Everything-Virtual

Author: Simon

  • Installing the vCSA 5.1 Appliance

    In my old lab I ran a lot of Windows 2008 R2 based infrastructure, not only was I running a fully deployed Active Directory Domain but I also had SQL 2008 R2 and SCCM 2007 but I was also running vCenter on 2008R2 as well, the main reason for this was due to the limitations that were in the original vCSA based on ESXi 5.0.

    In Home Lab 2013 I decided to upgrade not just the physical side but also the virtual and that meant looking at some of my existing infrastructure and deciding on whether to keep it or upgrade.

    Gone is the 2008 R2 based Active Directory Domain, in it’s place I am now running a 2012 Active Directory Domain Controller (no in place upgrade, I just deleted and started from scratch), that also meant that my SCCM 2007 infrastructure went (one of the technologies that I seem to get stuck with with every job so glad it’s gone really Smile), also gone is the vCenter server that was running on 2008R2, I had played around with installing it onto 2012 and whilst I managed to get it to work (you have to delete a service dependency) I wanted to ensure that all of my virtual infrastructure was actually properly supported so that meant looking at the vCSA.

    With the release of vSphere 5.1 there was obviously the additional requirements for the SSO and Inventory services to be installed prior to installing vCenter, with the vCSA 5.1 release this comes bundled up as part of the OVF and makes the installation and configuration very simple (those of you who have installed vCenter 5.1 know that SSO can be a little bit ‘temperamental’).

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  • VMware vExpert 2013 – Now extended to the 22nd April

    John Troyer (@jtroyer) just blogged the announcement that the vExpert 2013 applications are open.

    To become a vExpert you have three paths to choose from.

    Evangelist Path

    The Evangelist Path includes book authors, bloggers, tool builders, public speakers, VMTN contributors, and other IT professionals who share their knowledge and passion with others with the leverage of a personal public platform to reach many people. Employees of VMware can also apply via the Evangelist path. A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren’t all in public or were in a language other than English.

    Customer Path

    The Customer Path is for leaders from VMware customer organizations. They have been internal champions in their organizations, or worked with VMware to build success stories, act as customer references, given public interviews, spoken at conferences, or were VMUG leaders. A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren’t all in public.

    VPN (VMware Partner Network) Path

    The VPN Path is for employees of our partner companies who lead with passion and by example, who are committed to continuous learning through accreditations and certifications and to making their technical knowledge and expertise available to many. This can take shape of event participation, video, IP generation, as well as public speaking engagements. A VMware employee reference is required for VPN Path candidates.

    To apply to become a vExpert click here

  • Home Lab 2013 – The Next Generation

    For the last couple of years I have been happy using the Lenovo TS200 servers as my basis for my home lab environment, unfortunately with the restriction of 16GB ram per server (32GB if I purchased completely new ram at far too expensive costs) and my ever increasing pool of VMs running on my hosts I decided to upgrade my home servers to something a little more powerful, a lesson I learned from my experience with using the Lenovo’s was that I wanted something with a smaller footprint but capable of running more workloads. The current max ram capacity of my 3 Lenovo hosts was 48GB of ram but with three hosts running I started to find myself not needing radiators in my house Winking smile

    The new 2013 ESXi 5.1 Lab Host:

    Because I already had 3 hosts in my old lab I didn’t want to reduce that number down too much so I decided to go for 2 hosts currently with the option of getting another host in the future should resource start being an issue. Without a second host I wouldn’t be able to play with goodies such as HA/DRS and vMotion?!

    ShuttleShuttle XPC SH67H3 – I have had some really good experiences with Shuttle PC’s in the past and having read a few peoples experiences with the XPC SH67 range I decided to look at the offerings. Like all Shuttle systems its a small compact system that is capable of supporting the newer Ivy Bridge processors and up to 32GB memory **Only newer version 2.0 SH67H3’s support Ivy Bridge cpus so check to see whether your motherboard supports it. You may also be required to update to the newest BIOS to support the newer cpu (of my two shuttles, one supported the new cpu from the outset whilst the the 2nd didn’t and needed the firmware updating, an issue if you don’t have a Sandy Bridge cpu to put into the Shuttle to update it with).

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  • Top VMware Blogs 2013 – Call for Votes

    Every year Eric Siebert from vSphere-Land.com runs a vote for the top 50 VMware and Virtualisation blogs. As there now are over 200 blogs listed on the nominations list there are a lot of sites to choose from. Last year I managed to get into 88th position and would obviously love to stay on the list.

    The voting is simple and should take no longer than a couple of minutes and allows you to choose your top 10 favourite listed blogs. The scoring is such that a #1 vote gives you 10 points, #2 vote gives you 9 points all the way down to a single point for a 10th place vote.

    The following criteria should be taken into consideration when voting.

    • How often do they post
    • How well are the posts written
    • How long are the posts
    • How long have they been blogging

    If you like the content that I provide here and would like to cast a vote for my blog I would really appreciate it, the blogging is done because I want to do it but I hope you the reader also get something out of it.

    Thanks for continuing to read the blog and come back soon.

