VCP here I come.

So it's come to that time again after the VCP 2 and 3, along comes the new VCP it's about time that I take it.
I have registered for the VCDX exam but the issue I have is that they never seem to give me enough notice just 2 weeks I not usually enough given how my calender is.

Why is VMWare so much easier than Microsoft

Well I can tell you, the stuff just works and does what you need with ease. Today I have been looking at a DR solution for am existing customer and cloning the VM's and moving the clones to a standalone ESXi server is just so easy.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Exchange 2007 ahhhhh!!!!

So today had another crack at getting Exchange 2007 and ISA 2004 working again and failed yet again, so we are onto the 4th SSL certificate but we have moved forward as it now allows the systems to be accessed from the Internet all be it with the revoked certificate.


-- Posted from my iPhone

So why is Microsoft always so much like hard work.

Today I have been trying to upgrade a system from Windows 2000 with Exchange 2000 to a new server running 2008 and Exchange 2007. You would think that should be quite straightforward but no thanks to some stupid issue with the local policy on the old server the new box would not DCPromo after an afternoon of hitting the box with a stick it finally gave in.
So tomorrow I'm off to install 2007 and transfer the data and shares.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Today I have mostly been getting a vSphere cluster running on my laptop.

So now I have some proper NFR licenses I have had another crack at getting my vSphere cluster running correctly on my laptop. And yes it is running properly I even have a Windows VM running on the cluster that will vMotion between the 2 nodes.
The system is based on HP LeftHand evaluation VSA as the shared storage with 2 ESXi servers connected via iSCSI, both controlled from a vCentre server. The system does not run that fast but at least it's funtional so that I can test things out.


-- Posted from my iPhone

WSUS actually works, who would have guessed.

Yes at long last after fighting with WSUS version 3 SP2 for a couple of days I've got it working and it's not half bad. It does have a few issues not the least being it's so slow to get anything done, it requires a big button to make things happen or of course a hammer to hit it with.
I have managed to find a way to speed it up with the use of the client switches to force the client to talk to the WSUS server.


-- Posted from my iPhone

WSUS a little on the slow side

Today I have been looking at Microsofts WSUS server and I have to say it's not bad but it's a little on the slow side.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Why is everything not as straightforward as VMware.

Today I had a good and bad day, the good being Installing an ESX server into a cluster with a Lefthand VSA, the bad being trying to get OWA to work with Exchange 2007/2003 and ISA 2004.
If you were to look at this you would imagine the latter would be the most straightforward but no increasing the size of a Lefthand San and adding a third node to a VMWare cluster in about an hour while after 5 hours of battling with ISA I gave up (god I Hate Microsoft).


-- Posted from my iPhone

OSX Leopard on VMWare workstation

It's come to that time of year again we're back to playing with getting OSX working as a VM. So in the passed I have managed to get Tiger running on a VM and yes that worked fine after a bit of messing about. I'm now looking at getting Leopard running with the VMware tools from Fusion as they will run on a fusion VM on a Leopard VM.


-- Posted from my iPhone

On the way to the VCP 4

So at long last I have started to make a move to do the next VCP, so yet again VMware are making the early exam takers suffer by making the exam harder then slackaning the exam off.
Today I printed out the vSphere manuals out all 500 pages and I also had to bind them, I just hope that reading that lot will mean a pass.


-- Posted from my iPhone

HP DL185 Storage Server

Well today I had mostly been installing a HP DL185 Storage Server and I have to say what a peice of cake just plug in and off we go. The software is preinstalled, so it took all of 10 minutes while the system confiures itself supply an IP address and that's job done.
Yes I have to say very impressed, but at least the use is interesting the storage wil be offered out via iSCSI to a VM on ESX to allow a large amount of storage to be used without utilizing the storage on an expensive EVA.