Thoughts and Ramblings by Mike

Updating SSL Certificates for CML

Sun, 03 May 2026 09:00:00 -0400

If you have a Cisco Modeling Labs appliance in your lab or running on a piece of dedicated hardware, you have probably noticed two browser warnings every time you log in. CML ships with self-signed certs on both the main web UI and the Cockpit management UI, and your browser will complain about both. Cisco publishes an official guide for installing an SSL certificate on CML, and it is a solid starting point, but in my own runs it did not get me 100% of the way to the outcome I wanted. The procedure focuses on the nginx side, leaves Cockpit's quirks largely unaddressed, and does not cover renewal, rollback, or any pre and post checks. The helper script in this post fills those gaps so a single command handles the install, the renewal six months from now, and a rollback if something goes sideways. This post walks through what the script does, how to use it, and how to keep things tidy when your wildcard cert renews.

PSA: Check Your Upgrade History Before AOS 7.5.1

Sat, 02 May 2026 09:00:00 -0400

You read the release notes cover to cover before every upgrade, right?

This one almost caught me. I was prepping a cluster for an upgrade to AOS 7.5.1 when a known issue in the release notes gave me pause. A quick look at the upgrade history confirmed the cluster was squarely in the affected population, and the upgrade plan changed on the spot. That is the moment that prompted this post.

Guest Customization for Windows in Prism Central 7.5

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0400

If you have ever cloned a Windows VM on Nutanix and watched five identical machines come up with the same hostname, the same SID, and a domain join you have to redo by hand, you already know why guest customization matters. For years my workflow involved hand-rolling an unattend XML file for each new template, version controlling them, and then attaching the right one at clone time. It worked. It was also one of those things I would dread refreshing whenever a new Windows release dropped or a customer asked for a slightly different deployment profile.

Why CML Earned a Permanent Spot in My Workflow

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0400

If you are a network engineer who has ever stared down a change window and wished you could test the exact topology before touching production, this post is for you. I want to walk through why Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) has become one of the most used tools in my day to day, and how it has shaped the way I approach design, migrations, and team enablement. The short version: a sandbox that mirrors real gear means fewer surprises at 2 AM, faster validation on design work, and a safer way to bring the next engineer up to speed.

The Infrastructure Squeeze: Navigating Hardware Constraints

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0400

There's a not-so-quiet crisis unfolding in organizations across the country. It's making headlines, driving water cooler conversations, and even finding its way to the dinner table. The cost of hardware is climbing. Lead times are stretching. And the quotes your team received last month? They may already be obsolete.

Welcome to the new reality of infrastructure procurement, where budgets are stressed, timelines are broken, and standing still might be the riskiest move of all.

.Next Chicago Recap

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 10:00:00 -0400

Fair warning, this one's a bit longer than usual, so grab a cup of coffee or your favorite adult beverage and settle in.

Last year I wrapped up my DC recap by saying "I look forward to seeing you next year in Chicago," and here we are. Nutanix .Next 2026 brought us back to the Windy City, McCormick Place, and a week that reminded me once again why this is the conference I look forward to most every year.

Nutanix Instant Restore: A Big Win for MST

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0400

Over the past couple of posts, I have covered what MST is and how to choose between Zero Compute and Pilot Light deployment models. Throughout that series, I mentioned that a new capability in Prism Central 7.5.1 was what prompted me to revisit MST in the first place. This is that post.

If you're new to MST, check out my earlier posts. If you have spent any time evaluating or working with MST for disaster recovery, you know the value proposition: replicate VM and Volume Group snapshots to object storage, keep costs down, and recover workloads when you need them. The architecture is sound, the durability is there, and the cost profile makes it easy to justify. But there has always been one conversation that got uncomfortable: "How long until my VMs are actually running again?"

MST Deployment Models: Zero Compute vs. Pilot Light

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0400

In my previous post, I covered what Multicloud Snapshot Technology (MST) is, the object stores it supports, and where it fits in your DR strategy. Now I want to dig into the decision that shapes most of your MST architecture: which deployment model to use.

Nutanix offers two distinct approaches, Zero Compute and Pilot Light, and they trade off cost against recovery speed in ways that matter a lot depending on the workloads you are protecting. Getting this decision right can mean the difference between a recovery that takes minutes and one that takes hours, with very different cost profiles along the way.

A Practical Look at Nutanix MST for Disaster Recovery

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0400

I have been recently revisiting Nutanix Multicloud Snapshot Technology, aka MST. What prompted the fresh look was the Instant Restore capability that shipped with Prism Central 7.5.1. When a feature fundamentally changes the recovery time story for an entire DR approach, it is worth going back and re-evaluating the technology as a whole. I will get to what started all this - Instant Restore - in a follow-up post, but first I want to walk through what MST actually is, what it supports, and why it deserves a closer look if you have not evaluated it recently.

From Outage to Insight: Resilient Public Sector IT

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 11:30:11 -0400

Last week I had the opportunity to attend CentralSquare Engage 2026, and as always, it was a reminder of why this space matters. Representing eGroup at this event is something I genuinely look forward to. We have been supporting Public Safety and Public Administration agencies for over ten years, and conferences like this are where you get to have the real conversations, the ones that go beyond sales cycles and get into the operational realities these teams face every day.

The NTC Gift Arrived: A Small Token That Represents a Lot

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:06:57 -0500

A few months ago, I wrote about hitting a milestone I wasn't sure I'd ever see when I first joined the program back in 2016: 10 consecutive years as a Nutanix Technology Champion. That post was a chance to reflect on the relationships, the growth, and what a decade in this community really meant to me. This one is a little lighter, but still worth sharing.

The NTC gifts arrived this week (Pardon my lack of taking good photographs...)

Nutanix Automation Tools Compared: Finding the Right Fit

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 11:07:06 -0500

I've spent the past several months diving into automation for Nutanix, and the learning curve has been steeper than I expected. Not because the tools are bad, but because each one approaches automation differently, and figuring out which tool fits which task took more trial and error than I anticipated. My goal was simple: build useful automation that makes managing Nutanix infrastructure easier. Getting there meant learning PowerShell, Python, Ansible, and Terraform well enough to know when to reach for each one.

Identity Is the New Perimeter (And It's Under Attack)

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:55:13 -0500

I've had more conversations about identity resilience in the past six months than in the previous five years combined. Something has shifted. Customers who used to treat Active Directory as "set it and forget it" infrastructure are now asking hard questions about recovery, integrity, and what happens when (not if) their identity systems get compromised.

That shift isn't paranoia. It's pattern recognition.

The Target Has Moved

For years, the security conversation centered on protecting data. Backup your files, replicate your databases, encrypt your storage. And those things still matter. But attackers have figured out something more elegant: why steal data when you can steal the keys to everything?

