Best Practices for Hardening the Veeam Backup Repository (Windows)
A good way of hardening the backup repository is by running it on a standalone Windows Server with storage attached to it. Create/Use a local account with administrative access and make sure only this (newly created) account has access rights to the location where the…
New Lab Stuff
Some time ago, back in December of 2015, I started a three-part story on how to have a supported SMB or lab environment. It consisted of a couple of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Microserver Gen 8’s and a NAS by QNAP. Check out the three part…
Running OTNSX in a Docker container
In march of this year we released a whitepaper on automating security using a helpdesk system. For the whitepaper we where using VMware NSX and OTRS. The middleware we created to service it all was given the name OTNSX. More recently I have started playing…
What is the VMware Virtual Cloud Network?
A couple of weeks ago, VMware launched the Virtual Cloud Network (VCN). It’s kind of obvious that this is a marketing term and not a specific product or service. However, it’s not all fluff and there is actually some good meat behind this announcement and…
Upgrade vRealize Suite using vRealize Lifecycle Manager
Recently VMware updated their entire vRealize Suite. It’s always nice to receive a new suite of products with new shiny functionality but it also means a lot of work for you sysadmins, upgrading your entire environment. Well, not any more! With vRealize Lifecycle Manager it…
A first look at vRealize Content Management
In my last blogpost I wrote about managing your Puppet code using a Source Control repository. This post is an extension on that one where I will talk about managing your vRealize content with VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) plus bring it under source…
Managing Puppet code with a source control repository
Last couple of months I’ve been working closely with Puppet. I wrote some blogs about it, recorded a VMware vRA Expert Talk video and had two successful events in the Netherlands where I presented and demo’ed the Puppet Enterprise integration with VMware vRealize Automation. For…
VMware NSX & OTRS – Automating Security with Help Desk Systems
Over the last couple of months, Sander, Anne Jan and I have been working on a security whitepaper that lays out a practical implementation of zero trust while interfacing with a helpdesk system. In this case, OTRS. It’s all about how engineers can get access…
vExpert 2018 Announcement – All VMGurus now vExperts
The VMware Social team announced the vExpert class of 2018 yesterday. With the acceptance of Dimitri into the vExpert program, I’m proud to say that all the VMGurus are now vExperts: vExpert Directory Some crazier than others, Erik has been a vExpert for a decade…
PowervRNI is now on PowerShell Gallery
PowerShell is about making things easy and consumable. Same goes for PowervRNI, making repetitive tasks in vRealize Network Insight easier and make it possible to extract information from vRNI. It’s not that easy to load a custom module into PowerShell though, you have to download…
How to build a Hyper-Available Infrastructure – Part 1: Overview
In today’s digital world we highly depend on services and their corresponding data to be available 24/7. We are frantic about our digital life and demand the underlying infrastructures to be Hyper-available. While traveling through the region to visit customers and partners, I am highly…
20 Years VMware – Past to Present
This blog started 10 years ago because a few friends were enthusiastic about virtualization and specifically VMware. Not unlike the way VMware started 20 years ago. Over those years, VMware’s products have grown and matured, and VMware has grown with them. Today, virtualizing your servers…
Production-ready Kubernetes with Pivotal Container Service (PKS)
Traditionally, containers have been difficult to work with. But during the last years, containers have become increasingly common and crucial in cloud computing. And when you say ‘Containers’, Kubernetes (or K8s) is never far away. Kubernetes is a system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized…
