It’s been a minute since my last home lab post, but I’ve been heads-down on something I’m genuinely excited to share. With the release of Veeam Backup & Replication 13 (VBR 13 for short), I took the …
Hello all, and thanks so much for stopping by! First off, let me start by apologizing for being quiet for a bit…I took some time to focus on a brand new project here on the blog, and I’m excited to finally …
Intro Welcome back! I know it’s been some time since my last post where I covered the deployment of the nested vSphere lab, but I’d like to take a moment to thank you for coming back and supporting me! Life …
Intro Welcome back! In my previous post, I covered the deployment and configuration of an Active Directory and Microsoft Certificate Authority server(s) for the nested lab environment. Next, I will cover the steps used …
Intro Welcome back! In my previous post, I covered the deployment and configuration of a virtual Sophos XG Firewall router appliance to provide routing services for the nested lab environment.
Intro Welcome to Part 1 of my Nested vSphere Home Lab Series. In my previous post, I went over the gist of what I plan to do for my Nested vSphere Home Lab. In this post, I will cover the setup and configuration of a …
Intro Hey there! I’d taken a hiatus from writing as my personal life got in the way…got married, had a child, and changed employer(s), just to name a few!
Intro In my previous post, I covered the configuration of VMware Identity Manager in preparation for what I will cover in this post, the installation of vRealize Automation 8.0! This new release is a complete redesign of …
Intro In my previous post, I covered how to install vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.0 and in the process it also deployed an instance of VMware Identity Manager aka Workspace One Access, which is a requirement for …
Intro Welcome to Part 1 of my vRealize Suite 2019 Series. In my previous post, I went over the gist of what I plan to deploy in my nested Home Lab. In this post, I will cover the installation of vRealize Suite Lifecycle …
Intro Hello, and thank you for visiting my blog! I’d decided to take some time away from writing in order to focus on my role as a Solutions Engineer at VMware, and enhance my skillset by getting more acclimated …
Wow! This is an extremely long overdue post but better to get it out than never!! Just wanted to quickly say that I’m extremely humbled to have been awarded the VMware vExpert 2019 award for the 4th consecutive …
Intro Welcome to Part 6 of my NSX-T Home Lab series. In my previous post, I covered how to configure NSX-T networking to be able to start migrating and running workloads on the NSX-T fabric. In this post, I am going to …
Intro Welcome to Part 5 of my NSX-T Home Lab series. In my previous post, I went over the lengthy process of configuring the NSX-T fabric. In this post, I am going to cover the process of configuring the networking so we …
Intro Welcome to Part 4 of my NSX-T Home Lab series. In my previous post, I covered the process of deploying the NSX-T appliances and joining them to the management plane to have the foundational components ready for us …
Intro Welcome to Part 3 of my NSX-T Home Lab Series. In my previous post, I went over the process of setting up the Sophos XG firewall/router VM for my nested lab environment. In this post, we’ll cover the process …
Intro Welcome to Part 2 of my NSX-T Home Lab Series. In my previous post, I went over the installation and configuration of a Sophos XG firewall for my nested NSX-T Home Lab. In this post, I will cover the setup and …
Intro Welcome to Part 1 of my NSX-T Home Lab Series. In my previous post, I went over the gist of what I plan to do for my nested NSX-T Home Lab. In this post, I will cover the setup and configuration of a Sophos XG …
Intro I recently upgraded my Home Lab “Datacenter” to support all-flash VSAN and 10Gb networking with the plan to deploy NSX-T so that I can familiarize myself with the solution and use it to better prepare …
Disclaimer: The following is not supported by VMware. Nested virtualization is nothing new, and many of us use it for test or demonstration purposes since they can quickly be stood up or torn down. William Lam has an …
First off, let me start by apologizing for my long hiatus. I took some time away from blogging to focus on some personal matters as well as my career development and advancement. But here were are, brand new year, and a …
I am extremely humbled to have been awarded the VMware vExpert 2018 award for the 3rd consecutive time and am honored to be amongst the likes of some of the smartest and passionate individuals in the vCommunity! …
In this post, I am going to discuss a little, “not-so-well-known” utility, called VMware Software Manager. This little “beast” was first released as v1.0 back on 2015-03-12, and its most current …
Just a few days ago, PowerShell Core v6.0 was released for Windows, Linux, and macOS systems. Alongside this release came the release of VMware PowerCLI 10.0.0.78953 which is VMware’s own …
Just a few days ago, PowerShell Core v6.0 was released for Windows, Linux, and macOS systems. Alongside this release came the release of VMware PowerCLI 10.0.0.78953 which is VMware’s own “PowerShell-like” utility.
