Introduction The topic of vSphere upgrades is a hot one with every new release of VMware’s flagship platform. Architectures change, new features are introduced, old ones are removed, and so everyone is scrambling to figure out how to move to the next version and what process they should use. There are generally two …

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vSphere 6.5 was released at the end of 2016 and so, at this point, has been on the market for about a year. VMware introduced several new features in vSphere 6.5, and several of them are very, very useful however sometimes people don’t take the time to really read and understand these new features to solve problems …

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For those who use vRealize Automation (vRA), you’re probably all too familiar with vSphere templates and how they are the crux of your service catalog. Unless you’re creating machine deployments anew from another build tool, you’re probably using them, and it’s likely you have at least two, sometimes many more. Using …

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Although vRealize Operations Manager (vROps) is a great tool for a variety of reasons, one of the more useful abilities it brings to a datacenter is the ability to look inside the guest OS and tell you about its state. Back in 6.2 or maybe 6.3, VMware added the ability to look at guest OS metrics. One of the things …

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Everyone’s got one, everyone needs them, and most people struggle with them. I’m talking about custom machine names, of course. Just like organizations themselves, naming schemes can be, and are about, as varied as possible. Some companies have fairly straightforward names with maybe two elements while others have …

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Backup servers, I think we can all agree, are of primary importance. We rely upon them for business continuity as much as we rely upon other systems of primary record like Active Directory or DNS. So why is it that we monitor the latter systems with such fervor and the former not at all? Often times, we don’t know that …

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Between speaking with customers, architecting and deploying solutions, and helping others out with their issues on the VMware Communities forums, I encounter a lot of problems and get a lot of info on how customers do business with their CMPs. One of the requests that keeps coming up over and over again is how to deal …

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I wrote last about the first two days of VMworld 2017 and then nothing else. There’s a good reason for that since day three contained no general sessions. Day four consisted of three different speakers from areas such as bionics, AI, and medical technology presenting their latest research and giving an effective …

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Day two was a little slower on the release/announcements side, but there were still a few things mentioned both at VMworld, and also press releases that weren’t spoken at the conference. I’ll give you a run-down of both of those things so we cover all the bases. Pivotal Container Service (PKS): Yes, the word …

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Well, today was the first full day at VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas for all attendees. The prior two days were just for partners and known as Partner Exchange. But today was the first full regular day that included a general session for all attendees. Let me summarize the key points for our readers out there who aren’t …

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