A collection of nerdy things done in nerdy ways to break, fix, and learn technology
While some people may wake up each morning based on circadian rhythm alone, many of us require an alarm to wake up on time. What does the alarm clock (or alarm app) really do for you? It allows you to set a specific time at which a loud noise will happen. The noise does not…
It’s no surprise that VMware vSphere 6.7 was just released. Hot on the heels of this release was vSphere 6.5U2. If you’re like me, sometimes it is difficult to stay on top of the latest blogs when new releases hit unless you’re polling Twitter daily. To help us all stay in the know, this post…
Perhaps you’ve heard some buzz about Wavefront but don’t quite know what it is or how it can be used. I was in the same boat for a while, but then I saw a demo that blew my mind. Imagine a platform that could ingest time series data (or metrics) from various sources, retain all data…
Picture yourself in front of a rack of VxRail appliances. Ah, the bright shine of freshly racked and cabled new gear! The network team has VLANs ready. The operations team has picked out naming conventions for host names and virtual machines. Storage capacity will be more than enough to support growth efforts for the next…
Imagine having just configured some LUNs on your new PowerVault MD3820i. Encryption key management has been configured, and 20 SEDs (self-encrypting drives) are spinning and ready for use with vSphere. There are 4 SSDs in the PowerVault to use for caching that just need to be configured. “What do you mean these cache disks aren’t…
Excitement was in the air for the technology team of Beast Mode, Inc. After months of planning, some shiny new vSAN ReadyNodes finally arrived at the datacenter. The implementation team gathered to rack and cable the new cluster and all other necessary equipment. Even though ESXi was installed on the hosts with basic network settings configured,…
This year was the first time I was able to attend VMworld US, and it was an amazing experience. Just before the conference, I was contacted by someone at Spiceworks and asked to write a few articles about what it’s like to attend. Since there were several articles, I wanted to list all of them…
After finding out I was approved to attend VMworld this year, I signed up to present a vBrownBag Tech Talk on VMware vSAN. Just a few weeks before the conference, I was lucky to secure an official slot on the agenda for Thursday afternoon. The idea for the talk was pretty simple. If vSAN powered…
I’ve seen a number of blogs lately recommending sessions to attend for this year’s VMworld. And then there are a number of blogs people have written for the first time attendee which have been extremely helpful. Since I seem to be deriving a ton of value from various podcasts lately, I thought I would post…
What do you do when one of your most critical applications isn’t supported by your backup vendor? Do you find a new backup vendor, change applications, figure out a different solution, or cry silently in the fetal position on the server room floor? This, like any other problem, needed a solution, and this post is…