VMworld 2017 Barcelona is just under 2 months away. I’m lucky enough to be going for my 2nd year in a row. Thank you to Xtravirt for sponsoring my attendance this year (along with 3 other consultants).
Why am I going?
Everyone has a different reason for going (or wanting to go). Whether that is learning, networking, promoting yourself or promoting your company.
In my first VMworld last year in Barcelona, my eyes were opened to the possibilities that VMworld affords attendees. Within a given year, I don’t think there is another conference where you get all of the titans of VMware in one place.
Written by Christopher Lewis on July 13, 2017 .
Anyone and everyone should know by now that vRealize Automation 7.3 came out within the last month. My lab was due for a refresh so I scraped the vRA7.2 lab I had previously created and started a fresh with vRA7.3. The installation is as smooth as it has been since its release (in a good way)!
Health Service
Once configured, the first thing that hit me was the new Health option under the Administration menu.
Written by Christopher Lewis on July 10, 2017 .
Today I attended my first AWS Summit (London) at the Excel Centre.
What is AWS Summit?
AWS Summit is a free one day expo that allows people with all different levels of experience with AWS to get better understanding about its capabilities and how those experiences can be leveraged for their business.
It all started with the Keynote
The keynote was started by Gavin Jackson (Managing Director, AWS UK and Ireland) who covered various topics around AWS including AWS:Restart which is an initiative to help those people (such as ex-Servicemen and youngsters) into the tech industry.
Written by Christopher Lewis on June 29, 2017 .
Tomorrow is AWS Summit in London. Having never been, I am not sure what to expect but I am looking forward to seeing what AWS has to offer.
My journey to learn about AWS started a few months ago using the acloud.guru courses but life has gotten in the way. I am hoping AWS Summit will give me the push I need to get learning AWS again.
Luckily I also know a few others that are attending so it will be good to catch up in person with everyone too.
Written by Christopher Lewis on June 27, 2017 .
I am on my way home from my first North East VMUG ( @NorthEastVMUG ). It is not my first VMUG. Work allowing, I have been a regular attendee to the London VMUG ( @LonVMUG ) for the last few years. This time would be different though. This time I was presenting a session for the first time.
What is VMUG?
The VMware User Group (VMUG) is an independent, global, customer-led organization, created to maximize members’ use of VMware and partner solutions through knowledge sharing, training, collaboration, and events. There are numerous VMUG meetings around the world, so there is more than likely one near you!
Written by Christopher Lewis on June 22, 2017 .
Today I sat the VMware Certified Professional 7 - Cloud Management and Automation exam and I’m glad to say I passed!
About the VCP7-CMA exam
The VCP7-CMA Exam is 85 questions in 110 minutes with a passing score of 300 / 500.
For more information seee the exam page.
My take on the exam
In my view, the exam was a fair reflection of the content on the Exam Blueprint and a vast improvement on the VCP6-Cloud exam I took 18 months ago.
Written by Christopher Lewis on June 1, 2017 .
More important in the UK than the upcoming General Election, It is that time of year again when you can vote for your #TopvBlog2017 (created by Eric Siebert at vsphere-land.com and sponsored by turbonomic ).
A VOTE for me is… a vote for ME!
I made it onto the short list (albeit you do have to nominate your blog yourself!)As well as the general category, I threw my name in the hat for the following categories:
Written by Christopher Lewis on June 1, 2017 .
VMware vRealize Automation 7.x introduced a #awesome Installation Wizard. This was a #QuantumLeap forward from the vRA6 installation mechanism that can be best described as laborious.
The Installation/Configuration Wizard guides you through all of the stages of the installation and can even install all of the IaaS prerequisites for you. In my experience from vRA6, getting the prerequisites correct, was the place where most pain was caused. This was the reason @vBrianGraf created some powershell scripts to handle it.
Written by Christopher Lewis on June 1, 2017 .
Intro
I was drafted into a customer today to try and work out why, amongst other small niggles, their Windows Virtual Machines had suddenly started to hang during provisioning. The deployments were from a relatively standard IaaS Blueprint that was created 6 months ago. I thought I would share my thought process/steps (right or wrong) to solving the issue and also tell you what happened. I’m not really a “check the logs” kind of guy (unless its uber complicated).
Written by Christopher Lewis on May 26, 2017 .
VMware vRealize Orchestrator 7.3 is out! ( Release Notes ) and the deployment and configuration process is now a lot slicker and easier to complete. In this HOWTO, we look at the the process of configuring Role Based Access Management within the Control Center.
There are three Pre-Defined Roles are:
- Administrator - Has access to All configuration menus.
- Tenant Admin - Has access to only to Role Based Access Management and Inspect Workflows.
- Consumer - Has access to only to Inspect Workflows.
Important things to remember that I discovered through testing are:
Written by Christopher Lewis on May 24, 2017 .
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 3: Creating a Pricing Card in VMware Aria Automation
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 2: Creating a Pricing Card in VMware Aria Operations
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 1: Understanding Pricing Cards in VMware Aria
- Zero2Hero - Using Aria Automation to Deploy Multiple Machines with Multiple Disks - Part 5
- Zero2Hero - Using Aria Automation to Deploy Multiple Machines with Multiple Disks - Part 4