Recreating a vmdk descriptor file with vmkfstools
A VMware virtual machine disk is made up of two files: the .vmdk file and the -flat.vmdk file. The .vmdk file is the descriptor file and the -flat.vmdk file contains the data.
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Jumbo Frames – Make sure it is setup end-to-end.
Jumbo Frames must be configured correctly end-to-end. This means on the vSwitch, vmkernel interfaces, physical switches, and endpoints. The vmkping command can be used to test a vmkernel interface for proper configuration of Jumbo Frames.
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DIY Garage Workbench
This post is not about virtualization, my home lab, or technology. Going a little low tech here to share a DIY project I did over the weekend, a mobile garage workbench using some free plans I found over at Shanty2Chic.com.
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New Book – VMware vSphere 6.5 Host Resources Deep Dive
Just ordered a copy of Host Resources Deep Dive. The VMware vSphere 6.5 Host Resources Deep Dive is a guide to building consistent high-performing ESXi hosts.
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Using vSphere HA to Protect vCenter
The ability to provide HA protection of the vCenter Server is one of benefit of deploying vCenter as a virtual machine. vCenter is required to configure vSphere HA but once vSphere HA is configured vCenter is NOT required for vSphere HA to protect virtual machines in the cluster, including a virtualized vCenter Server.
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It’s been a while…
It has been a good bit since I posted anything new. Just busy with work, family, and other stuff. Some
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Setting up the Weathervane Benchmarking Tool in the Home Lab
Standing up Weathervane in the home lab will provide hands-on for developing skills like creating a template VM, creating a guest customization specification, working with some basic Linux commands, working with an app with multiple tiers, creating a guest customization specification, cloning VMs, and monitoring performance metrics. This post provides an overview of how I set up Weathervane in my home lab, an example of the results generated from the Weathervane runs, and a look at the performance metrics I observed in lab during the Weathervane runs.
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Copy SimpliVity Backups to another SimpliVity Cluster
I put together a powershell script which uses the SimpliVity REST API to automate copying backups across OmniStack Clusters.
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Checking VMs for SimpliVity Storage HA
When performing maintenance, upgrades, etc, on a SimpliVity host it is important to verify SimpliVity VMs are in a safe Storage HA state. A safe Storage HA state, or Storage HA equal to Yes, means the virtual machine’s data is fully synchronized and protected in the SimpliVity cluster.
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Quick SimpliVity OmniStack Capacity Script
This is a quick script, SVT-Fed-Capactiy.ps1, I put together using Powershell and the SimpliVity REST API to report available, free, and used capacity information for OmniStack Clusters in a SimpliVity Federation, and the OmniStack hosts in each Cluster.
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Collect Virtual Disk IOPS with PowerCLI
I was messing around with PowerCLI and the real-time statistics to collect the IOPS used by virtual machines/virtual machine disks in my my home lab. Virtual disk performance counters are available in the real-time performance stats but at the default statistics level, Level 1, with the IOPS statistics are not rolled up into the daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly statistics. I put together a PowerCLI script, collect-iops.ps1, to collect the real-time samples.
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