Let’s start the year with a HomeLab update! Well, my HomeLab grows from year to year with big steps. After finishing my 14th generation Dell server upgrade, it was time to focus on the VMware Holodeck. I swapped out my Dell PowerEdge R640 for a new R740 that was designed for data protection, so I can use the R640 for the Holodeck only, which requires […]
In my previous blog post, I described how to prepare your Dell PowerEdge servers for integration with VMware Aria Operations for comprehensive dashboards and monitoring. This time we will talk about how to configure/add them to Aria Operations. First, get the Dell PowerEdge Management Pack from Dell/Broadcom and then log into your Aria Operations instance. Go to Administration -> Integrations -> Repository. There you will […]
I am currently working a lot with VMware Aria Operations and the matching Dell Management Packs that are available. One of the most interesting is the integration of PowerEdge Servers, from which you can view various alarms about: These are exactly the informations I want to integrate into Aria Operations to get/build a dedicated dashboard. In order to send these informations to Aria Operations, SNMPv3 […]
In this blog post I would like to describe the Upgrade Process from OME 4.0.1 to 4.1, but let’s start with some news first: Resolved Issues Platform Support Important Recommendation Limitations For customers who are still on version 3.10.x, a new deployment will be necessary, which I have described in this post: Updating from 4.x upwards is very relaxed. So let’s head over to the […]
The latest version of Dell OpenManage Enterprise 4.0 was released on October 30, 2023. Some customers are already using the 4.0 version and are giving generally positive feedback, especially regarding performance. That’s why I would like to describe the upgrade path from 3.10.x to 4.0 in this blog post. Before we start, I want to give you some basic upgrade paths, because you can only […]
I wanted to make my life easier again in a customer situation and use my PowerCLI scripts to shorten repeating tasks. The customer had given me an Ubuntu OS notebook and I installed PowerShell/PowerCLI on it. When I tried to use my script, I got the following error message: So it’s all about certificates, let’s take a look at our current PowerCLI configuration: As you […]
As part of a vCenter 7 to a brand new vCenter 8 migration, the vSAN clusters had to be moved in addition to the normal clusters. When we disconnected the vSAN Witness Appliance from the old vCenter in the last process and then wanted to add it to the fault domain in the new one, we were confronted with the following error message: Although these […]
In a vSphere 8 – 2-Node Cluster Update I have had to deal with the following message during the Check Compliance process: High Availability (HA) Admission Control is enabled and set to specify a failover host, which is reserved for HA failover purposes. However, in a 2-node cluster you ultimately only have the 2nd host and if the resources on this host are not sufficient, […]
During a VMware vSphere 7 to 8 upgrade, more precisely after the compliance check, I was confronted with the above error message. In this blog post I would like to show you how to solve the problem. Corrupt vFAT partitions already existed in vSphere 6.7 times and unfortunately they also appear today with vSphere 8. The problem? If you go through with the upgrade in […]
vSphere 7 to 8 updates are slowly in full swing, many customers are migrating to October ’25 -> EOL for vSphere 7. Some of my customers want a brand new vCenter right away, because some of theirs are still from version 5, the ex-colleague fiddled in the Postgre database before he quit and so on and so forth – the reasons seem to be endless. […]
During an ESX server cluster update on image basis, I was confronted with a strange thing. The message says that there are hardware compatibility issues. However, if you look at the details, you will quickly realise that there is nothing under the firmware version. If you then scroll down a little, you will see the warning ‘Device is incompatible with the Driver/Firmware in clusters image‘. […]
We are rapidly approaching the end of vSphere 7 support (October ’25), and during a vSphere 8 upgrade pre-check at my customer’s site, we ran into the problem mentioned in the title. The so-called “…vmware.h4…” plugin was in a N/A state. In the past this plugin has appeared several times and should be unregister beforehand, this is the VMware Cloud Director Availability Plugin, which cannot […]
In a VxRail 8.0.300 deployment, I wanted to upgrade the appliance to the latest 8.0.310 after the initial cluster deployment, but I was confronted with a very strange phenomenon in the advisory report. Important details: Normally, all components of a VxRail node are updated with the RASR or Update image to the version provided by the Image, e.g. 8.0.300. This time, however, I was confronted […]
For new deployments or extensions of Aria Operations Cluster, the admin credentials are required to add the nodes. To prevent this, especially as a security concern, the administrator can generate a temporary passphrase in the Admin Console of Aria Operations. I would like to describe how this works in this blog post. First, we log in to the admin console of Aria Operations: Under “Nodes […]