Unlearning VMs: One Infrastructure Guy's Kubernetes Journey

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 15:45:42 -0500

I passed the Nutanix Certified Professional - Cloud Native exam this past week. But that test wasn't a finish line. It's the starting point of what I'm treating as a yearlong journey. Getting here meant many hours deep in my lab, building and rebuilding clusters, deploying NKP over and over until the pieces finally clicked. Ten years as a Nutanix Technology Champion, countless infrastructure projects, more clusters than I can count, and I still walked into that exam feeling like a beginner again.

Horizon Image Management on AHV

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:35:03 -0500

If you haven't already, check out my post on Horizon architecture on AHV, which highlights the key architectural differences between running Horizon on ESXi versus AHV, and describes the lab environment used for testing.

There are many ways to deploy and configure images and applications in a Horizon environment. Many organizations use App Volumes to deliver applications separately from the base image, and I'll cover that in a future post. For now, this post focuses on the fundamentals: building and maintaining a golden image for non-persistent and persistent desktop pools with applications baked directly into the image.

Omnissa Horizon 8 Architecture on AHV

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 14:00:00 -0500

Welcome to my first post of 2026! Now that Omnissa Horizon 8 on Nutanix AHV is fully GA as part of the Horizon 8 2512 release, I've been kicking the tires and working through deploying the stack on AHV. For those used to deploying and managing Horizon on ESXi, the workflow is slightly different on AHV, but in a good way. The integration with Nutanix recovery points makes rollbacks much cleaner than what we had before in my opinion, though the jury is still out... I've never been a fan of snapshots on the vSphere side, so I like the flexibility here.

2025 Year in Review

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 09:17:19 -0500

2025 was a busy year. Between customer workshops, webinars, and a renewed focus on content creation, I spent more time than ever sharing knowledge and working directly with customers. I'm proud of how much I was able to write and share this year. Here's a quick look back on 2025.

On the Personal Side

The end of 2024 and start of 2025 brought with it the sale and transfer of the CrossFit gym that had become a family to us for almost a decade. It was bittersweet, but it gave my wife and I the ability to step back and jump into some other fitness hobbies we have. We made some great friends (and family) there over the years, and I miss that daily time we got to spend there.

Purely Nutanix: The FlashArray Integration Expands Customer Choice

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:20:25 -0500

When Nutanix and Pure Storage announced their partnership at .NEXT 2025 in May, it turned heads across the industry. Two companies that had previously competed were now working together to deliver something customers have been asking for: the operational simplicity of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure combined with the raw performance of Pure Storage FlashArray.

Some might question the motives behind this partnership. Is it a defensive play? A response to market pressures? I see it differently. This integration continues both companies' commitment to putting customers first. Nutanix has always been about giving customers choice and simplifying infrastructure. Pure has built its reputation on performance and customer experience. Bringing those philosophies together isn't a contradiction; it's a natural evolution.

10 Years as a Nutanix Technology Champion: NTC 2026

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:19:29 -0500

As I returned from a much-needed vacation in Punta Cana with my wife (our first real trip of 2025 where neither of us worked once), I received some exciting news while still on the beach. The NTC announcement came out during our trip, so I got to celebrate this 10-year milestone with my wife over mimosas.

A year ago, I wrote a post reflecting on my 9th year as a Nutanix Technology Champion, and I closed it with a hope: "Here's hoping that next year, at this time, I'll have the opportunity to write another post celebrating a milestone 10 years as an NTC!"

Nutanix Disaster Recovery Guide 2025: Series Conclusion

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 08:15:00 -0500

Over the past nine posts, I've journeyed from the fundamental question of "why disaster recovery matters" through the technical details of implementing comprehensive business continuity with Nutanix. We've covered the risks, the solutions, the configuration, the testing, the operational procedures, advanced automation, and proactive monitoring that transform theoretical DR plans into proven, reliable capabilities. This conclusion brings it all together with a practical roadmap for action.

Monitoring Nutanix DR: Proactive Protection Health

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 08:50:00 -0500

Even the best-designed DR strategy only works if your replication is healthy, protection policies execute successfully, and recovery points are current. This post focuses on monitoring replication health, tracking protection policy status, and catching issues proactively using Prism Central dashboards, NCC health checks, and nCLI troubleshooting commands to ensure your DR capabilities are ready when disaster strikes.

Creating AHV-Ready Windows ISOs with Embedded VirtIO Drivers

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 11:02:40 -0500

Deploying Windows VMs on Nutanix AHV requires VirtIO drivers that aren't included in the standard Windows installation media. This means manually loading drivers during setup or mounting driver ISOs after installation. I've built a PowerShell tool that simplifies this process by injecting the VirtIO drivers directly into your Windows ISO, complete with both a GUI for ease of use and a CLI for automation.

Automating with Guest Scripts in Nutanix DR

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 08:00:00 -0500

Advanced automation through in-guest scripts takes disaster recovery from good to great. While Recovery Plans handle infrastructure orchestration, there are application-specific configurations that require execution inside the guest operating system; DNS reconfiguration, IP changes, and service initialization as a few examples. This post explores how to implement in-guest scripts with Nutanix Guest Tools to eliminate manual intervention during failover operations.

Nutanix & Microsoft Expand Hybrid Cloud Flexibility

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 17:08:42 -0500

Nutanix made two significant announcements this week that expand their collaboration with Microsoft Azure, offering customers more flexibility for both infrastructure workloads and virtual desktop deployments in hybrid cloud environments.

A Migration Path Forward: From AVS to NC2

The first announcement addresses a pressing challenge many organizations are facing: finding alternatives to Azure VMware Solution (AVS) in the wake of Broadcom's licensing changes. Nutanix has introduced enhanced capabilities in Nutanix Move to help customers migrate from AVS to Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) on Azure, all while staying within the Azure ecosystem.

Prism Central Backup Best Practices and Gotchas

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 07:38:39 -0500

Introduction

Prism Central is the command and control plane for your Nutanix infrastructure, managing multiple clusters, providing unified visibility, and orchestrating critical operations across your environment. Given its central role, protecting Prism Central is not just important—it's essential. A failure or data loss event affecting PC can impact your ability to manage your entire infrastructure.

Here's the thing: I've lost count of how many times I've had conversations with customers who insist on backing up their Prism Central VM with their existing backup solution—Veeam, Cohesity, Rubrik, you name it. "We back up everything with our backup tool," they say, "and Prism Central is just another VM, right?" Wrong. And I get it—it's a perfectly natural impulse. You've invested in enterprise backup software, your operations teams are trained on it, and you want consistency across your environment.

Nutanix DR: Planned vs. Unplanned Failovers

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 13:42:28 -0400

Not all failovers are created equal. Planned failover enables zero data loss migrations for maintenance windows, while unplanned failover optimizes for speed when disaster strikes. This post explores how Nutanix handles both scenarios, recovery point selection strategies, cross-cluster live migration for zero-downtime requirements, and how replication type impacts data loss expectations during recovery operations.

DR Testing Best Practices with Nutanix: Build Confidence

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 09:00:00 -0400

A disaster recovery plan that hasn't been tested is just expensive fiction. This post explores non-disruptive testing methodologies with Nutanix, including test failover on isolated networks, validation strategies for RTOs and application functionality, compliance reporting, and building organizational confidence through regular testing—ensuring your DR capabilities work when they're needed most.

