I am happy to announce that I have been awarded VMware vExpert 2023!! I was beside myself when I got the email from VMware with the announcement and I want to thank Corey Romero along with the rest of the team that spent countless hours going through all the applicants. The vExpert program is designed… Read More »
I have demonstrated in previous blog posts how to deploy VMware vCenter 6.7 and 7.0 both manually and with automation using Ansible. Now that vSphere 8 is GA, I have upgraded my lab to see new features in action and familiarize myself with the new look! I took screenshots along the way to share how it… Read More »
Deploy NetApp Cloud Volume ONTAP (CVO) In My previous blog post Deploy NetApp CVO – PART1 (AzureVPN) I demonstrate creating a Site-to-Site VPN using Azure VPN. I will continue to use the Azure resources to deploy NetApp CVO. What is NetApp Cloud Manager (BlueXP) Cloud Manager enables IT experts and cloud architects to centrally manage… Read More »
Background: As more and more companies move workloads towards the cloud, having a solid foundation is crucial (security / network connectivity). While there are several ways to connect your on-premises environment or, in my case, a lab to Azure. This blog post will show you how to use the Azure portal to create an Azure… Read More »
VMware Explore 2022, formerly VMworld, is back to in person attendance in San Francisco!! While it’s not as crowded as years past, it was great to be in person and connect with customers and friends. My top two goals were to attend everything automation and security related. While walking out of a ‘Ransomware Prevention’ session,… Read More »
Ransomware is on everyone’s mind or at least it should be… Please be aware this is not a prescription to keep you from being hacked, but rather an improvement of your security posture specific to vSphere. Attackers are constantly looking for weaknesses in your IT environment to exploit for malicious purposes. To help minimize a… Read More »
Over the years, VMware ESXi has allowed installation on multiple boot device types across various hardware platforms (blade chassis and/or rackmount servers). The boot device types included internal hard drives, and best practice was to have redundant drives in RAID 1 which increased the deployment cost. Another option was to boot from SAN, using either… Read More »
In a previous post on StorageGRID I discuss what Object Storage is and its use cases. In todays post, I will demonstrate how to deploy the virtual NetApp StorageGrid appliance in my VMware HomeLab using my Intel NUCs. If you have been following my blog posts, I have been demonstrating how I make use of… Read More »
In my previous blog post, I showed how to create a Customized Script that will help Automate the Deployment of Gold Master Templates. Now lets make use of the VMware vCenter feature (script) that automates the ability rename your Windows Server, assign an IP address, join your Active Directory, and upgrade vmtools if needed. I… Read More »
As I build out my lab, there are often times when I need to rapidly deploy a virtual machine (VM). It would be nice if you could just deploy a VM, having all Windows patches applied, vmtools installed, IP address assigned and join your Active Directory (AD). Sure, you can manually deploy a VM and… Read More »