Now one or the other will ask themselves, why should I kill an iDRAC session of another user, well, if you know the admin credentials of the iDRAC anyway and the colleague has e.g. forgotten to close his iDRAC session and has gone on lunch break and you absolutely want to complete the RASR process of the VxRail – then it might make sense to […]
As the title of the blog post says, it is about restoring the root password of the PowerProtect Data Manager. Because once this password has expired, the system will not run properly until the password is restored. You can set the expiration time for passwords to “never” in the UI of the PPDM, which I recommend for HomeLab purposes, but never for productive environments! Important: […]
In this post, I want to give you a feel for how easy the setup of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is. Starting in the welcome area, you can select whether you want to restore from a backup or whether it is a new installation. In my case it is a new installation, I skip the view of the EULA which we have to accept either […]
I had to remove the “storage” disk of my DDVE VM for availability reasons and move the DDVE VM to my vSAN cluster so that I can maintain my backup server. Of course, this also means that I took a certain risk, as my backups were “deleted” – but that’s what I wanted. After the migration, I was able to replace my backup server at […]
Yep, I also started using PowerCLI more intensively. It’s really fun and makes repeating tasks easier to apply. As a Rookie in whatever you’re starting out with, there are obstacles that you might not be able to explain straight away. So let’s start with something small and I wanted to add an ESX host to my vCenter with the following command: But this failed because […]
Another Day another Warning inside vSAN Skyline Health. 🙂 Frequent Deletion of VMs….. Hmm….. I’ve been using vSAN since vSphere 6.7 U3 in my home lab and I’m pretty sure I deleted VMs more frequently, especially in my rookie times and never had this kind of warning in vSAN Skyline Health. Anyway, lets try to fix it! 😉 What I really like about vSphere 8 […]
Today, I saw the above warning in vSAN Skyline Health, and I would like to share the solution with you. The following information can be found under Details: Network diagnostic mode is enabled more than 24 hours (94 hours). The network diagnostic mode is only used for troubleshooting, if the troubleshooting is done, please disable it. No sooner said than done, we switch to the […]
I recently had the challenge of retroactively implementing the PowerManager plugin in a dark site for a Dell OpenManage Enterprise Appliance. Since dark sites are not uncommon, I thought I would describe the process. If you look under Application Settings -> Console and Plugins you should see plugin installation options for an OME appliance with internet access, in a dark site this does not happen […]
I recently had a VxRail deployment with an external vCenter, which drove me crazy. 🙂 In the normal case, if you select “Join existing vCenter Server” under Global Settings (Step 7), the next Cluster Configuration steps should adapt. This means that under Virtual Network Settings (Step 12), under vCenter Server Network, you only have to choose between Static or Ephemeral Binding. However, I had the […]
Recently I had the situation that at cluster level, the vSphere HA displayed a heartbeat of datastores at zero, whereby I have defined two specific datastores under vSphere HA settings under Heartbeat Datastores and these must always be pingable. The two defined datastores were no longer visible under Datastores, which is why the warning appeared. After consulting with the storage team, it turned out that […]
I want to start my 8.0 HomeLab U1 Update with a full lifecycle, which means that all my 13th Gen Dell PowerEdge servers have been replaced by 14th Gen Dell PowerEdge servers and my Datacenter has even grown. But that’s not all – I’ve implemented 2 new Data Protection solutions in my Datacenter – Dell PowerProtect & Cohesity and I’ve replaced my HPE 1GbE switches […]
Yep, there are still vCenter’s out there with expired root passwords. 😀 Therefore, I will describe the workaround to reset the root password for vCenter 8.0, which also works for vSphere 6.5 through today’s releases. First, take a snapshot of your vCenter VM: Then switch to the ESXi Host Client and open a virtual console from the vCenter VM: Now reboot the vCenter and watch […]
Last week I had the challenge of upgrading a Dark Site PowerStore from 3.2.1.0 to 3.6.0.0. PowerStore 3.6 brings a lot of new features, for me there are the following highlights: Starting with the Upgrade BIN file, you will first need to login into your Dell Support account, whereupon you will need to enter the service tag of the PowerStore system. Then filter by operating […]
During a PowerStore Appliance upgrade, one of the most common warnings during a pre-upgrade health check (PUHC) is the message: CPU utilization level too high. Reduce system load prior to NDU: This is a 2-node PowerStore cluster which is to be upgraded from 3.2.x to 3.6.x. The existing checks used to find CPU usage include management and platform CPU cores. As a result, on an idle […]
