Nov 12

TAM Lab 078 – Migrating & Converting RDMs to VMDKs

Raw Device Mappings (RDMs) can be difficult to work with when managing a virtual datacenter and with the latest vSphere storage capabilities you may not need RDMs any longer. Join Steve Tilkens (@stevetilkens) as he gets hands-on with RDMs and demonstrates how to migrate VMs with RDMs and convert RDMs to VMDKs.

Rating: 5/5


 

Aug 13

TAM Lab 068 – vCenter STS Certificate Expiring

In this session, we highlight two different approaches to solving the vCenter STS Certificate Expiration Issue (KB79248 & KB76719) via automation. Christopher Price joins us with his customer, David Crown (@_davecrown), to highlight how they leveraged Ansible and Mark McGill shows us his approach via PowerShell.

NOTE: This video is roughly 60 minutes in length so it would be worth blocking out some time to watch it!

Rating: 5/5


Aug 06

TAM Lab 067 – vSphere 7 w/Kubernetes Walk-Through

In this session, Kelly Dare (@vKDare) and Scottie Ray (@H20nly) explore some of the foundational components of vSphere 7 w/K8s. They walk through some generic Cluster API concepts and show how they are implemented in VMware’s newest offering. They explore namespace creation, the idea of native pods, Tanzu Kubernetes Cluster service, as well as some tie-ins to other portions of the VMware portfolio.

NOTE: This video is roughly 60 minutes in length so it would be worth blocking out some time to watch it!

Rating: 5/5


Jul 23

TAM Lab 066 – vSphere 7 with ADFS Authentication

With the release of vSphere 7, customers can now move beyond authentication mechanisms like SSO domain users, LDAP(S), and joining vCenter to their Active Directory domains. Identity Federation allows for us to leverage enterprise identity providers, like Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), to grant access to vSphere! Join Bill Hill (@virtual_bill), for this TAM Lab session where we walk through what this looks like and how our customers can leverage this in their environment.

Rating: 5/5


May 09

TAM Lab 060 – SQL Server Clustering on vSphere

Steve Tilkens (@stevetilkens) reviews the process to build a Microsoft SQL Server cluster (Windows Server Failover Cluster) on vSphere and the configurations required to tune the workload for performance.

NOTE: This video is roughly 60 minutes in length so it would be worth blocking out some time to watch it!

Helpful Links

Microsoft SQL Server on Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) on VMware vSAN – New Capabilities! – https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2019/10…

vSphere 7 Microsoft Windows Server Failover Cluster with Clustered VMDKs https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/di…

Disk and File Layout for SQL Server – https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqls…

Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 6.7 – https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/di…

StorageHub – https://storagehub.vmware.com/

SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance on VMware vSAN™ Native – https://storagehub.vmware.com/t/sql-s…

Best Practices For Running VMware vSphere On iSCSI – https://storagehub.vmware.com/t/best-…

Architecting Microsoft SQL Server on VMware vSphere – https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/di…

Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) with shared disks on VMware vSphere 6.x: Guidelines for supported configurations (2147661) –
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2147661

Setup for Failover Clustering and Microsoft Cluster Service –
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSp…

ESXi/ESX hosts with visibility to RDM LUNs being used by MSCS/WSFC nodes with RDMs may take a long time to start or during LUN rescan (1016106) – https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1016106

Rating: 5/5


Feb 17

TAM Lab 036 – vRealize Network Insight Deploy/Overview

In this session, Steve Tilkens (@stevetilkens) and Victor Monga (@victorvirtual) deploy and configure vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) in Steve’s lab. Victor also gets hands on with vRNI in another demo environment.

NOTE: This video is roughly 55 minutes in length so it would be worth blocking out some time to watch it!

Rating: 5/5


Jan 21

TAM Lab 023 – vROps and vRLI Deployment via vRSLCM

Steve Tilkens (@stevetilkens) deploys vRealize Operations and Log Insight via vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager.
Great job Steve!

Rating: 5/5


Dec 17

TAM Lab 010 – Configuring vROps Access for an Application Team

Steve Tilkens’ (@stevetilkens) configured a brand new vROps instance to provide limited access to an application team for just their VMs.

NOTE: This video is roughly 45 minutes in length so it would be worth blocking out some time to watch it!

Rating: 5/5


Dec 15

TAM Lab 009 – How to troubleshoot with vRealize Log Insight

Nico Guerrera (@nicomgu) demonstrated how to properly troubleshoot issues with vRealize Log Insight (vRLI) in his lab environment.

NOTE: This video is roughly 1 hour in length so it would be worth blocking out some time to watch it!

Rating: 5/5


Dec 05

TAM Lab 006 – vCenter Server Converge Tool

Brian Wuchner (@bwuch) demonstrated the vCenter Server Converge Tool in the 6.7 U1 VCSA to convert an external Platform Services Controller (PSC) into an embedded configuration.

NOTE: This video is roughly 1 hour 15 minutes in length so it would be worth blocking out some time to watch it!

Rating: 5/5