Waking from a Siesta
Hello friends It’s been a while. I moved roles in 2016 into a field engineering role. I adore this role. It’s a great mix of hands on, creating, and implementing . I feel my skills now are the best they’ve…
A slap with the wet squid of reality
Powershell for Network Engineers
The ever wonderful Ivan Pepelnjak over at ipspace.net asked me back in December to join him for a Webinar on PowerNSX. Given that he was hosting a two part series on ‘Powershell for Network Engineers’ this was pretty great. As…
NSX 6.3.0 Released
On the 2nd of February VMware released the next major release of NSX for vSphere. NSX for vSphere 6.3.0 adds a number of new features. Here is some more detail about some of the more useful additions. Universal Security Tags…
My VCDX NV Submission
I have not kept my VCDX ambitions in the dark. Well, come December 2nd last year I submitted my design for VCDX NV. The VCDX is VMware’s highest certification for individuals and focuses on four tracks – these currently are Data…
My visit to Blizzard Entertainment
Lok’tar Warchief, Today is a blog of a different kind. On my last trip to America I ventured to a place called Irvine. Irvine, California in the Orange County is home to a number of cool things. For me, this…
Adding vCenter appliance to Fusion
Inside the content of the vCenter Server appliance ISO there are the files. Normal process is to use the HTML page and install the VMware Client Integration Plugin. Given that I want to deploy to Fusion this is not going…
Install vCenter appliance with CLI installer
Sometimes I need a lab quickly to test a feature. Whilst I have access to a substantial lab I do not always have access to internet. I work on a Macbook Pro and may not have access to a Windows…
You don’t know as much as you think you do and that is… perfectly fine.
We live in a world that requires people to know a lot of information. Depending on role we are required to know to varying depths. Shallow and wide or deep and narrow. No matter the combination the teams we are…
Query IP address (and other info) of Virtual Machine
I’ve been working on some different things lately and wanted to share with you a tool I used to help verify data. Whilst I am not ready to reveal all that I am working on I have had the requirement…
Tools united – Part 1
Tools United Here is a post based on some of the tools that I use. I have a varied workflow depending on what I do or need to achieve. I do not profess to have the best workflow. I do…
Time. The most valuable thing which we cannot refill
My cat died today. I opened his little cat run to feed him and he was laying exactly when I patted him to sleep last night. I picture it peaceful and him going to sleep and not waking up. I…
Learning by doing : Orphaned DVS uplink
So to put it quite bluntly I am no vSphere master. Give me a network DMZ design and let me loose. Enterprise network edge? Ace. BGP? No worries. I am learning my doing (see breaking) my lab in Singapore at…
Response: Linux on Network Switches make sense for your career
Response: Linux on Network Switches make sense for your career Greg Ferro posted an article over at EtherealMind which highlights the shift and desire in the industry to move to Linux based Network Operating Systems (NOS). What Greg intones with…
Enable MAC learning on OVS under OpenStack
I have access to a rather large OpenStack deployment. This environment I am a tenant and have standard rights assigned to me by my Administrator. For the purpose of the exercise I am going to show how to enable mac-learning…
Remember your Technical Integrity
It has been an interesting week on the Twitter. Having been fed up with the recent FUD storms of late (ACI/NSX and Nutanix/VMware) I spat this tweet out. I pushed this tweet out as a reminder to friends. This blog is…
Logging and Data – It’s what you do with it
Darrel: What do you call this love? Sal: Ice cream. Darrel: But yeah, it’s what you do with it. Dale: How do you do it mum? Sal: Scooped it out of the punnet! The above is a quote…
VMUG, Community, and you (me).
I was asked to present at the VMUG in Melbourne in late 2013. At the time I was working at ESTA. They provide 000 Call taking for Emergency Services (The same as 911 for the US!). I decided to talk…
Eat your Dogfood. Throw it up. Eat it again.
Perception. The notion that you are doing something correct based on surroundings or indicators. When you develop a product or a methodology, you have a vision that your product has minimal flaws. You think that it could change the…
Seek unification over the SPOG
There are a few marketing trends that annoy me. One in particular is the Single Pane of Glass. This is a notion that an administrator or NOC team can look at everything from a window. What has ended up happening…
UI and UX are paramount
Single Purpose applications Look at how applications are developed these days. Single use or single purpose applications. Twitter, Facebook, Calculator, Reminders, and Email. Just some examples of applications from an application catalog that are single purpose. They are gateways for…
Beware of the IT guy in a tie.
I’ve been in IT since 2010. I first took on the role as an IT support administrator in schools. This involved me slicing my week up where I would spend time at a variety of sites. I did everything from…
Don’t forget how to be a user
## Don’t forget how to be a user I work for a large technology company that provides many product offerings. I live in a world that is at the forefront of the network industry that delivers a leading edge technology. There…
Improving image workflows
I put a lot of images into my blog or presentations. I do not like to be wordy. Sometimes I spend a lot of time cleaning them up and getting rid of backgrounds. Time to clean them up a faster…
Enterprises need Consumer grade products
For many years computing devices were built with two tiers. Consumer grade and Enterprise grade. Enterprise grade delivered high availability, quality components, redundant part and circuits and as a result came with a price tag that reflected this. This applies…
Juniper Ambassador Summit
The summit This week I spent time at the Juniper Ambassador Summit. This summit is designed for people who use, deploy and administrate Juniper environments. I was invited into this program last year and since has received a lot of…