Quick and Dirty HTTP Based Deployment

A lot of the scripted installation tools that VMware offers allows the usage of a central HTTP based repository for hosting the files. Today I stumbled over a little gem that might just help you create a “quick and dirty” HTTP based deplo...

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Quick and Dirty ESXi 5.1U1 Upgrade

Now that VMware ESXi 5.1 Update 1 has been released I decided to do a quick and dirty upgrade of my home installation. I refuse to call it a lab these days, since it´s one singular host and all it does it contain my home domain controller… Any...

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Adding a secondary NIC to the vCenter 5.1 Appliance (VCSA)

While building my lab environment, I ran into a situation where I wanted to have a completely sealed off networking segment that had no outside access. This is a trivial task on it`s own, just create a vSwitch with no physical NICs attached to it, an...

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Installing Dell Equallogic Multipathing Extension Module (MEM) in vSphere 5.1

Dell offers a Multipathing Extension Module (MEM) for vSphere, and in this post I´ll highlight how to “manually” install it on a ESXi 5.1 host. I will not cover the network setup part of the equation, but rather go through the simple st...

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It`s Not Your Average Data it`s vOpenData

So, what is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? As we all (should) know, that is very much a trick question. Now, consider this little non-trick question: I wonder what the avg disk size is for your virtual machine these days. I do m...

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Brilliant idea: VMware Hosted Beta

Duncan Epping rather unceremoniously published a blog post “New Beta Program offering: VMware Hosted Beta” yesterday, outlining the availability of the new hosted beta offering that companions some of the current VMware beta programs. Due...

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Backing up vCenter DB with Veeam B&R 6.5

It´s a well known problem that with Veeam Backup & Recovery Replication 6.5, and earlier, backing up the SQL server that hosts the vCenter DB poses a problem. KB1051 VSS for vCenter outlines the issue well, and provides a workaround. If you ex...

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Preserve your Veeam B&R Backups Jobs when Moving vCenter

This week I´m working at a client site, upgrading their entire existing vSphere 4.1 infrastructure to vSphere 5.1. The customer engagement also includes upgrading Veeam Backup and Replication 6.0 to 6.5, and usually an isolated upgrade of Veeam B&am...

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Autolab goes Cloudy with a Chance of Free Credits

Autolab, that awesome “little” thing that automagically builds a nested vSphere Lab environment for you, was definitely not put together by Flint Lockwood but by Alastair Cooke (www.demitasse.co.nz). Unlike Flint´s inventions, this on...

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Keep Calm And …

I needed some new wall “art” for my home office, and decided that a couple of small “Keep Calm” posters would do the trick.  Naturally I got a bit carried away, and created more than one, and of course, most of them are virtu...

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