a regular DC at a small remote branch office, where the server sits in a closet with the cleaning supplies, consider making that DC read-only. In a perfect world, ever server would be behind locked doors, with restricted access - but that obviously is not so. By having a RODC onsite instead, the risk associated with that server being compromised is greatly reduced. This is due to the fact that a RODC doesn’t contain any user or computer credentials in it’s copy of Active Directory.

MCTS: Windows Server 2008 AD Configuration

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:36:59 +0000

Today I passed Microsoft test 70-640: Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring. This test covers quite a large spectrum of information, including:

DNS
Multi-Site Domains (Sites and Services)
Group Policies
Auditing
Federation Services
Rights Management Services
Cert Services
Windows Backup
Authorative & non-authorative restores of Active Directory
FSMO Roles
Trusts
RODC (Read Only Domain Controllers
And more…..

The test was harder than other Microsoft tests I have taken, and study material seems lacking, only because most study material is pre R2, and the test has been updated to include quite a bit of 2008 R2 material. The test was spread out well, and didn’t seem to focus too many questions on any particular area. I would estimate it was about 5ish questions for each category. Some areas were not a problem for me, such as DNS, Sites and Services, Trusts, AD restores, and normal things you would find in most company’s AD structure.

Video drivers for a 2008 R2 VM

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 21:10:47 +0000

This week I was installing a 2008 R2 VM again on ESX4.x. I noticed that the Video driver was the windows based driver, and not a VMware SVGA II driver like I am used to seeing.

[caption id=“attachment_42” align=“alignleft” width=“241” caption=“Microsoft Drivers”] [/caption]

[caption id=“attachment_43” align=“alignleft” width=“215” caption=“VMware SVGA II Driver (XPDM)”] [/caption]

…………………. What I did was manually install the driver from c:\program files\common files\vmware\drivers\video\, and then after the reboot, it would show like the picture on the right, with the VMware SVGA II driver. After doing some digging, I found out this was not supported, at least not in 2008 R2! In fact, running with the VMware SVGA II drivers can actually cause black screens and poor mouse performance according to VMware KB 1011709.

Blog Online

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 02:45:21 +0000

Well, I have got my blog up and running now. Unfortunately, I probably spent more time just picking a theme I liked than anything else.

As mentioned in my about page, I decided to blog because I wanted to make content available for people with similar problems or questions. Also, I think this will be a great way to keep me more up to date with technology, and more sharp with my troubleshooting skills. After reading Justin’s Why I Blog post , I decided I should too. I’ll just have to make sure I choose different topics, otherwise there might be some office violence. :) It shouldn’t be hard, since we work with such a wide variety of products, and hardware.