Following on from my previous post on configuring custom ESXi images for PXE deployment, it piqued my interest again in Auto Deploy, now that I have a lab large enough (enough physical failure domains) to justify auto-deploy I figured i’d give it another go. I have chosen to implement stateless caching as it will allow […]
Building a customised ESXi image for PXE installation
I have recently been working on a larger scale platform for my employer, it requires quick deployments of environments on VSAN with some standardised VIBs added in, initially we were doing this with a standard ESXi ISO install through iDRAC and then installing vCenter, vSphere Update Manager and pushing the VIBs to the hosts via […]
vSphere Update Manager – Cannot Scan Host
I have been testing out Runecast Analyzer in my lab recently – it’s pretty badass, you can set it up to scan your virtual infrastructure at a vCenter level and will scan your vC, VMs and hosts looking for KBs that may apply, security compliance and best practises. As you can see my lab isn’t […]
In need of a multi-OS, bootable USB? Use an Android phone.
I found myself in the position recently whereby I had two hosts I bought off eBay (as one does for labs), they arrived, I had great plans… But no iDRAC Enterprise :( While the iDRAC Ent cards were on their way to me I couldn’t help but want to install ESXi on these things so […]
VSAN Observer RVC in vCenter Appliance 6.0 U1
I have been working with VSAN in the lab recently and had the need to get some deeper stats on the inner operations. I had upgraded the lab to ESXi 6.0 U1 and vCenter 6.0 U1 and for the life of me couldn’t get the RVC console in the VCSA to work per the VMware […]
Guest post for Ravello Systems
I was recently approached to write a guest blog post for Ravello Systems on Novosco’s use of their AWS/GCE hosted ESXi labs for CI automation testing.
Deploying Dell OpenManage on ESXi and vCenter 6
If you’ve been reading my other posts of late, you will have gathered I’ve been building a new lab. I say “new”, the last one was a single R710 with a ReadyNas Ultra 6 attached. So essentially, this is my first REAL lab. It’s mostly based on Dell hardware; it’s cheap on eBay, I like […]
vSphere HA Configuration fails: Operation Timed Out
I recently rebuilt my lab and added 2x new ESXi hosts, I re-used my old single host in the process which I upgraded from ESXi 5.5 to 6.0 and patched to the same level as the new hosts. Everything was working as expected until it came for the time to enable HA. My old host […]
Safely check/remove orphaned VMDK files from ESXi
I have come across a number of environments where mystery “snapshot” files exist – they are not seen in snapshot manager, running a consolidation them doesn’t help, creating a snapshot (with memory, or guest OS quiescing) then running “Delete All” doesn’t resolve it, but some applications still think a snapshot is there. To take care […]
Deployment Options for vCenter Server Appliance 6.0
The new version of vSphere brings some major improvements to the vCenter management end of things, the main thing is that it is now a highly available solution (previously reserved for vCenter Server Heartbeat – a separate, now EOL, product VMware offered) that can run in two modes.