Nutanix Recovery Plans: Orchestrating DR Failover

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 09:42:28 -0400

Recovery Plans are your automated DR runbooks, orchestrating the complex choreography of failover to bring applications back online in the right order with proper network configuration. This post explores power-on sequencing, network mapping, VM selection strategies, and non-disruptive testing—transforming disaster recovery from manual procedures into predictable, repeatable automation.

Nutanix NTC 2026 Applications & .Next Chicago Registration

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 09:55:21 -0400

It's my favorite time of year again! The Nutanix Technology Champions (NTC) applications for 2026 are now open, and .Next 2026 registration is live. Whether you've been following my blog, or are just coming across it for the first time, I am passionate about both of these opportunities, and I'm excited to share why they should matter to you too.

Nutanix Technology Champions: More Than a Title

I've had the incredible privilege of being part of the NTC program for the past 9 years, and as I prepare my application for what I hope will be year 10, I find myself reflecting on what this community has meant to me. It's not just a badge or recognition; it's been a transformative experience that's help shape my career and connected me with some of the most talented and generous people in our industry.

Nutanix Protection Policies: Async, Near-Sync & Sync DR

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 09:00:00 -0400

Protection Policies are the foundation of Nutanix DR, defining how recovery points are created, replicated, and retained. This post explores the three replication types—Asynchronous (1-24 hour RPO), Near-Synchronous (1-15 minute RPO), and Synchronous (zero RPO)—covering configuration, performance impacts, distance limitations, and how to align technical capabilities with business requirements across different workload tiers.

Nutanix Disaster Recovery: Modern Policy-Driven Protection

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 10:44:43 -0400

Nutanix offers two distinct approaches to disaster recovery: Protection Domains (the battle-tested foundation) and Nutanix DR (the policy-driven evolution). This post explores both methods, their capabilities, when to use each approach, and how they complement each other. Understanding the difference is crucial for building DR strategies that match your operational model and scale requirements.

Modern Disaster Recovery: Simplifying Business Continuity

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 08:00:00 -0400

Modern DR platforms have fundamentally transformed business continuity from complex, manual procedures into policy-driven automation. This post explores how platforms like Nutanix Disaster Recovery deliver hybrid cloud-native protection, non-disruptive testing, application-aware recovery, and simplified management—making enterprise-grade DR accessible to organizations of all sizes while eliminating the PhD-level complexity of traditional approaches.

Disaster Recovery in 2025: A Comprehensive Guide

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 13:42:28 -0400

Welcome to the Disaster Recovery Series

I've been sitting on writing a series about Disaster recovery (DR) for a while, but maybe the writing bug has caught me - more after some recent conversations with customers. DR has evolved from a nice-to-have backup plan to an absolute business necessity. In 2025, organizations face an unprecedented array of threats: sophisticated cyberattacks, climate-driven natural disasters, supply chain disruptions, and infrastructure failures that can cripple operations within minutes.

Disaster Recovery in 2025: Why It Matters

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 13:42:28 -0400

The question isn't whether your organization will face a disruptive event—it's when. In 2025, the threat landscape has fundamentally shifted, creating risks that can cripple businesses within minutes. From ransomware attacks to climate-driven disasters, downtime costs average $300,000 per hour. This post explores why disaster recovery has become non-negotiable and what's at stake when infrastructure fails.

Omnissa Horizon Updates for Nutanix AHV

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 09:10:59 -0400

Breaking Free - Omnissa Horizon 8 + Nutanix AHV is Reshaping the VDI Landscape

Okay, I'll try to contain my excitement, but honestly? This is some fun stuff and will really highlight how 2025 has been a year of transformation!

I've been reviewing Omnissa's latest announcement about full Horizon 8 support for Nutanix AHV, and let me tell you... this is the moment we've all been waiting for since the announcement was first made. You know those conversations we've been having with customers for months about "what comes after VMware?" Well, the answer just landed on our doorstep with a big red bow on it.

Smarter VM Placement with Nutanix AHV - Part 2

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 10:01:46 -0400

Took me a bit longer to get back around to writing Part 2, life get's in the way sometimes!

Following up on Part 1 where I covered the benefits (and some pitfalls) of Affinity and Anti-Affinity polices with AHV, this post will cover the configuration and validation of these policies. Affinity and Anti-Affinity policies are crucial for ensuring application availability, performance, and compliance by controlling the placement of virtual machines on specific hosts or preventing them from residing on the same host.

Smarter VM Placement with Nutanix AHV - Part 1

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 15:54:28 -0400

In a virtualized environment, how and where your virtual machines (VMs) run isn't just a matter of resource availability. It's a key part of your resiliency, performance, and compliance strategy. That’s where Affinity and Anti-Affinity policies come into play.

With Nutanix AHV, administrators may gain granular control over VM placement through two types of rules:

VM-Host Affinity Policies: Define where VMs should run in relation to specific physical hosts. This policy checks and enforces where a VM can be hosted when you power on or migrate the VM.
VM-VM Anti-Affinity Policies: Ensure certain VMs are kept apart for availability or performance isolation. The VM-VM anti-affinity policy keeps the specified virtual machines apart in such a way that when a problem occurs with one host, you should not lose both the virtual machines.

This will be a two part post on Affinity and Anti-Affinity policies. This post will cover the background of when and where to use Affinity and Anti-Affinity policies with Nutanix AHV, and the second post will cover the configuration and validation of each scenario.

2025 Home Lab: Nutanix, Cisco, TrueNAS, and Testing

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 08:00:00 -0400

Welcome to my 2025 Home Lab: Where Ideas Are Built, Broken, and Rebuilt Better. A constantly evolving playground where I simulate customer environments, test disaster recovery strategies, and push platforms until something breaks (and then fix it… usually).

I've always enjoyed reading these posts, but have never put one of my own together. So why not, halfway through 2025, finally put out my own version!

Before we get into the blinking lights and blown-up configs, I have to say that I’m very fortunate to have a wife who (mostly) understands what I do and is incredibly forgiving when it comes to the realities of home lab life. The garage gets hot (South Carolina summers don’t play around), the fans are loud, and the power bill… well, let’s just say it occasionally raises eyebrows. But through it all, this space has become my sandbox for learning, designing, and occasionally, making glorious messes in the name of innovation.

Scale Smart, Scale Fast: NC2 Scaling on AWS and Azure

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 10:30:21 -0400

The Need for Elastic Infrastructure

In today’s digital landscape, agility and resiliency isn’t just a nice to have, for many organizations it’s considered mission-critical. Whether you’re supporting seasonal growth, accommodating sudden spikes in analytics workloads, or preparing for disaster recovery, your infrastructure needs to scale with you. Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) deliver just that, the ability to run the Nutanix Cloud Platform natively on AWS and Azure on bare metal services, and scale it elastically as your needs evolve. This post dives into how NC2 enables efficient and intelligent scaling across both clouds, whether you’re adding nodes or leveraging native cloud storage like Amazon EBS or Azure Elastic SAN. It will not cover the details of the NC2 deployment though.

