Author Archives: Allen Johnson

How to upgrade vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 7.x to 8.0

By | December 23, 2022

I have demonstrated in previous blog posts how to deploy VMware vCenter 6.7 and 7.0 both manually and with automation using Ansible. Now that vSphere 8 is GA, I have upgraded my lab to see new features in action and familiarize myself with the new look! I took screenshots along the way to share how it… Read More »

Deploy NetApp CVO – PART2 (AzureVPN)

By | December 7, 2022

Deploy NetApp Cloud Volume ONTAP (CVO) In My previous blog post Deploy NetApp CVO – PART1 (AzureVPN) I demonstrate creating a Site-to-Site VPN using Azure VPN. I will continue to use the Azure resources to deploy NetApp CVO. What is NetApp Cloud Manager (BlueXP) Cloud Manager enables IT experts and cloud architects to centrally manage… Read More »

Deploy NetApp CVO – PART1 (AzureVPN)

By | November 16, 2022

Background: As more and more companies move workloads towards the cloud, having a solid foundation is crucial (security / network connectivity). While there are several ways to connect your on-premises environment or, in my case, a lab to Azure. This blog post will show you how to use the Azure portal to create an Azure… Read More »

VMware ESXi Host Configuration with PowerCLI – (Security Hardening)

By | September 1, 2022

VMware Explore 2022, formerly VMworld, is back to in person attendance in San Francisco!! While it’s not as crowded as years past, it was great to be in person and connect with customers and friends. My top two goals were to attend everything automation and security related. While walking out of a ‘Ransomware Prevention’ session,… Read More »

VMware ESXi Host Configuration with Ansible – (Security Hardening)

By | March 8, 2022

Ransomware is on everyone’s mind or at least it should be…  Please be aware this is not a prescription to keep you from being hacked, but rather an improvement of your security posture specific to vSphere. Attackers are constantly looking for weaknesses in your IT environment to exploit for malicious purposes. To help minimize a… Read More »

VMware Deprecating boot from USB and SD card

By | November 11, 2021

Over the years, VMware ESXi has allowed installation on multiple boot device types across various hardware platforms (blade chassis and/or rackmount servers). The boot device types included internal hard drives, and best practice was to have redundant drives in RAID 1 which increased the deployment cost. Another option was to boot from SAN, using either… Read More »

Deploy NetApp StorageGRID VMware

By | April 14, 2021

In a previous post on StorageGRID I discuss what Object Storage is and its use cases. In todays post, I will demonstrate how to deploy the virtual NetApp StorageGrid appliance in my VMware HomeLab using my Intel NUCs. If you have been following my blog posts, I have been demonstrating how I make use of… Read More »