VCDX Journey 2020 – The road to submission

Since the beginning of this year I am working towards my VCDX-NV submission. Back in February this year, when I finished the conceptual part of my design I wrote a blog post about my complete journey. While writing the current blogpost we have arrived in the submission week of my VCDX. Coming Friday (26th) is the deadline of the VCDX submissions that are aiming for defenses in September. I would like to explain how I experienced my journey towards submission and what I would advise to others.

(more…)

Insufficient locker space while installing ESXi 7.0

During the upgrade of ESXi in my NUC cluster I encountered an error that had something to with available space on the system disk(s). I have my ESXi installed on a USB device because I need to use both internal disks (2) for vSAN when I need it.

To resolve this issue I performed the following steps:

Download the ESXi Offline Bundle .ZIP
Logon to the ESXi host with SSH
Rename the /store folder: # mv /store /store.old
Remove the /store.old folder: # rm -rf store.old
Browse to the directory where the ESXi offline bundle is located:
# cd /vmfs/volumes/SYNOLOGY-STORAGE/CIFS\ ISO\ library/VMware/vSphere\ 7.0/
Perform the update of ESXi via the esxcli:
# esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volumes/SYNOLOGY-STORAGE/CIFS\ ISO\ library/VMware/vSphere\ 7.0/VMware-ESXi-7.0.0-15843807-depot.zip -p ESXi-7.0.0-15843807-standard

I hope this is useful for somebody. If there is anything to add or remark, please let me know!

sources: vmware.com

Enable Jumbo Frames on Ubiquiti Unifi Security Gateway (USG)

Everyone who owns an Unifi product is familiar with SDN controller, the UI and how to configure it. When you need Jumbo Frames or MTU sizes above the default of 1500 you need to adjust your configuration. On the Unifi Switches this can easily be done from the controller UI itself. As you can see in the screenshot below (from my own Unifi SDN Controller), you only have to do one-click in order to enable it on the switch. This can be done on all the switches.

(more…)

Job change; Moving to AnyLinQ

After working for ITQ for about three years, I will switch to AnyLinQ as of April 1, 2020. Although I am still very happy with ITQ, and I still saw enough perspective for myself, the offer and challenge that AnyLinQ presented me was something I could not refuse. That’s how it feels now.

The past 3 years at ITQ have been the most educational ones of my career, and ITQ has been the best employer I have had so far, I still decided to leave ITQ. It was a very difficult decision to make. My feeling says that I have to jump into it and go for this challenge. At AnyLinQ I will be working in the role of Senior Consultant/Architect, but also going to do some pre-sales and helping build and shape their internal “VMware practice”.

I keep pursuing my VCDX ambitions at AnyLinQ with the same motivation and ambition. My new employer will support my goal for the coming year, and my objective to do my defense in September 2020 will not change.

Looking back at my ITQ time, I am very grateful that I’ve been part of this amazing company with all the wonderful and knowledgeable people as colleagues. I want to thank ITQ for all the time and effort they invested in me, and the cool projects I have done. Because without them I would not have been the Senior IT Professional that I am today.

For now; I am very much looking forward to a new period, with new and different learning curves and my time at AnyLinQ.

2020 – The year of my #VCDX Journey!

In June 2017 I joined the company ITQ Consultancy in the Netherlands. A VMware knowledge POWERHOUSE! Back then I only held a VCP5-DCV certification which was almost expiring, and up to that point, I mainly worked with compute and storage infrastructures.

When I joined ITQ my primary goal for the first year was getting more knowledge on the networking part within IT and especially getting familiar with the Software-Defined Network solution of VMware; NSX for vSphere. My secondary goal was achieving a double VCIX status (DCV and NV) within one year after I started at ITQ.

(more…)