Just a few days ago, PowerShell Core v6.0 was released for Windows, Linux, and macOS systems. Alongside this release came the release of VMware PowerCLI 10.0.0.78953 which is VMware’s own “PowerShell-like” utility. In …
Hello all and thank you for visiting my blog! In today’s post, I am going to cover how to deploy a VMware virtual appliance (.ova) using PowerCLI. “Why?” you asked? Well, because scripting and automation via PowerCLI is …
Welcome, and thanks for visiting my blog! In this post, I am going to cover how to enable NFS v4.1 on a Synology device and then mount and NFS v4.1 datastore in VMware vSphere 6.5. By default, Synology devices support …
Hello and first off, thank so much for visiting my blog! If you have followed any part of my “Homelab” series, you will be familiar with the components that make up my home “Datacenter”. If not, take some time to catch …
NOTE: This is completely for experimental purposes and is unsupported by both Apple and VMware Hello all! This is just a quick follow up to my previous guide on running macOS 10.12 Sierra on ESXi 6.x, where I have now …
This is an extremely long overdue post, but I have had such a busy year that I really haven’t been able to find much time to write and publish material that I have been meaning to get out. So, as I attempt to get back …
Yesterday morning I discovered that my Synology NAS had an unexpected shutdown in the middle of the night while my homelab VMs/workloads were still running. This caused both of my Domain Controllers databases to become …
Having a backup solution is imperative in any IT environment, whether it be Production or a simple Home Lab like I have. There are many different brands and companies that offer backup solutions, such as Veeam or Nakivo, …
Have you ever wondered to yourself, “What is OpenVPN and what is it used for?” I know I have! I currently leverage OpenDNS’s servers in my network, and when I saw that they offer an Open-Source VPN solution, I figured I …
For the last 6+ months, I haven’t had much time to dedicate to my home lab and overall home network. Between holidays, transitioning to a new employer/role, and everyday life getting in the way, I found that I had to put …
Create a macOS/OS X VM on VMware ESXi 6.5 & VMware Workstation 12.5.2 Pro NOTE: This is completely for experimental purposes and is unsupported by both Apple and VMware
Earlier today, I got the notification and I am honored that I’ve been awarded the VMware vExpert 2017 title! The current vExpert count is 1,472 people and this marks my 2nd consecutive year (2016-2017) that I’ve been …
Create A VMFS5 Datastore On A USB Drive Ever wondered if it was possible to use a USB Drive as a VMFS5 datastore in VMware vSphere 6.0? I sure know that I have! Not that I would like to run any VM’s on said datastore, as …
PernixData FVP Freedom Woes With Missing System UUID Recently, I’ve been wanting to give PernixData FVP Freedom a run in my HomeLab Datacenter to better familiarize myself with the product and see how much of a …
Installing phpIPAM on Ubuntu 16.04 I have been thinking, for a while now, about deploying an IP Address Management (IPAM) system in my Home Lab environment to keep track of my assigned addresses across my various VLANs. …
Creating a Single-Node VSAN Many of us homelab enthusiasts tend to build “whitebox” systems from spare PC parts and a few internal hard drives for local storage that we’ve either ordered or had laying around in order …
Create a Synology VM with XPEnology I’m a huge fan of Synology NAS systems, but I must say, they do often put a gaping hole in your wallet. Well, fortunately the folks over at XPEnology have created an alternative way …
Home Lab 2016 – Part 3 Hello all! My sincere apologies for the brief hiatus, but I am back to continue my Home Lab 2016 series. In my previous posts, I covered the components that make up my new Home Lab. In this post I …
I recently picked up a new router/firewall for my home, and chose the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite (ERLite-3). This device comes with a lot of bells and whistles and if you would like more information on it, please see here. …
Intel NIC Not Detected by ESXi In this post I am going to cover a random issue I encountered after installing ESXi 6.0 Update 2 on one of my new Home Lab 2016 hosts. The actual installation of ESXi was extremely easy and …
Home Lab 2016 – Part 2 Welcome back for Part 2 of my Home Lab 2016 Series. I hope that you enjoyed my previous post, Part 1 from last week, where I covered the basis of my home lab and presented the Bill of Materials …
Home Lab 2016 – Part 1 Having a home lab is every IT enthusiasts dream come true, and now I can finally say that I have fulfilled that dream! I previously was (and currently still am…) using a 1-node “white box” system I …