I know it’s been a long time, almost 1 year (in 2 days), so it’s time for another HomeLab update. In my last HomeLab update I told you about my VMware SD-WAN / SASE solution, this time we’ll take another look at my Data Protection Server. Because I replaced it with a Dell PowerEdge T430 in November 2023. You can find the documentation of my […]
In my last backup jobs I noticed in the Dell PowerProtect Data Manager that 1 asset was Completed with Exceptions. The warning was as follows: I have to admit that the warnings and errors in PowerProtect DataManager are mostly self-explanatory and well detailed. We can see that the backup job was successful, but Change Block Tracking (CBT) could not be reset due to an existing […]
Today I had a strange issue in my vCenter, after a maintenance operation on my server I wanted to power on several VMs and I noticed that they got stuck at 66% in the power on process. There are no warnings or errors. Some VMs take up to 60 minutes to power on and some remain at 66%. Officially, I could not find a KB […]
Send Aria Operations Reports to Google Drive _ brockpeterson.com Send Aria Operations Reports to Google Drive _… I wanted to send Aria Operations Reports to Google Drive, but couldn’t find an email to use, couldn’t find a Webhook to send to, but did find Google Apps Scripts! So, here’s what I did.For reference, Google App Scripts is a SaaS JavaScript platform powered by Google Drive […]
Can I have an AF-4 ReadyNode for vSAN ESA with less memory? Can I have an AF-4 ReadyNode for vSAN ESA with… I got this question the other day, and it was around the amount of memory the AF-4 ReadyNode configuration needs to have in order for it to be supported. I can understand where the question comes from, but what most people don’t seem […]
AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX BIOS Settings: Power Consumption and Bifurcation AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX BIOS Settings: Power… Explore the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX features in my Proxmox Home Lab Server build. Discover essential BIOS settings for optimization. Broadcom Social Media Advocacy
Inline EVPN between VMware NSX and SONIC — Yves Hertoghs Inline EVPN between VMware NSX and SONIC — Yves… As promised , a more detailed blog on how to configure EVPN between a VMware NSX T0 Gateway and a switch running SONIC! As a recap, this is the topology I have built, using NSX running on a vSphere Cluster, while using GNS3 on an ESXi […]
VMware NSX and Enterprise SONIC : Better Together — Yves Hertoghs VMware NSX and Enterprise SONIC : Better… Since Broadcom acquired VMware, I quickly learned that Broadcom not only makes the forwarding Chip-Sets (Trident/Tomahawk/…) that run within a lot of Networking Vendor’s switches, but that it also delivers an ‘Enterprise’ version of SONIC . SONIC (Software for Open Networking In the Cloud), […] Broadcom Social […]
VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2: Unlocking Secure Hybrid Cloud Capabilities with Mic… VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2: Unlocking Secure… In the ever-evolving landscape of cloud computing, security remains paramount, especially as organizations strive to build robust hybrid cloud environments. VMware, a pioneer in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, has released an update that strengthens its portfolio—VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 Broadcom Social Media Advocacy
From Virtualization to Cloud Service Delivery with VMware Cloud Foundation & VCS… From Virtualization to Cloud Service Delivery… Are you leveraging VMware Cloud Foundation and VCSPs for cloud service delivery? Let’s discuss! #CloudComputing #VMware #VCF #CloudServiceProviders #HybridCloud #SovereignCloud #PrivateAI Broadcom Social Media Advocacy
Exploring VMware Cloud Foundation: Deployment and Scaling Strategies Exploring VMware Cloud Foundation: Deployment… Deployment of VMware Cloud Foundation Deploying VMware Cloud Foundation is an automated process that leverages VMware Cloud Builder, simplifying the management domain’s setup. This domain includes all the management components like vCenter Server, NSX Manager, and vRealize Suite for operations […] Broadcom Social Media Advocacy
VMware CMTY Podcast #714 – Deep Dive into VMware Private AI Foundation with Intel AMX VMware CMTY Podcast #714 – Deep Dive into… VMware CMTY Podcast #714: Deep Dive into VMware Private AI Foundation with Intel AMX 🚀 Ready to unlock the future of AI? In this episode of the VMware CMTY Podcast, we’re joined by Girish Manmadkar, Business Developer at VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), […]
Enforce Maximum Duration for Cloud Director API Tokens _ fojta.wordpress.com Enforce Maximum Duration for Cloud Director API… Recently released VMware Cloud Director 10.6.1 adds support for enforcement of maximum duration of API Tokens. It is API only feature configured with the following call: PUT https://{{host}}/cloudapi/1.0.0/site/settings Accept: application/json;version=39.1 Content-Type: application/json Body: […] Broadcom Social Media Advocacy