VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 – Install and Configure

VMware vSphere 6.5 is finally general available and everyone who wants can download and install on their dev/test/prod environments. I’ve been working with vCenter Server for many years, but always the preferred corporate platform was Windows, so I was using the windows based vCenter. With version 6.5 there are lots… Continue reading

Remove and Re-Create Management Network (vmk0) VMkernel interface using ESXi Command line

VforVirtualist

As you may know, ESXi Management interface (aka vmk0) is created during installation. By default that interface will inherit MAC address of one of the physical NIC cards. Now, this is not a problem at all in most cases, but sometimes it can create problems. For example imagine a situation… Continue reading

SoftLayer local disk performance SATA/vSAN/SSD

SoftLayer local disk performance SATA/vSAN/SSD What disk performance you can expect from local drives in Softlayer with VMware vSphere6, vSAN & local SATA or SSD drives? This article is here to help you see and decide if performance will be enough for your needs. I have 3 hosts with: hardware… Continue reading

Updated: Building vSphere 6 with VSAN on IBM Softlayer: Part 4 – Configuring VSAN on Softlayer

UPDATE: I do not recommend using this guide for any future deployment. The information included is quite outdated and is not relevant anymore. The article should only be used as reference for some commands. My recommendation is to check  IBM’s official offering of VMware on IBM Cloud. A lot of… Continue reading

Building vSphere 6 with VSAN on IBM Softlayer: Part 3 – Configuring Networking on Softlayer

Now when we have ESXis installed and vCenter server deployed, we need to do some patching and, of course, networking config. First, it is always a good idea to have your vSphere environment up to date. The thing is that Softlayer uses Images to provision servers and those images are not… Continue reading

Building vSphere 6 with VSAN on IBM Softlayer: Part 2 – Ordering vCenter server on Softlayer

This is the second part of Building vSphere 6 with VSAN on IBM Softlayer series. In the first part we’ve discussed how to order bare metal server with ESXi 6 installed. In this part I will show how to order vCenter Server 6 on a Windows Cloud Instance (aka CI –… Continue reading

Building vSphere 6 with VSAN on IBM Softlayer: Part 1 – Ordering ESXi hosts on Softlayer.

I am recently spending a lot of time with IBM Softlayer, in particular I am building vSphere running inside Softlayer. In this series of articles I want to show how you can build an environment with vSphere 6 and VSAN inside Softlayer. One important note: although I work in IBM, my view is form… Continue reading

IBM FlashSystem V9000 and VMware vSphere ESXi Guidelines

I’m really glad I had opportunity to participate on a RedBook residency regarding IBM FlashSystem V9000 and VMware “Best Practices” (it was actually one of my last thing which I did as IBMer) and till the RedPaper is released for public I decided to write a sneak peek with some… Continue reading

Interviewing for VMware vSphere Support Engineer job role. Part 4: Third Level engineer

Hello Readers, with some delay, this is a Part 4 of  ‘Interviewing for VMware vSphere Support Engineer job role’ series of posts. In previous part I covered questions for a Second Level Support engineer, in this part I will talk about the Third level. Third Level (Level 3) vSphere support engineer. First lets talk about… Continue reading