Last year VMware started offering VMware Learning Zone: “24/7 access to cloud-based VMware Training and Certification Exam Prep videos delivered by VMware Certified Instructors and experts.” Initially it was offered at the whopping price point of a cool $1,000. At that price I wasn’t interested. Shortly after getting my first email notification, I received another… Read More »
I have been a big fan of OpenSSL on the Linux platform, and have used it for many years to set up encrypted site-to-site VPN connections between locations. This usually entails me settings up a CentOS server at each location, dropping the latest rev of OpenSSL on each, and setting up the connections via hub… Read More »
In this post, I will be covering the process of upgrading NSX 6.1.4 to the newly released version 6.2.0. The lab requiring the update is running vCenter 5.5 Build 2442329, with two ESXi hosts running 5.5 U2 Build 2638301. Most of the really cool improvements I saw at VMworld 2015 surrounding version 6.2 (cross site… Read More »
Since vSphere 4.1 VMware has stated that for high Storage I/O VMs you should be using the Paravirtual (PVSCSI) controller, there are several deep dives into this topic so I won’t re-cover them here. LSI is used by default in Windows installs so unless you install the drivers using the floppy disk at the initial Windows… Read More »
I was reading Mark Achtemichuk’s (VCDX #50) article “Does corespersocket Affect Performance?” And decided to do some experimenting on my own. As we have a lot of monster VMs (VMs over 8 vCPU) we’ve known that turning off CPU Hotplug (which enables vNUMA awareness) is beneficial in our environment. After reading Mark’s article I wanted… Read More »
Here is the step by step process for adding the ability to authenticate via Active Directory (AD) to your vROps environment. Click on the Administration button: LDAP Import Sources: Add a new import source: Input the appropriate information: Click the test button to confirm that it works 😉 Confirm that you can import users from… Read More »
So this was a bit tougher than I expected 🙂 In a previous post I gathered together all of the official blueprint material into one zip file for ease of study, so read that obviously ;-). I also read Mastering VMware vSphere 6 by Nick Marshall (highly recommended) and I *still* had to take it… Read More »
The SSL VPN service for remote client connections is a pretty cool feature of the NSX Edge Gateway. The service can be setup to granularly allow specific internet networks to be presented back to the connecting client, can be configured to authenticate against AD/LDAP, and is all around a much easier approach than configuring SSH… Read More »
There are many add on network services offered by the Edge Gateway appliance. DNS, DHCP, Client SSL-VPN, stretched L2 SSL-VPN, IPSEC-VPN, and basic load balancing to name a few. I have to admit it is pretty cool to have all these network services neatly bundled into a single appliance! I am in process of migrating… Read More »
So a few minor irritations: The VCP6-DCV blueprint is no longer a downloadable pdf, but rather a dropdown menu here. There still isn’t an easy way to download all of the pdfs you’ll need to read to get ready to sit the exam. To satisfy #2 I’ve downloaded and zipped them all up here for… Read More »