I tend to rebuild my home lab a few times a year; sometimes it is to try out a new process (e.g. scripted installs, upgrade paths, etc.), but more often than not it is because I have broken something so bad that it is just easier to restart. As part of that, I usually try to restore some key VMs from backup. However, the bigger struggle there is keeping my backup jobs up to date. ...
In addition to a couple of recent conversations with peers, a recent comment on a post on my site lead to a bit of a conversation around home labs and setups. Rather than going back and forth via comments, I figured I would write down some thoughts as a post. If nothing else, it will be easier to share and reference going forward. WHAT SHOULD MY LAB LOOK LIKE? Perfection is the enemy of progressIt depends …. But seriously, it depends on what you are trying to learn. If you are looking to learn about Active Directory and SQL Server, it will look a lot different if you are looking to learn more about vRealize Automation, for example. ...
2016 was a big year for me from a personal and career growth standpoint; I obtained vExpert for the first time, I launched my own Veeam User Group and became apart of the Veeam Vanguard, and I also presented at a couple of VMUGs. That in of itself was far more than I thought I could achieve, but something that I thought would never happened did: I was invited to a Tech Field Day event. ...
Ahh, CDP (Continuous Data Protection) - the feature that everyone has been waiting for. If you’re new to Veeam, or out of the loop, CDP was first announced way back at VeeamON 2017. There’s been a lot of hype about the feature, because in a nutshell it allows you to get RPOs down to a matter of seconds. It is also able to accomplish this without using snapshots. Sadly, it has taken a long time to come to market. The good news is that the Vanguards saw a functional demo of this at the Vanguard Summit recently. ...
Earlier this month, I was lucky enough to attend my fourth Veeam Vanguard Summit; if you aren’t familiar with the event, this is an experience like none other. I’ve written about the Vanguard program before, and chances are I’ll write about it again. The Summit is one pieceof the program, but in my opinion it is one of the most noteworthy components. In a nutshell, it is an opportunity for the Vanguards to spend time with some key Veeam staff, talk about current and upcoming technologies, and have some very deep NDA-level discussions. ...
Just a quick post today about a feature / configuration within vSphere that some folks may not be aware of. When troubleshooting issues, especially with ESXi hosts, we quite often need to collect log files to pass onto VMware support. Depending on what the issue is, if the affected host(s) crash, then there should also be a coredump. The coredump contains kernel-level details which can significantly help troubleshoot issues. The problem that I have seen some folks run into is with regards to the coredump location. In some cases such as PXE booting, persistent storage may not be available. This means that every time a host is rebooted, the contents of the storage is wiped. If you are writing coredumps to that location, then you’ll lose that valuable data. ...
Recently, my first anniversary working for VMware came and went. It’s crazy to think that it’s been a year. On the one hand, I still feel like the “new guy” every single day, and that’s OK because it means I am still learning. On the flip side, everyone who I have worked with has been top-notch – it feels like I’ve been here forever. With that in mind, I always enjoyed asking folks who jumped from customer to vendor, “What’s it like”? So, that’s where this blog post comes in. ...
So yeah, I totally went for a spammy title for this blog post 😊 Know why? Spam is deceiving, kind of like thinking there is an easy way into vExpert 😉 So what’s the point of this post? For one, I am a vExpert Pro, and part of my duty is to assist folks where and when I can, with regards to getting into the vExpert program. With that in mind, I wanted to write something up to assist folks with their vExpert applications. Below is some food for thought – it is not meant to be an “if you do this, you’ll be in” type of list, but rather “if you are serious about this, pay attention to these points”. This post was more or less spawned by this tweet: ...
Last week I had the opportunity and privilege to present at the Pittsburgh VMUG. In true vCommunity fashion though, there was a lot more going on than just the VMUG. I had to say, Pittsburgh does things right – I was there for two nights and it was non-stop work, networking, and learning. First off, there was a VMware TAM (Technical Account Manager) Customer Roundtable. I won’t go into too much detail as most of my readers likely don’t have a TAM (but you should!). What I saw there blew me away. The local team, along with the SMEs who came in for the event, were able to answer and assist customers with many of their problems and needs. What really stood out to me was how often customers were engaging each other. Questions around architecture, or why specific decisions were made were going back and forth. Congrats to the local VMware team for creating and fostering such a great community. ...
As has become a bit of a tradition for me, I’m taking the time to review my 2018 and set some goals for 2019. Why do I do this, particularly, why do I do it publicly on my blog? Well for one, it’s my blog so I can do what I want ;) But seriously, I have found that if I write something down I am far more accountable. There are especially some folks within the vCommunity who I know will hold me accountable as well. So in short, I think it is a great way to get things done. ...