  • A year in the life of Everything-Virtual.com

    One of the perks of running a WordPress powered blog is that I get a nice little report at the end of the year showing my stats for the year.

    A quick run down for 2012

    “19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 70,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.”

    Compared to 2011 this is a massive increase Smile

    “The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 24,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.”

    All I can say is thanks to my readers for continuing to read my site Smile

    Click here to view the entire report

  • Non-Techy Update

    So I have been fairly quiet on the blog recently due to real life catching up with me.

    My wife recently gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who has been taking up a lot of my time recently Smile

    Anna

    Welcome to the world Anna Christina Smile

  • 360GSP VCP 5 – DV ICM Course

    I recently had the experience of going back to 360GSP to undertake my VCP 5 training. I had used them previously for my VCP 4 training and was more than impressed the first time around.

    So first things first, there have been some changes to the way that 360GSP run their VMware courses, previously they ran the VCP 4 training over 3 weekends, this time around however the VCP 5 ICM (Install Config and Manage) course is being run over 4 week ends, that’s 8 days of training where as if you go through most training providers they only do it in 5 days.

    For those of you who don’t know, the VCP tests more than what’s covered in just the ICM course, it’s expected that students will also use extra material to cover the shortfall in knowledge to pass the VCP5 exam, so by using the extra days study to cover extra material 360GSP are hopefully providing the extra boost to their students to help them a little further along with their study prep for the exam.

    Another thing that’s changed since my ICM 4 course was the class size, the new courses now have 16 students in the class (actually 17 in my class as one of their students who was booked on the course in the new year had to get bumped onto this course due to a change in circumstances), with 17 students on the class there was an initial shortfall in environments but the instructor came to the rescue with another ESXi test environment before the start of lab 2.

    One thing that was clear to me on this course is that the level of students ability on this course is much higher than I have seen on previous courses (not just with 360GSP but also other providers), it’s actually refreshing talking to other like minded people who actually know what the product does and how to use it.

    During my time on the course I also managed to have a long conversation with the owner of 360GSP (Sher) and it was refreshing to see someone with such passion for his company and staff, it’s obvious that 360GSP are wanting to expand on their training offerings but are being somewhat held back by a lack of more decent instructors (there are only so many days a man can work).

    The weekends we structured in such a way that course content was covered in a logical way and we weren’t left between subjects, this also allowed for a good mix of study and discussions between all of the candidates, it was really good to sit down during lunch and have a chat with Systems Designers, Architects and Engineers, the students are a mix of levels but all have a really good grasp on the various different aspects of the course.

    It’s obvious that VMware have dropped various subjects from the curriculum, unfortunately these subjects aren’t the type that, in my opinion, should be left out (for example DVS, Host Profiles, DPM) and it was the same with 360GSP, Dai took the time to take us through the lessons from the ICM 4.1 class so that the class had a better understanding of the missing subjects to aid us in the studying for the VCP5 DV exam.

    I have been very impressed with the level of instruction from Dai (who really should find the time to do his VCAP exams Smile) and the makeup of the students this time made for some very interesting class led discussions.
    This has been one of the best classroom based training courses I have attended for a while, sure the 400miles of driving every weekend (£100 of fuel ) is still taking it’s toll (not just on me but the car as well which I don’t like putting extraneous mileage on) but the guys on the course and the course itself were worth every minute.
    10/10 to 360GSP for the class and instructor and 11/10 to the students who made up the class and made it really enjoyable.

  • VMware vSphere Client Download URL’s

    Please fine a list of all vSphere client download urls. the urls all refer back to the original VMware website rather than being hosted by me.

    I will update the URLs when more clients are made available.

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  • VCP5 – Cloud \ IaaS Study Training Material

    So I have been fairly quiet recently and this is due to current work commitments. Work have undertaken a large Cloud Project which is great for me as it’s giving me an opportunity to gain an insight to vCD, vCOPS and the rest of the vCloud Suite of products.

    With the area that I am heading in I started looking at the training requirements needed for vCloud certification and there are currently two different exams dedicated to the Cloud, as luck would have it though they both pretty much have the same knowledge requirements.

    VCP5 – Cloud is a new exam coming soon from VMware that will directly test you on both the vSphere and vCloud products, whereas the IaaS exam requires that you already have the VCP5 – DV certification and in addition have to pass the VCPVCD510 exam (which is based on the VMware vCloud- Deploy and Manage the VMware Cloud [V1.5] course although the course isn’t a requirement to attend unlike the VCP course).

     

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  • VMware Announce the VCAP-DTD Certification Track

    VMware have just announced the availability of the VCAP-DTD exam track. This track is aimed at Desktop Design and focuses on VMware View \ ThinApp and ESXi.

    The pre-requisites are :-

    VMW-VCP5-DT-101

    VMware suggest doing the following courses although they are not a requirement :-

    VMware View- Install, Configure, Manage [V5.0]

    VMware View- Install, Configure, Manage [V5.1]

    Application Virtualization with VMware ThinApp

    VMware View- Design Best Practices [V5.0]]

    More information can be found over on the VMware MyLearn Site