Backup Support for Nutanix AOS 7

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 09:21:15 -0400

#comment: true # Disable comment if false.

If you've been holding off on upgrading to AOS 7 due to backup vendor support, we've crossed that bridge! Let's take a quick look at the current landscape of AHV and AOS releases, and then do a quick rundown of the current support from a few major backup vendors to see how they are landing with the latest AOS releases.

Time to queue up some AOS 7 and AHV 10 upgrades!

Migrating to Hugo

Tue, 13 May 2025 15:13:07 -0400

Why I Moved My Blog and What I Learned

Since 2015, my blog has lived on a Amazon Lightsail WordPress deployment. It’s been reliable, familiar, and got the job done without complaint. So why move?

Honestly, nothing was broken. But I was ready for a new challenge.

As someone who lives and breathes IT, sometimes I like to break things just to put them back together smarter. I realized that most of my blog is pretty static. I've used it as a personal knowledgebase, made up of post, images, and a few customizations. I wasn’t using WordPress’s full CMS power, and I definitely wasn’t taking advantage of its dynamic capabilities. That opened the door to explore something I’ve been curious about for a while: Static Site Generators (SSGs).

Next DC Recap

Wed, 07 May 2025 15:07:04 -0400

Last week, I had the pleasure and privilege of attending the Nutanix .Next conference in Washington, DC, a city renowned for its monuments. For a few days, it became a beacon of innovation in IT infrastructure. It's always nice to spend a few days in DC, growing up there I almost took for granted how much there is to offer in that city.

This year marked my seventh attendance at .Next, and each time I am reminded why I continue to return. Over 5,000 customers and numerous partners gathered under one roof, not merely to discuss technology, but to connect, learn, and grow collectively.

On the Ground at .NEXT

Mon, 05 May 2025 16:27:07 -0400

This week, I’m in Washington, DC for the Nutanix .NEXT Conference — the annual gathering that brings together customers, partners, technologists, and thought leaders to explore what’s next in hybrid multicloud, virtualization, and infrastructure. It’s more than just another tech event — it’s a celebration of the Nutanix community and the transformative impact of the Nutanix Cloud Platform. And a great time to catch up with friends and peers, as well as meet new folks!

Nutanix March Releases: Key Features & Fixes

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 08:00:00 -0400

It's New Release Wednesday from Nutanix (3.19.25), with new releases for AHV, AOS and Prism Central, bringing some fixes and nice new features. March has been a busy month for Nutanix, dropping a number of different product updates (shown below), but I'm going to focus on the big 3 that came out today.

Updates in March

So far, March has been a busy month with a wide variety of product releases across the Nutanix Cloud Platform:

Issues with DCBX and LLDP on NX-OS 10.x

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 08:00:00 -0400

I recently deployed a new Nexus 93180YC-EX switch into my home lab, to replace the aging 9372PX. Sure, for a home lab this was fine, but I wanted to get up to some 25Gbe speeds! I've got various equipment connected to that old Nexus, with 2 Nutanix clusters and single VMware cluster, plus various other things, nothing too difficult to move at all.

Migrating from the 9372PX to the 93180YC-EX was fairly simple, the most cumbersome part was migrating the FEX from the old switch to the new switch. Then I started the code upgrades, as the switch was on an older v7 of NX-OS, and the recommended release for this model was 10.3(6). So off I went, and the next morning, I woke up, got some coffee, headed to my office to get ready for a demo, and noticed that my primary Nutanix Cluster was offline, but everything else was fine. CIMC showed that the host was up, but it wasn't pingable. Ok, let's troubleshoot.

Join me for Nutanix .Next 2025

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 08:00:00 -0400

Are you ready for Nutanix .Next 2025 in Washington DC? It's almost here, May 7-9, 2025! For me personally, this is easily one of my favorite events of the year!

Nutanix's premier event, .Next, is coming soon to the nation's capital, and it's the perfect opportunity for customers, prospects, and technology enthusiasts to explore the future of hybrid cloud and hyperconverged infrastructure.

https://www.nutanix.com/next

Why attend Nutanix .Next?

9 Years as a Nutanix Technical Champion

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As I enter my 9th year as a Nutanix Technical Champion (NTC), I find myself reflecting on what makes this program truly exceptional. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of being part of a group that isn’t just about technical expertise—it’s about fostering collaboration, growth, and innovation between Nutanix, its employees, and the NTCs.

After all this time, one thing is abundantly clear: this is a program I’m deeply passionate about. It’s not just a badge or a title—it’s a cornerstone of my professional journey, and I am thankful every year for the opportunity that eGroup Enabling Technologies has given me to be in this position, and for Nutanix for the honor of participating.

Accelerating AI Adoption with Nutanix Enterprise AI

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Disclaimer: I felt the need to write this post to highlight the work Nutanix is doing to bring a simple and powerful AI platform to the market, while also introducing some of the AMAZING work that the Data and AI team at eGroup Enabling Technologies, my employer for the last almost 12 years are doing for customers in their AI journey . The thoughts below are my own...

Beginning Adoption

For many organizations, the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) is clear: it’s going to be a key driver of digital transformation, unlocking insights, automating processes, and opening the door to new opportunities. But while the why of AI is well understood, the how can feel overwhelming.

Understanding DNS Changes in Nutanix DR Recovery Plans

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Updated 10.31.24! I modified the script from using the vm_recovery.bat to do everything, to calling a powershell script since that gave some extra flexibility in validating the current IP and DNS settings.

One of the best features of the Nutanix DR Recovery Plan is the ability to automate IP address changes based on failover criteria. Whether using Async, Near Sync or Sync rep, you have the ability to create a recovery plan that will automate the failover of specific VM(s), or by using a category to capture a group of VMs. I always try to use a Category when possible, to remove any possibilities of missing VMs that I do want to failover. The recovery plan allows me to set a power on sequence to the VMs that are part of the recovery plan, as well as modifying the network association and IP address to match the recovery site.

Validating Performance and Resiliency with Nutanix X-Ray

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

So you just unboxed, racked, and deployed a new Nutanix cluster, and your boss comes to you and asks how we know it's ready to handle workloads. I mean, you can be confident in saying that it's ready, but what if you can provide them with results that show not only can we meet resiliency requirements but also handle the performance required of any workloads?

In the world of infrastructure, you don’t want to wait until something breaks to know if your platform is resilient. You also need to be confident that your systems can handle the workload they’re designed for. Enter Nutanix X-Ray—a powerful, automated testing tool that helps you validate the performance and resilience of your Nutanix platform before disaster strikes.

