Infoblox & vRealize Automation, Infoblox NIOS setup
This is Part 1 of setting up the native Infoblox IPAM integration with VMware vRealize Automation. In this blogpost I will show you how to do the required setup of Infoblox NIOS to be used by vRealize Automation. Instead of Infoblox I will be using…
Infoblox & vRealize Automation, IP Address Management (IPAM) made easy
Do you remember… Back in the days when we all had lots of physical servers to manage you probably remember having several lists to write down server specific information such as rack, position, network patches, server name, IP address etc. etc. A lot has changed…
How to run Containers as a Service – Secure Docker communications
Last March, Dimitri did an excellent series on ‘How to run Containers as a Service’. In part 1, Dimitri describes containers, the problems of running containers and possible solutions. In part 2, he published a very elaborate guide on how to configure Containers as a Service…
Prepare Windows for vRA software deployment
With vRealize Automation you can install and configure software during deployment. For this to happen a Bootstrap agent has to be in place. This agent can be installed manual or in case of Linux with the help of a template script. In this article I…
Using VMware NSX to get IPv6 connectivity at home
IPv6 is here and IPv4 is definitely running out of time. Here in the Netherlands, the consumer internet providers have been “working on it” for years. I’ve been lobbying for IPv6 connectivity for years, without much luck. After a time of experimenting with IPv6-over-IPv4 tunnels…
Connecting a VPN between AWS and VMware NSX
Amazon Web Services has a few ways of giving you connectivity: internet, Direct Connect (a physical line) and VPN. While AWS has a ton of examples for firewall/VPN vendors, there is none for connecting with NSX. I needed to connect a NSX network with AWS…
Two vCPU NSX controller for lab environment
When installing NSX in a environment, you will at some point need to deploy NSX controllers. By default these controllers are equiped with four vCPU’s, which is fine for a production environment. But if you want to play around with NSX in a lab environment like I…
Removing the VMware NSX Solution from vCenter
If you want to remove VMware NSX from your vSphere environment, it’s as simple as reversing the installation steps (remove logical network configuration, remove NSX Service VMs, remove the NSX VIBs from the ESXi hosts and remove the NSX Manager). NSX is completely managed through…
Linux Desktops with Horizon
Since version 6 Horizon has the possibility to use Linux desktops for VDI. There are other ways to access your Linux, like VNC,NX, X-terminals, or even SSH if you only need a text based session. By using Horizon to deliver your Linux desktop you get…
A low budget SMB environment – Part 3: Configure and Run
This is the final part of the series on a low budget SMB or lab environment with VMware and vendor support. In this part we will configure our hosts, connect them to the storage, deploy vCenter and deploy our first virtual machine. In the last…
vRealize Operations: Adding an OS Monitor Script
Besides monitoring Windows Services and the vCenter Server Appliance, you can also use vRealize Operations to monitor custom data through OS scripts. Attached to an Operating System object, an OS Script can output the health status and/or a metric for use in analysis. I will…
Upgrade to vRealize Log Insight 3.3
vRealize Log Insight 3.3 was released in March. Now that the first update for Log Insight (3.3.1) was released last week it is time to upgrade to the latest version. Log Insight 3.3 gives you some long awaited features and more IPv6 goodness. If you didn’t…
PowerShell Friday: Configuring vSphere MTU Size
Several vSphere components can benefit from using a larger network frame size (MTU) than the regular size of 1500 bytes. vMotion, Storage: NFS, iSCSI and VSAN are examples that would gain some performance by increasing the frame size. In most cases, you would configure the…
A low budget SMB environment – Part 2: How to Assemble
A couple of weeks ago, I started with “A Low Budget SMB Environment“. This post was mainly focussed on the selection and purchase of the different components. This post will take it to the next level: Assembly. We will look at the specific parts, assemble…
vCenter Server appliance 6.0 URL-based patching
With the recent release of vCenter Server appliance 6.0 Update 1b support was added for patching your vCenter server appliance, making use of a URL within your company network. Before this patch your vCenter appliance would have to make a direct connection with the internet and…