8. December 2024

Upgrade Dell OpenManage Enterprise 4.0.1 to 4.1

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 […]

6. December 2024

Upgrade Dell OME from 3.10.x to 4.0

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 […]

4. December 2024

PowerCLI: Connect-VIServer The SSL connection could not be established

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 […]

3. December 2024

The Witness host must not be part of a vSAN enabled Cluster

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 […]

3. December 2024

Host prevents entering Maintenace Mode: There are insufficient memory resource on standby hosts

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, […]

30. November 2024

A problem with one or more vFAT bootbank partitions was detected. (PSOD Alarm!)

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 […]

6. November 2024

Moving a vSAN cluster from one vCenter Server to another

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. […]

4. November 2024

Image Compliance shows hardware compatibility issues

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‘. […]

28. October 2024

vSphere UI Client Plugin is at N/A state before vSphere 8 Upgrade

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 […]

23. October 2024

Dell VxRail / vSphere 8.0.310 Update – Advisory Report identified issues with BOSS Device

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 […]

19. October 2024

Generate a VMware Aria Operations Passphrase for Node Adding

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 […]

18. October 2024

How to kill a Dell iDRAC Session of another User

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 […]

17. October 2024

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager Root Password expired

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: […]

18. July 2024

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager Setup

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 […]

26. June 2024

PowerCLI Add-VMHost: Unable to verify the authenticity of the specified host

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 […]

11. June 2024

vSAN Skyline Health: A possible storage capacity limitation with vSAN OSA versions 8.0U2 and 8.0U2b

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 […]

10. June 2024

vSAN Skyline Health: Network diagnostic mode (Warning)

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 […]

21. April 2024

Dell OpenManage Enterprise Darksite Plugin Implementation

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 […]

25. March 2024

Dell VxRail 7.0.482 deployment validation with external vCenter fails

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 […]

22. March 2024

The number of VMware vSphere HA datastores for this host is 0, which is less than required: 2

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 […]

4. March 2024

irgNET – LAB 8.0 U1

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 […]

1. March 2024

How to Reset vCenter 8.0 Root Password

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 […]

26. February 2024

Dell PowerStore Upgrade from 3.2.1 to 3.6 (Dark Site)

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 […]

26. February 2024

Dell PowerStore: CPU utilization level too high. Reduce system load prior to NDU. (cpu_usage_level_exceeded)

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 […]

7. February 2024

irgNET – LAB 8.0

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 […]

28. January 2024

Dell PowerProtect – Cannot reset CBT while VM has an existing snapshot

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 […]

24. January 2024

Bug Alert: Powering On VM in VMware vCenter stucks at 66%

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 […]

9. December 2024

[NSX] – API Authentication Using a Session…

[NSX] – API Authentication Using a Session Cookie on PowerShell _ Lorenzo Moglie [NSX] – API Authentication Using a Session… Issue Recently I had to create a PowerShell script that grab some information from NSX via Rest API calls. To do so, I had to create a few lines of code to authenticate on the NSX. To reduce the number of times that […] Broadcom […]

9. December 2024

Veeam Backup & Replication 12.3 New Features…

Veeam Backup & Replication 12.3 New Features and Download Veeam Backup & Replication 12.3 New Features… Learn about the latest features in Veeam Backup & Replication 12.3, including Microsoft Entra ID backup and Windows Server 2025 support Broadcom Social Media Advocacy

9. December 2024

Part 39: HOW TO: Create a VMware vSphere…

Part 39: HOW TO: Create a VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) for use with V… Part 39: HOW TO: Create a VMware vSphere… In this video presentation which is part of the Hancock’s VMware Half Hour HOW TO Video Series I will show you HOW TO: Create a VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) for use with VMware vSphere vSAN for the VMware vSphere vSAN Cluster. […]

9. December 2024

Understanding vTopology in vSphere 8: A Deep…

Understanding vTopology in vSphere 8: A Deep Dive into NUMA and vNUMA Management Understanding vTopology in vSphere 8: A Deep… vTopology in vSphere designed to map virtual machine (VM) resources such as CPU and memory effectively to the underlying physical hardware. Broadcom Social Media Advocacy

9. December 2024

Part 42: HOW TO: Export and Backup the VMware…

Part 42: HOW TO: Export and Backup the VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) c… Part 42: HOW TO: Export and Backup the VMware… In this video presentation which is part of the Hancock’s VMware Half Hour HOW TO Video Series I will show you HOW TO: Export and Backup the VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) configuration of a VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS). Broadcom Social […]

9. December 2024

Unlocking Database Management with VMware Data…

Unlocking Database Management with VMware Data Services Manager: Features, Benef… Unlocking Database Management with VMware Data… A potent tool for streamlining and simplifying database administration in contemporary infrastructures is VMware Data Services Manager (DSM). In-depth discussions of VMware Data Services Manager’s features supported solutions, deployment strategies, advantages, & use cases are provided in this blog. Broadcom Social Media Advocacy

9. December 2024

Setting Up Active Directory as an…

Setting Up Active Directory as an Authentication Source in Aria Operations 8.18 … Setting Up Active Directory as an… In the realm of IT infrastructure management, integrating Active Directory (AD) with Aria Operations is crucial for streamlined authentication and enhanced security. This article provides a comprehensive guide on configuring Active Directory as an authentication source in Aria Operations 8.18, […] Broadcom Social Media Advocacy

7. December 2024

VMware vExpert 2025 Applications Starts Now!

VMware vExpert 2025 Applications Starts Now! VMware vExpert 2025 Applications Starts Now! It the time of the year to apply and renew your vExpert for another year for your effort contribution back to the VMware community over the last 6-12months. The vExpert 2025 application is now open starting from 6th Dec 2024 and will closed on 10th January 2025. Broadcom Social Media Advocacy