Zerto Virtual Replication Deployments

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

With the first post in the Zerto series, I ran through the history of Zerto and some features that Zerto Virtual Replication provides. Continuing the series on Zerto, with the second post, we'll cover the typical Zerto Virtual Replication deployment requirements and compare a Windows-based deployment versus the newer Linux-based deployment. While the post will focus more specifically on VMware deployments, the terminology, and concepts will mostly hold true across the different environments Zerto may be deployed within. At the core, the functionality of the Zerto product is not that much different between the Windows-based and Linux-based installations, however the direction for Zerto to move to the Linux-based appliance allowed them to accelerate features while also enhancing security within the product.

Nutanix NTC Tech Summit Recap: San Jose Experience

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Spoiler Alert: No Spoilers in this post :-)

We just wrapped up the inaugural Nutanix NTC Tech Summit in San Jose at the Nutanix Headquarters, sitting here reviewing my notes and adding additional thoughts has me revisiting the last 48 hours. First off, I can't say enough fantastic things about how Nutanix treats the NTC group every year. With this being my 8th year in the program (fingers crossed I see year 9 in a few months), the engagement and interactions with Nutanix as an organization has increased year over year. From the platform briefings, to the Slack channel where Nutanix employees engage constantly, to the peer networking and fun the group has, I honestly cannot say I know of another professional group that offers what the NTC group does, especially backed by Nutanix.

Nutanix NTC Tech Summit - Visiting the Mothership!

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Here comes the Nutanix Technical Champion Summit

For the last eight years, I’ve had the privilege of being a member of the Nutanix Technical Champions (NTC) Group. It’s been a journey filled with rich learning, collaboration, and being at the forefront of Nutanix’s innovations. The value this group brings, in terms of personal growth and deep dives into cutting-edge technology, has been tremendous.

One of the highlights has always been the camaraderie and access to exclusive events, including passes to the Nutanix .Next conference. However, this year, things are getting even more exciting! For the first time, Nutanix is bringing the NTC group directly to their headquarters in San Jose for a two-day, private session with the Nutanix teams.

Enhancing Disaster Recovery with Nutanix Hybrid Cloud and Nutanix Cloud Clusters on Azure

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In today's digital landscape, where downtime can translate to significant financial loss and damage, having a robust disaster recovery (DR) strategy is no longer optional—it's essential. Organizations have many DR options at their disposal, each with its own advantages and considerations.

Traditionally, on-premises DR has been a go-to for many, offering full control over data and infrastructure, providing a sense of security. However, it often requires significant investment in hardware, software, and maintenance. Colo-based DR, where organizations utilize a colocation facility to house their backup infrastructure, presents a middle ground. It alleviates some of the overhead of on-premises solutions while offering a high degree of control and customization.

Zerto Virtual Replication - History and Capabilities

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first part of a series about Zerto Virtual Replication, starting with some history and capabilities of Zerto. Additional posts will follow and dive deeper into the full Zerto suite.

A Deep Dive into Zerto Virtual Replication: History, vSphere, Hyper-V, and Cloud Capabilities

In the world of disaster recovery and data protection, Zerto Virtual Replication (ZVR) has established itself as a leading solution, providing seamless business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) for businesses of all sizes.

Weekly Tech Tip: Check your FEC!

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Connectivity issues between Cohesity C5016 Nodes and Nexus 93180YC-FX3H Switches

Very recently, I was deploying a new Cohesity C5016 appliance with 25Gb NICs, connecting up to a pair of Nexus 93180YC-FX3H switches. When using the 9K's in a VPC pair, my personal preference is to configure the Cohesity nodes with LACP to get the most bandwidth possible (regardless if it's 10Gb or 25Gb connectivity). Nothing super creative there, and I've done this dozens of times in the past with no issue, on both the Cohesity appliances and Nexus 9k's. But this time, it was different...

Weekly Tech Tip: Nutanix Centralized Local Password Management

Fri, 12 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Simplify and Secure: Centralized Password Management with Prism Central

In the ever-evolving landscape of IT security, managing passwords across various platforms can be a daunting task. However, Nutanix has released a Centralized Local Password Management feature designed to centralize password management, ensuring a more secure and standardized approach for organizations. We'll dive into how this feature can simplify your password management strategy and bolster your security posture.

The Challenge of Distributed Password Management

Before we explore the solution, it’s essential to understand the problem. Managing local account passwords across multiple systems and platforms can be chaotic. Without a centralized management system, organizations often face:

Navigating the Post-Xi Leap Landscape: Top Alternatives for Disaster Recovery

Wed, 15 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

2024 has been a struggle for many organizations with the Broadcom acquisition of VMware, from increased costs for renewals to uncertainty in the EUC world with Horizon View. The concern from customers as to what their alternatives are is defintely keeping me busy throughout the week helping our customers navigate the waters and the journey of what comes next.

Another unexpected, borderline disappointing discussion we're having now is the decision by Nutanix to discontinue Xi Leap in April of 2025. While maybe not surprising in the wake of the capabilities and extensability of Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) for initially AWS and now Azure, many businesses are left wondering about their next steps for Disaster Recovery (DR) with Nutanix - and specifically with AHV.

Zero Day Threat - Cisco Remote Access on ASA/FTD

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Cisco recently patched two critical vulnerabilities in their firewall products, discovered after probable nation-state actors targeted them in a campaign dubbed "Arcane Door". These zero-day vulnerabilities, found in devices running ASA and FTD software, were exploited to implant malware and possibly steal data. Cisco released three patches and has tracked the hacking group under UAT4356 and STORM-1849 by Microsoft. These flaws, involving HTTP header parsing and a legacy VPN client preloading capability, allowed attackers root-level access, emphasizing the need for immediate patching and security upgrades.

Securing Local Administrator Passwords

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, maintaining a robust security posture is imperative for businesses and organizations of all sizes. One essential aspect of this security posture is effective password management, which can often be overlooked.

A question I ask my customers quite often scares me with the response.

Me: How are you managing the local administrator passwords within your environment?

Response::

Option 1: We use a consistent local admin password across all of our servers for easy access.

Mastering Maintenance Mode Operations: Part 2 - vSphere

Sat, 27 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to my series on maintenance operations with Nutanix! In Part 1, I reviewed some scenarios on using maintenance mode with Nutanix AHV, using both Maintenance Mode functions within Prism Element and the CLI.

As a quick recap from Part 1, you can use both the GUI functionality in AOS 6.x+ to place a host in maintenance mode or use the CLI commands for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to the following:

Mastering Maintenance Mode Operations in Nutanix: A Guide for AHV and ESXi

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As with years past, as we come to a close on year’s end, I take some time to clean up the As-Built documentation templates I maintain for deployments; as part of this activity, I always come across outdated sections based on current feature sets, or areas that I think can use some additional content.

This week, I noticed that my documentation about placing hosts into maintenance mode with Nutanix, whether running AHV or ESXi, is a bit outdated and could use some touching up.

Zerto v10 - Update 2 - Excitement Continues!

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Zerto just dropped Update 2 for version 10, and they continue to really drive some great features into the product, extending what started with v10 as some game-changing features. See my past post on this one.

