Series & Topics

Home Lab

• Home Lab 2019/2020

Architecture (Infrastructure) design

• Role and responsibility of IT Infrastructure Technical Architect
• CPU capacity planning and sizing
• Logical design - storage performance sizing

Business Continuity - High Availability, Disaster Recovery, Disaster Avoidance

•  VMware Metro Storage Cluster - is it DR solution? 
•  Metro Cluster High Availability or SRM Disaster Recovery?
  

Photon OS and Docker

• VMware Photon OS with PowerCLI
• New Home Lab managed by containerized PowerCLI and RACADM

VMware vSAN

• vSAN : Capacity planning - Number of required ESXi hosts
• vSAN : Capacity planning - Understanding vSAN memory consumption in ESXi
• vSAN : Capacity planning - vSAN Capacity and Performance Sizer
• vSAN : Encryption and Core Dumps
• vSAN : How to configure Jumbo Frames not only for vSAN
• vSAN : Encryption and Core Dumps
• vSAN : Logical design and SSD versus NVMe considerations
• vSAN : Understanding vSAN Architecture Components

DevOps

• vSphere Integrated Containers : PoC in my home lab

VMware SSO Domain

• VMware SSO domain design and operational management
• VMware vSphere 6.0 PSC and SSO Domain useful resources

VMware NSX

• VMware NSX useful resources
• NSX Edge Services Gateway Form Factors
• NSX Basic Concepts, Tips and Tricks
• ESXi Physical NIC Capabilities for NSX VTEP

VMware vRealize Orchestrator

• vRealize Orchestrator - useful tips and commands
• vRealize Orchestrator 7.x - Unlocking vRO Root Account after too many failed login attempts

VMware DVS (Distributed Virtual Switch)

• Back to the basics - VMware vSphere networking
• VMware DVS - change default policy
• VMware vSphere DVS LACP timers
• End to End QoS solution for VMware vSphere with NSX on top of Cisco UCS (DVS QoS Marking - 802.1p, DSCP)
• vSphere Switch Independent Teaming or LACP?

VMware VM hardware and CPU Features

• VMware Virtual Machine Hardware Version and CPU Features
• Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) in VMware VM
  

VMware vSphere and Storage Queueing

• Qlogic HBA adapter Queue depth in windows 2008 r2
• High latency on vSphere datastore backed by NFS
• Disk queue depth in an ESXi environment
• How to get more IOPS from a single VM?

VMware vSphere and Storage

• How to get more IOPS from a single VM?
• ESXi : How to mask storage device causing some issues
• No Storage, No vSphere, No Datacenter
• VMworld US 2018 - VIN2416BU - Core Storage Best Practices

 

VMware vSphere Storage Intelligent Operations during storage issues

• enable_action_OnRetryErrors - David Pasek : No Storage, No vSphere, No Datacenter
• /Misc/EnablePSPLatencyPolicy - David Pasek : New with vSphere 6.7 U1 - Enhanced Load Balancing Path Selection Policy
• /Scsi/ExtendAPDCondition (APD when LUN returns SCSI NOT READY) - Dusan Tekeljak : ESXi 6.7 U1 fixes: APD and VMCP is not triggered even when no paths can service I/Os

VMware Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (SDRS)

• Storage DRS Design Considerations
• VMware vSphere SDRS - test plan of SDRS initial placement
• VMware vSphere SDRS VM provisioning process
• Storage DRS integration with storage profiles
• SDRS Initial Placement - interim storage lease between recommendation and provisioning
• Undocumented SDRS Advanced Options

VMware vSphere Driver & Firmware Management

• Updating Firmware in vSAN Clusters from VUM
• How to check I/O device on VMware HCL
• How to show HBA/NIC driver version
• ESXi Network Troubleshooting (NIC Adapters Information)

VMware vSphere Advanced Parameters

• Undocumented SDRS Advanced Options
• Undocumented HA Advanced Option - das.restartVmsWithoutResourceChecks
• Virtual Machine Advanced Configuration Options

VMware Tools

• How to install VMware tools on FreeBSD server
• PowerCLI script to report VMtools version(s)
• VMware Tools 10 and "shared productLocker"
• VMware Tools Community Module Introduction

VMware and CPU Feature Sets (CPU Instructions)

• VMware Virtual Machine Hardware Version and CPU Features
• How to disable Spectre and Meltdown mitigations? (CPU Capabilities IBRS, IBPB, STIBP)
• VMware Response to Speculative Execution security issues, CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5754 (aka Spectre and Meltdown) (CPU Capabilities IBRS, IBPB, STIBP)
• Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) in VMware VM

UNDOCUMENTED vSphere Advanced Options

• Undocumented HA Advanced Option - das.restartVmsWithoutResourceChecks
• Undocumented SDRS Advanced Options
  

DELL Force10

• Part 1 - Series Introduction
• Part 2 - Initial switch configuration and Firmware Upgrade
• Part 3 - Interface Configuration and VLANs
• Part 4 - Spanning Tree BPDU Guard vs BPDU Filtering 
• Part 5 - VLT - Virtual Link Trunking
• Part 6 - mVLT – Ethernet Loop Free Topology between two VLT domains
• Part 7 - DCB configuration
• Part 8 - Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF)
• Part 9 - DNS, Time and Syslog server configuration
• Appendix A - Recovering from a Forgotten Password on the Force10 S series switch
• Appendix B - Force10 VLT - Design Verification Test Plan
• Appendix C-  Force10 switch and NIC Teaming
• Appendix D - Resetting DELL Force10 to factory defaults
• Appendix E - Force10 Link Dampening
• Appendix F - Force10 VTL and vSphere Networking
• Appendix G - Force10 Operating System 9.10 changes maximum MTU size
• Appendix H - Dell VLT reference architecture v2.0

iSCSI

• iSCSI and Ethernet
• iSCSI Best Practices
• iSCSI Best Practices - 2020 review
  
• Force10 switch port iSCSI configuration
• DELL Force10 : iSCSI DCB configuration
• DELL Force10 : DCB configuration - design decision justification and configuration 
• Unified Network, DCB and iSCSI challenges 
• Data Center Bridging
  

FreeBSD

• How to install VMware tools on FreeBSD server
• FreeBSD running from read-only compact flash disk and accessible over serial console (COM1)
• FreeBSD with multiple Serial Adapters acting as Access Console Server
• GSM/GPRS Modem Siemens ES75 - useful AT commands
• PRTG alerts phone call notifications
• How to create FreeBSD memstick in running FreeBSD system
• SNMP Trap Receiver on FreeBSD
• PPTP VPN in FreeBSD
• iSCSI on FreeBSD
• FreeBSD and multiple gateways
• Internet FailOver script for FreeBSD written in Perl