I have been asked how to do this twice in so many days. So here is a quick post on how to copy files between the local datastores on standalone ESXi hosts without access to shared storage. There are a number of ways to accomplish this, one way is using scp at the ESXi command line.

SSH access has to be enabled on the host you are copying to (and on the host you are copying from if you are accessing it via SSH).

scp path_to_file_to_copy root@FQDN_or_remote_host_ip:path_to_new_file_location

For example if you have an ISO named Win.iso on the local datastore1 of ESXi-1 (192.168.1.25) and you want to copy it to the local datastore1 of ESXi-2 (192.168.1.201):

scp /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/Win.iso root@192.168.1.201:/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/Win.iso

You will be prompted for the root password of the remote host and once you have successfully authenticated the file will copy.

I know this works on ESXi 5.x hosts, not sure about earlier versions. Again make sure SSH is enabled on the remote host.

Happy Friday!!!

Had a great time in Las Vegas for VMware PEX 2013. I attended a lot of great sessions and meet some really cool people.

Had some really great sessions my last day at PEX. The Virtualizing Business Critical Applications for Maximum Performance session with @vmMarkA was excellent. Some really good performance best practices and a ton of great performance troubleshooting information. Specifically the information on the key metrics to monitor when trouble shooting performance issues. A lot of information packed into this one hour session and I have a few pages of notes on it. These will most certainly be summarized in another post in the very near future.

I also attended two other fantastic sessions on my final day, one on Exchange Virtualization Best Practices by @afontana_vmw and another which was a HA Deep Dive for SQL Server Virtualization by Scott Salyer of VMware. The Exchange session expanded a bit on the earlier performance session offering up some Exchange specific performance tuning options. The HA Deep Dive for SQL dove deep into the different HA options for SQL. Again, once I organize my notes there will probably be a separate post with a bit more detail on these session.

Finally got a chance to meet up with @nfritsch. Great guy! Had a great discussion with him about Citrix VDI and we chatted a bit about VMUG. Great to meet you Nick and look forward to chatting with you again soon.

The only thing I was disappointed with at PEX were the General Session Keynotes. Not sure what I was expecting but even with the stage setup and elaborate production these were anticlimactic (how awesome can a tech keynote be, don’t know but I was expecting more) and uninspiring. I can’t say that keynotes were very beneficial to me.

Where the keynotes were pretty blah, the guest speaker, Shawn Achor who gave a talk during the General Session on the second day was fantastic. Will probably end up buying his book, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, hope it is as interesting and entertaining as his presentation was.

I had a great time, learned a bunch of new stuff, and met a lot of really cool people. Look forward to the next one.

Nick @nfritsch

Damian (@sixfootdad) doing some work on AutoLab in the Hang Space.

Hey look it’s me! (This picture won me an iPad in the Brocade/EMC twitter contest!!!)

Fingers crossed for @timantz and @kennega and everyone else that defended for VCDX at PEX. You guys are awesome and inspiring!

Well I meant to do a quick post last night but after making a small donation to the Mandalay Bay Casino and some time at the Ri Ra Pub by the time Sandy and I got back to the room I was pretty much done for the night.

VMware PEX day 2 was great! Actually I guess officially it was day 1 of PEX, but it was my 2nd day of enjoying the festivities of all things VMWare

Took part in the SRM Essentials Boot Camp in the morning. The Boot Camp was pretty good, but it was just about the basics. Still some good information but it was gear towards someone who had not done an implementation or worked with SRM. The session had a lot of great information just not really anything new for me.

The afternoon session was the vCenter Operations Manager Essentials Workshop. I enjoyed this one, mostly because vCOPs is fairly new to me – seen it, looks neat, have not messed with it yet. Lot of great information on installing vCOPs and interpreting the “badges” to determine the health, risks, and efficiency of a virtual or physical environment. This looks like a great product and I am going to do a bit more digging into it. I can definitely see the benefits it will bring to customers.

After the vCOPS session I ran into @TheJasonNash. He had a copy of his TrainSignal vCOPs video and now I have it

In the afternoon I was able to observe a mock VCDX defense. This was a great experience. Two defending VCDXs gave their presentations and two current VCDXs offered up tips and ask them questions about their design. Very good stuff there. Both of those VCDX hopefuls are defending today, I wish them much luck and I thank them for letting me observe their practice.

The morning general session is getting ready to start so that is all for now.

Have a great day at VMware PEX!

The VCDX Boot Camp was actually one of my primary reasons for making the trip to attend VMwarePEX. I mean there are a lot of other great sessions that I am looking forward to but this one is really all about me and my professional goals.

Over the past year or so I have earned the VCAP-DCA and VCAP-DCD on vSphere 5 and just recently took on a new role as a Datacenter Architect for a VMware Partner. I have been spending some time thinking about where I want to go with my professional development. The thought of pursuing the VCDX has crossed my mind but until recently I had not really decided if it was the path I wanted to take.

The VCDX Boot Camp started at 8:30 AM and was led by a panel of VCDXs including Joh Arrasjid, Mostafa Khalil, Mahesh Rajani, Ben Li, Michael Webster, and I know I am missing at least two others. The Boot Camp covered the paths and prereqs before submitting for and up until the defense. They panelist also talked about the different parts of the defense in detail including time limits and what they are expecting. The session was 4 hours long with a couple of short breaks.

I have about 10 pages worth of notes I took most of them are of defense tips including things like: “Think out loud, we want to know how you are arriving at a solution”, “The journey is just as important as the solution”, “If you are unable to verbalize your thoughts use the whiteboard”, “if you are not into public speaking, get over it”, and “Do it right the first time, don’t rush it.”

One of the biggest takeaways that I have is that the VCDX panelist want you to succeed. The “defense” really makes it sound like you are going to get in a room in front of a few people and they are going to take shots at you and your design for a couple hours. Perhaps it is kind of like that but the panelists are interested in understanding your design and the process you took to arrive at your design decisions. At the end of the day they want you to be successful and that means making sure you have the knowledge and skills required to be a VMware Design Expert.

The session included four scenarios, two design scenarios and two troubleshooting scenarios. This was another fantastic part of the session. The focus was on asking the right questions, trying not to focus too much on a single point, and walking the panelists through your thought process (thinking out loud). Really good stuff there and great to get some insight into the process.

The slide deck from the VCDX Bootcamp can be found on the VMware VCDX site at http://www.vmware.com/go/vcdx. Look in the VCDX Resources Box.

The VCDX Boot Camp Panel

There were several guys attending the Boot Camp that are doing there defense here at PEX. Sending some thoughts their way – you guys are going to be awesome!!! Good luck!!! You guys will rock it!!!

The VCDX process is going to take a lot of work, it sure as hell ain’t going to be easy, and I know I need a bit more design experience, but I can do this.

If you attended the VCDX Boot Camp at PEX or if you have attending one in the past, I would love to here your thoughts. Also if any VCDXs out there have some tips or thoughts to add those would be much appreciated.

Headed to the VMware Partner Exchange 2013 (PEX) in Vegas. Looking forward to it and I have a schedule full of VMware goodness. By this time tomorrow Sandy and I should be well on our way to Vegas.

I am going to try to post something here every night while I am there. Follow me on twitter @herseyc to see what is going on. Better yet if you are there hit me up and maybe we can chat for a bit.

Doing some Vegas research to prepare for the trip

If the embeded video doesn’t show just go here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYP5Sgg1qAI

Hope to see you there!