Starting with v10, Zerto made the ZVM role only available on a Linux appliance, even though it was available starting with 9.5 and 9.7 - but you had options for both Windows or Linux roles for the ZVM. With the v10 release, the Windows ZVM role is fully deprecated and Zerto no longer releases software for v10 on Windows.

Zerto v10: Unleashing Ransomware Resilience

Wed, 24 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, ensuring the availability, protection, and recovery of data and applications is paramount. Organizations need robust solutions to address the challenges of multi-cloud environments, cyber threats, and data loss incidents. Enter Zerto, and specifically Virtual Replication v10, a leading data protection and disaster recovery platform. In this blog, we will delve into the numerous benefits that Zerto offers, empowering businesses to achieve data resilience and peace of mind.

New Blog, New Thought Process: Personal Growth Focus

Mon, 01 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It took me a while, but I finally migrated the blog from my original hosted Ghost platform to a new one, which hopefully will give me a good burst of energy to update some content! I decided to move away from etherbacon.com to a more personalized blog, mikedent.io. One area that I wanted to spend more focus time on this year was personal growth/reflection and creativity.

Writing about personal experiences and thoughts can be a transformative process, promoting self-reflection and personal growth. As I delve deeper into my own experiences, I gain insights into my own motivations, strengths, and areas for improvement. This introspective process helps me become a better person and, in turn, a better writer. Also, taking a more personal approach to blogging allows me the flexibility to explore various topics that genuinely interest me. This creative freedom keeps me motivated and passionate about my work, ultimately leading to more consistent and engaging content.

Football to .Next: Conference Season Ahead

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As we wrap up the Super Bowl and realize that football (both College and Pro's) is over (I can't get on board with the USFL just yet), it's time to look to something else!

I just wrapped a great week of interaction and passing not one but two cert exams, it's a week that get's me amped up about what comes next!

As I turn from football, I'm really excited about the next few months. I hopefully have some good content coming with Nutanix Clusters on Azure and some other activities in flight.

Goodbye 2022, Hello 2023: Year-End Reflections

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Just a quick post, but 2022 has been a great year on many fronts! As we move faster to the end of the year, I always like to reflect back on what was achieved. Getting to spend this week with one our Account Executives in the DC area engaging with our Customers and discussing their goals, 2023 roadmap and other strategies has been an amazing way to wrap the year, both refreshing to hear their excitement for engaging with eGroup and excited to see what we can continue to devleop with our team.

FMCv 7.2 Upgrade Gotchas on AHV

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Posting this more as a note to myself as a reminder and to also read the release notes a bit more carefully! After recently going thru an upgrade of the Firepower Management Center from 7.0.x to 7.2 FMCv, specifically on the Nutanix AHV platform I ran into a bug where the VM would not boot after the upgrade.

While the upgrade completed, the VM stalled at boot, and then finally booted. However there was no network access and couldn't log in via console, which was odd. Thought to myself well here's a scenario where I'm glad I know I've got a backup!

Zerto Linux ZVM - Finally Available!

Wed, 08 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Finally, Zerto has released a Linux based appliance for the Zerto Virtual Manager role. Finally!

Now to be clear, I don't mean to use the term finally in a negative sense with Zerto, more of a sense of happiness that it's now available with the latest release of Zerto 9.5.

Since there's still some limitations around the Linux version of the ZVM, I went ahead and deployed into a greenfield deployment that will have a limited scope of replication to begin with, giving us some time to see the evolution of the appliance over the next few quarters.

Mastery in 2022: Growth and Platform Migration

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Well, it's been exactly a year since the last blog post to this site. Oh, and it's also taken me a full year to migrate the blog from a self-hosted Wordpress site hosted by Amazon Lightsail, over to Ghost. No, it didn't take a year to migrate, it just didn't go as smooth as I wanted - I blame myself. So let's catch up, and hopefully more content will be coming!

Elevating Nutanix + eGroup Partnership in 2021

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I last published a blog post. You know, 2020 got in the way big time. Lots of excuses there for not finding the time to write some content…

While 2020 was an interesting year for all of us, the train didn’t stop rolling here at eGroup. We continued delivering speed and simplicity with Nutanix to our customers nationwide, and I’m proud to be on the forefront of leading that charge with eGroup.

Saved by Pure Storage: Ransomware Recovery Success

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This past weekend, I got to experience with another customer an unexpected intrusion, one of the worst I’ve honestly experienced in my years. Once I was onsite and got to see the level of sophistication on this attack, I realized that we had our work cutout for us.

Backup solution, gone…
User Files, hijacked…
VMFS datastores, encrypted…
Pure Storage Primary Array snapshots, deleted + eradicated…

The first 2 in that list are ones that yeah, we see quite often during these scenarios. But those last 2, ESPECIALLY the last one really made me realize how intrusive this was. This mean that somebody physically got access to the array to issue the commands to delete the snapshots.

Finding Your Normal in Disruption

Tue, 24 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Uncertainty. I think we can all relate to this definition right now.

We’ve all got our schedule; we wake up, go thru a routine. Maybe you’re a gym person in the morning, or get out and enjoy nature for a few miles. Maybe you really enjoy that first cup of coffee and the newspaper. Maybe it’s breakfast with friends once a week.

For the majority of us, our lives are thrown into a level of disarray we weren’t prepared for. Working from home when we’ve never set ourselves up for that. School/Daycare closures and our kids are now at home all week. Business and Restaurant closures, etc, etc.

Nutanix CE Refresh with Internal SSD Upgrade

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve gotten any fresh content on this blog, hopefully I’ll get some content ideas to keep a regular cadence of updates going.

While I was updating the cabling on the garage lab, I realized it had been a while since I had done anything on my CE lab from a version perspective, in fact the last update I had done was March of 2019. So I figured now was as good a time as any to go ahead and upgrade the CE cluster.

Nutanix Frame Deployment: Part 1 - The Setup

Tue, 21 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Updated 5.22.19

Coming back from the Nutanix .Next conference two weeks ago, the biggest announcement that really got me excited as the ability for Nutanix Frame to run in AHV environments. AHV comes as an additional environment to AWS where Frame started, Azure and Google Cloud, currently in early release.

I’ll be going thru a multi-part series around Frame and configurations use cases. So stay tuned!

During the Frame Deep Dive session at .Next, I loved the What If question that kept coming up around VDI. What if VDI could be simple yet effective. Secure and resilient. Scalable and User Friendly. I’d like to rephrase that question from What If to Why not? With Frame, I think we have a solution that can meet the majority of use cases, while still providing fast setup and powerful desktops for end users. As the graphic below shows, it’s as simple doing 1-5 .

Accelerate Migration to Nutanix AHV with Move

Fri, 15 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

If you haven’t taken a close look at the hypervisor from Nutanix, AHV, well you might be missing out on something very valuable – that you already have access to as a Nutanix customer. AHV addresses the majority of the use cases people require with virtualization, and it does so very well with a simple deployment, simple management and POWERFUL features when Prism Central is added (and still powerful when it’s not).

