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VCSA HA – What is it good for?

Once upon a time Edwin Starr (and later Bruce Springsteen) raised that question – ..well kind of. 😉

With the increasing popularity of virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) the role of the virtual center has become much more important. In the beginning of virtualization vCenter was a tool to configure and control your ESX hosts and virtual machines. If it went down for maintenance or failure it wasn’t a serious problem. Your server-VMs still kept running.

VDI turned out to be a game changer. If your vCenter goes offline, users can no longer log into their deskstops. This makes vCenter maintenance a tricky task. It can’t be done during business hours and even late at night or on weekends there are remote users who want to log into their virtual desktops. Or think about employees working in different timezones. In some companies the sun never sets on vCenter. Continue reading “VCSA HA – What is it good for?”

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Runecast-Analyzer 1.5 – Hands-on

VMware veröffentlich in regelmäßigen Abständen neue Artikel in der VMware-Knowledgebase. Darüber hinaus gibt es Hardening-Guides und Best-Practises Guides, deren Inhalt immer wieder aktualisiert und angepasst wird. Hier verliert man schon einmal den Überblick, welcher der ESXi-Hosts noch im Einklang mit den Guides, oder den KB-Artikeln ist. Er war es vielleicht zum Zeitpunkt der Installation, aber inzwischen können sich viele Dinge geändert haben.

Auftritt Runecast-Analyzer

Hier kann der Runecast-Analyzer ein wertvolles Hilfsmittel sein. Er analysiert automatisch vCenter und ESXi-Server, vergleicht die Installation gegen aktuelle KB-Artikel, Hardening-Guides und Best-Practises Guides.

Die Installation ist recht einfach. Die Runecast-Appliance wird im Cluster bereitgestellt und mit dem vCenter verbunden. Soviel zur Konfiguration. Seit der Version 1.5 können auch mehrere vCenter mit der Runecast-Appliance verbunden werden.

Die Analyse erfolgt nicht in der Cloud, sondern im eigenen Datacenter. Es werden also keine vertraulichen Daten an Dritte weitergegeben. Continue reading “Runecast-Analyzer 1.5 – Hands-on”

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Nextcloud Setup fails with SQLSTATE[HY000][1045] Access denied

Nextcloud is an excellent alternative to public clouds like Gdrive (Google), Dropbox or OneDrive (Microsoft).  It gives you full control over your data and you don’t have to rely on privacy promises of commercial providers. You can also choose the location of your hosting server and make sure your data isn’t in the reach of foreign authorities. Continue reading “Nextcloud Setup fails with SQLSTATE[HY000][1045] Access denied”

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Datacore Update with Emulex 12000 HBA might end up in BSOD

Two year old bug still not fixed

Today I’ve updated a Datacore-Cluster from SanSymphony10  PSP6 U1 to PSP6 U4. In the past we had issues with updating DataCore-Emulex drivers during the update process. Some updates went fine – others resulted in a BSOD. That was in 2015. Customer Support told us, that this was fixed with SanSymphony10 PSP1.

As a security precaution I’ve followed a procedure (article in german) where I first uninstalled all Datacore-Emulex drivers before I applied the DataCore update and replaced drivers on all HBA afterwards. That is time-consuming and complicated. So I gave it a try and did a regular update to a DataCore cluster with Emulex HBA (12000 series). Continue reading “Datacore Update with Emulex 12000 HBA might end up in BSOD”