Tag Archives: VMware

PowerCLI

PowerCLI with a GUI – Clone a machine, add DHCP Reservations, alter CPUID

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In this blog post, I am going to break down a PowerShell code I have created (with help from some colleagues). The functions of this PowerShell code are;

  • Present a GUI form to the end user
    • Connect to a vCenter
    • Select the virtual machine to be cloned
    • Select the datastore the new VM is to be stored on (display DS free space)
    • Select the host for this VM to be created against (display free memory on the host)
    • Set the new VM name
    • Create an IP reservation in both the Production and DR DHCP Scopes

Below are some functional screenshots of the code’s GUI and also a rough flowchart of what I needed to achieve.

You can skip to the end to find the full code or my github.

PowerCLI with a GUI - Clone a machine, add DHCP Reservations, alter CPUID

clone script connection window veducate

clone script full GUI options when connected vEducate

clone vm script flowchart

TAM Lab Recording

Since posting this blog, I also covered this in a VMware TAM Lab recording which you can watch below.

A little more background on the script

So my customer had a dedicated environment for hosting their custom application, however these applications were built and running inside an old unsupported OS which expected to be running on a particular era of CPU’s to run correctly, for example todays Intel Skylake would cause the OS to panic and not run. As you can also imagine with this type of older OS, there are no VM Tools support either.

Here is the architecture diagram;

clone vm architecture diagram

Providing DR around this environment was interesting, we could protect the VM using SRM and storage array LUN replication. But this also presented some issues, when the VM boots in DR. “what happens with networking?” hence we setup a DHCP reservation on both Production and DR. Meaning we know the VMs IP regardless of where its booted.

Continue reading PowerCLI with a GUI – Clone a machine, add DHCP Reservations, alter CPUID →

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Using vROPs to track adoption – Such as VMware Tools upgrades

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I had an interesting question from a customer recently;

Can we track the adoption/upgrades of VMware tools to the latest version in a vROPs dashboard

At first, I thought sure this is easy. But then looking at the various different default options, nothing would give me a graph which shows the increasing uptake or upgrades of VMware Tools to the last version.

I consulted internally, and between myself and my customer we came up with the following solution. Which was quite simple once we thought it out.

Solution

  1. Create a custom group based on the information you want to capture

In the below example, I’ve done this to target VMs with VMware Tools 10.3.10, you could leave it as “10.3” to target any 10.3.X release. Continue reading Using vROPs to track adoption – Such as VMware Tools upgrades →

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Interview – Ian Sanderson talks community and career growth

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The last interview I wrote up was back in 2017, although I’ve made efforts to kick off a continuation of this series, I stalled. I recently went over some of the past interviews and its amazing how in 18 month or so, people’s careers and focuses have changed, never mind the IT industry.

Ian bookSo kicking off the first interview of 2019, I reached out to my friend Ian Sanderson. Ian has 15 years of IT experience under his belt, taking the usual route into the IT industry, “I cut my teeth in the virtualisation world with Hyper-V in 2008, but my focus has been VMware since 2010”, he tells me as we kick off discussing “Ian in his own words.”

Ian and myself became friends and comrades with similar interests due to our activity in the IT community, interactions on twitter soon turned into bumping into one another at events, and catching up over coffee, and late night drinks at vendor community programs.

I ask Ian to define what the IT community means to him, “Community to me is like having an extended family of people who you can bounce ideas off, or call upon for help with other things” he says, “It is not a one way street though. I try my best to give back to people in any way I can help out. It’s really about comradery & helping each other achieve their end goals.”

“The wealth of collective knowledge in the vCommunity honestly amazes me. There is always someone, somewhere who has the solution to a problem you may have.”

So where did it all start for Ian? “My first real interactions with the community kicked off when I became a Veeam Vanguard in 2016. Prior to that I had the odd interaction on twitter and an outdated blog but nothing really significant. Being virtually air dropped into a group of like-minded people who love Veeam really sparked my passion for getting more involved in community events.”

I’m not shocked to find this answer pretty much echos similar answers to others in the IT community. Small steps into twitter; invites to slack groups; and a sense of needing to give back to the community we have all taken so much from. (We’ve all googled for an answer, and ended up at someones personal blog post, finding they have fixed the same issue).

Career progression

It’s no secret that a lot of ambitious IT folk have gone on to do very well in their perspective areas boosted by their work/activity in the IT community. There’s no secret group or handshakes, just purely hard work, a love of technology, and mostly a friendly atmosphere, as Ian equates earlier “Its really about comradery and helping each other achieve their end goals.” Continue reading Interview – Ian Sanderson talks community and career growth →

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vBrownbag Session – Upgrading from vSphere 5.5 to 6.x

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VMworld 2018, I was lucky enough to get my name down on the list to present on the vBrownbag stage, a community driven source of brilliant knowledge articles, videos, and web meetings, for the community by the community. Read more about vBrownbag here

In the below session I took on the session that had proved to be a hit at VMUGs around the UK. “Upgrading from vSphere 5.5 to 6.x”

This session focuses less on the “how to upgrade the components themselves” but more what you need to cover for planning and preparation, considerations during the upgrades, and calling out known gotchas.

Since the above video, I’ve since joined VMware, and presented the official slide deck covering this subject at the UK VMUG Usercon with Kev Johnson, Technical Marketing Engineer – vSphere Lifecycle.

You can find the official free e-book that accompanies the VMware presentations here;

Regards

Dean


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Yet another “I’ve got a new job” blog post

General,

So I think I seen someone say on Twitter its silly season as we enter the winter period with people announcing they are moving jobs etc. And given the number of tweets about new jobs and blog posts, I think they are correct.

Well I won’t drag this out.

I’m joining VMware as a Technical Account Manager in December working across the UK. Over the past few years my focus or rather enjoyment of my roles, has been around the customer and building strategies with them. So this role fits in nicely especially for a company whose products I’ve tried my best to specialise in for the past few years.

VMware logo gry RGB 300dpi

Thanks to all those who have helped me in my journey or simply just said “don’t worry, you’ll smash the interview”.

Onwards and upwards.

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Regards

Dean