Rebuild Time: Nutanix Community Edition 5.10 Released

Mon, 11 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I love the fact that Nutanix provides a Community Edition for those of us with home labs, I can bring the Enterprise Cloud I so enjoy deploying for customers close to home. Sure, would I love to have a small NX-1365 in the rack at home, who wouldn’t? Maybe someday…

But in the meantime, Community Edition provides me with the ability to troubleshoot, test, demo, etc specifics on the Nutanix Platform without needing to schedule a Hosted POC or use the Nutanix Demo site. Additionally, I can test out using Xtract, Protection Domains to Azure and even test out the Rubrik integration.

VMware vExpert and vCommunity: Fifth Year Recognition

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

It’s that time of year again, where most of us in the vCommunity and extended IT community submit our names, along with our accomplishments for the past year to the Community. Add in a sprinkle of hopes and dreams for some, and the anticipation to find out if we make it starts to hit in late February/early March.

I’m proud to say that for the 5th year in a row, I’ve been able to participate in this growing group IT folks that have learned, loved, hated, cried for/with/about VMware and the solutions that have provided many of us an amazing career – either getting started or twilight.

Nutanix Files for All: 1TB Free with Every Cluster

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

News Flash:

Always wanted to try Nutanix Files (Formerly Acropolis File Services or AFS) but didn’t have the license to do so? Well now you can! With 1TB of Files for every AOS Cluster!

Nutanix continues to release amazing features and products on their journey of the Enterprise Cloud Platform. While the release of new products such as Calm, Era, Beam and Xi have continued to highlight Nutanix’s position on the Gartner Magic Quandrant for Hyperconverged Systems, a tweak to the Files licensing announced today can be a huge gamechanger for customers looking to migrate away from expensive NAS storage solutions.

Welcome Again: NTC 2019 Three-peat Achievement

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Nutanix Teams released the 2019 Nutanix Technical Champion (NTC) listing, and for the 3rd year in a row I’m honored to be part of this group of 129 professionals around the world help evangelize, implement and support the Nutanix platform for customers, partners and every group in between.

It’s a group of people that I’ve been able to learn from the shared experience, and hopefully be able to provide a bit of experience back to. The Nutanix platform has provided me and the rest of my Data Center team at eGroup the ability to bring solutions to our customers that provide speed and certainty, simplicity and elegance to IT, rather than complex hardware and solutions that either the customer will never fully utilize or will never be able to fully administrator.

Installing Nutanix CE 5.6 with ISO Installer

Fri, 22 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Nutanix CE Version 5.6 is out, and it’s hot!!!

With the release of Nutanix Community Edition version 5.6, Nutanix has also provided a new installation mechanism as an alternative to the previous dd imaging method, now allowing for a .iso installer.

Previous CE Installs

With previous Nutanix CE installs, it required the use of the dd utility to take the .img file and write this out to either a USB drive or another boot drive.

Freedom to Nutanix: .Next Conference Insights

Mon, 14 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Freedom to Choose… Freedom to Play… Freedom to Cloud….

I just returned from a week in New Orleans at the Nutanix .Next conference, where I was fortunte to represent eGroup as a partner as well as being part of the Nutanix Technical Champions group.

In addition to being a conference attendee, a co-worker Dave Strum and I co-presented with one of our customers on the benefits of deploying Nutanix on Cisco UCS hardware, lessons learned and future plans. It was fun and definintely not like your typical presentation.

Catching Up: New Role, Transitions, and Gratitude

Thu, 15 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I realized it’s been a while since my last post, almost 3 months now have gone by. That can be a good thing. I wanted to use this post as a brief recap of the last few months, and include some personal news that has hit me right in the heart…

Catching Up

Starting in 2018 I became the Director of Data Center Architecture for eGroup, a minor change to the role I held in late 2016 and 2017 as Practice Manager, but with more oversight, direction and creative possbilities. I’ve been given a great opportunity at eGroup to help continue to drive our business, providing our customers with not only absolutely great technology, but a partner who will be there with them when they need it. Working with our partners like Pure Storage, Nutanix, Cisco, VMware, Rubrik, Microsoft and Citrix – among many others to design, build and deploy amazing solutions is something that I just love that I can do every day.

Nutanix Deployment with NVIDIA M60 GPU

Wed, 03 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I recently had the opportunity to deploy 12 Nutanix nodes for a customer across 2 sites (Primary and DR), 6 of which were 3055-G5 nodes with dual NVIDIA M60 GPU cards installed and dedicated to running the Horizon View desktop VMs for this customer. This was my first experience doing a Nutanix deployment using the NVIDIA GPU cards with VMware, and thankfully there is plenty of documentation out there on the process.

Hello Again: Nutanix Technology Champions 2017

Tue, 19 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Well, it’s that time again… 2017 has come and gone, and sometimes I just don’t know where all the time went and what I was able to accomplish.

I’m happy to say that for the 2nd year in a row I’m part of a great group of people in the IT industry, those of us pushing the value of Nutanix and their simple, effective and scalable HyperConverged solutions.

Pretty cool in the large world of IT, to be a part of this small group of folks in the #NutanixNTC family, and especially joined by another eGroup Member, Dave Strum (http://vthistle.com) on this journey.

ESXi Services Disabled in NCC Health Check

Thu, 10 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This week I had the pleasure of deploying 2 more Nutanix blocks on behalf of one our partners, who is now starting to highly recommend Nutanix for their customer deployments of critical systems.

The installation was pretty vanilla, 3 NX-1065-G5 nodes at the Primary site and matching at the DR site. For the VMware components, we went with the vCenter 6.5 appliance (I love the stability and speed of the 6.5 appliance by the way), and for the ESXi hosts we went with 6.5 (build 4887370).

Zerto Replication SQL Server Tuning: Lessons Learned

Mon, 31 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

3.5 hours down to 6.5 minutes…

Recently I went thru a project to get Zerto Replication up and running for a Emergency Dispatch Customer who was moving away from RecoverPoint and SRM in an effort to simplify and consolidate their DR runbooks.

As part of this project, we created multiple VPGs to match up with their software solutions, protection around 5TB of total VM space. The smaller VPGs consisted of small groupings of VMs, most of which ranged between 250 and 500GB of provisioned storage. The 5th VPG was a large VPG, consisted of a heavily utilized Production SQL Server and Report SQL Server and had around 3.2TB of provisioned storage.

Cisco ASA Dropped Traffic Notice: Critical Bug Alert

Fri, 31 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Cisco seems to be having a rough go of it lately with bugs that have a time bomb for certain hardware and software. Following up on the Signal Component issues – that plagued a large number of product lines (And in Cisco’s defense affected more than just Cisco – other vendors are affetected). I’m still waiting to find out when my Meraki MX84 will be replaced on that one 🙂

Yesterday, Cisco released another Field Notice as well as a blog post, this time affecting a good number of ASA code versions dating back to 9.1.x, and certain FirePower versions. The Field Notice states that all appliances are affected, so this is not a hardware issue like the Signal Component, but a software bug. After around ~ +213 days, the appliance will just start to stop passing network traffic.

The eGroup Team: CRN Tech Elite 250 Recognition

Tue, 28 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

eGroup – Together, We make IT happen. Our slogan, our tagline. IT is what we do, together. From our Operations team, to Inside Sales, to Sales, to Pre-Sales, to Delivery. We do IT, and together.

We announced today that eGroup has been named to CRN Tech Elite 250 list for 2017, which “honors an exclusive group of North American IT solution providers that have earned the highest number of advanced technical certifications from leading technology vendors, scaled to their company size”. Read the full press release here.

vExpert, Nutanix Champion and Community Recognition

Wed, 08 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

We’re just two months into 2017, and it already feels like the year is flying by!

The 2017 vExpert announcements came out today – you can read it here, and for the 3rd year in a row (well, really 2.5 since I forgot to renew at the end of 2015 and made it in the 2nd half of 2016) I’m honored to be included in the list of some very smart people.

Cisco Nexus 7K Design with Active/Active FEX

Mon, 06 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Back in November 2015 I wrote a post about FEX Topologies with the Cisco Nexus platforms, and at the time the Nexus 5K/6K line was the only model that would support the active/active FEX topology (FEX-AA), which was unfortunate in designing redundant connectivity for downstream devices.

But with the release of NX-OS code 7.2 and above, we now get FEX-AA support on the 7000 and 7700 series switches!

Recap

To recap, if you were running the 7k or the 9k switches with FEXs, you’d need single home (Straight Through) the FEX to the parent Nexus, much like the image below. The FEX was tied to the parent switch, and we’d rely on nic teaming or multiple nics on the servers/devices connected to the FEX to provide dual homing or redundancy for connectivity.

Deploying and Configuring Prism Central on AHV

Thu, 22 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Continuing our journey with testing out Nutanix AHV functionality for one of our partners, one of things we wanted to get deployed was Prism Central. Prism Central is very similar to VMware’s vCenter, defining Prism Central as “software provides centralized infrastrcuture management, one-click simplicity and intelligence for everyday operations.”

The deployment and configuration of Prism Central differs slightly between ESXi/Hyper-V and AHV, but post deployment the configuration is similar. Deploying Prism Central when using ESXi is pretty simple – just download the .ova file and deploy onto the host, while for Hyper-V and AHV you need to create a VM and clone the disks for the VM. Regardless of which platform you’re deploying Prism Central onto, it’s a very simple process to get up and running.

Acropolis Data Protection Configuration Guide

Wed, 21 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Part 4: Prism Central Deployment and Configurationetween clusters for VM migration and disaster recovery testing."

date: 2016-09-21 featured: false draft: false toc: false usePageBundles: true categories:

"Technology"

tags:

"acropolis"
"ahv"
"nutanix"
"data-protection"
"replication"

Welcome back to my series on our journey of testing Nutanix and Mellanox. Part 1 & 2 of the series focused on Nutanix AHV networking and integrating with Mellanox, so we’re going to shift in Part 3 and look at the AHV configuration for getting Data Protection going and performing a failover test.

Deploying Nutanix and Mellanox - Part 2

Wed, 21 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to my Nutanix and Mellanox blog series! In Part 1, I went through the process of setting up the

"Technology"

tags:

"acropolis"
"ahv"
"mellanox"
"nutanix"
"networking"
"configuration"

Welcome back to my short series on our journey of testing Nutanix and Mellanox. Following up on Part 1 of the Nutanix and Mellanox Series, I’m going to dive deeper into the Nutanix network configuration for use with the Mellanox SX1012.

Deploying Nutanix and Mellanox - Part 1

Mon, 19 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

As I wrote about in the last post that started our journey with Nutanix and Mellanox, we will be testing AHV DR replication for one of our partners while evaluating the use of the Mellanox SX switch platform for a lower cost 10/40Gbe switch.

The NX-1050 Block was pre-configured at another location, so all network subnets will be recreated in this lab. The NX-3050 block is net new, and that will be configured onsite.

Nutanix and Mellanox: A Journey in Integration

Sun, 18 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been given the opportunity to do some testing with 2 Nutanix blocks and a Mellanox SX1012 switch for one of our customers, who is looking to do some disruptive changes to the platform they deploy their software onto.

Background

Currently, we partner with this customer to do your typical 3-Tier infrastructure deployments with EMC VNX/VNXe for Storage, Cisco Catalyst and Nexus for switching, Cisco UCS or HP for compute and VMware vSphere for the hypervisor. While this solution has worked very well over the years, when we approached this partner a few years ago with Nutanix, the interest was there but the justification was hard to come by.

EMC Unity Install: Quick Setup Guide

Mon, 22 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I was fortunate to do my first EMC Unity install today (Unity 300 specifically), and Unity follows the path of the VNXe installation sequence, pretty easy. This blog post is about as short as the Unity install is 🙂

Initializing the Unity array uses the ‘ _same’_Connection Utility that the VNXe uses, though the Unity Connection Utility does not support the VNXe, and vice versa for the latest VNXe Connection Utility. So you can’t have both installed on the same machine.

Week Wrap-up: vExpert Announcement and Tech Updates

Fri, 19 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

What a week we’ve had, and really I mean Yesterday!

Finally home after a 3rd straight week in NY doing some fun installs for one of our partners. Being home in SC in the summer always feels good. Like being in an oven good.

We started off the morning with the announcement from Nutanix and Cisco that Nutanix now runs on UCS. Read the awesome info here, I can’t tell you how excited I am about this!

Deploying NSX in a Home Lab - Part 2

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been over 6 months since I last had NSX working in my home lab, and with a rebuild I decided it was time to wrap up Part 2 of my NSX in a home lab blog post.

In Part 1 of my Deploying NSX series, we covered the prep of NSX in the environment, including deploying the NSX Manager appliance, deploying NSX Controllers and vSphere host preparation. In this part of the series, we’ll cover the creation of Logical Switches and our NSX Edge, which consist of our Edge Services Gateway (Providing DHCP, Firewall, VPN, NAT, Routing and Load Balancing capabilities). Part 3 will cover the deployment of the Logical Router, which provides our routing and bridging for the existing networks, as well as configuring routing to get traffic into and out of our new NSX environment.

Deploying NSX in a Home Lab - Part 3

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Onto the Logical Router….

In Part 1 of my Deploying NSX series, we covered the prep of NSX in the environment, including deploying the NSX Manager appliance, deploying NSX Controllers and vSphere host preparation. In Part 2 this part of the series, we covered the creation of Logical Switches and our NSX Edge, which consist of our Edge Services Gateway (Providing DHCP, Firewall, VPN, NAT, Routing and Load Balancing capabilities). In our 3rd part in the series, we’ll cover the deployment of the Logical Router, which provides our routing and bridging for the existing networks, as well as configuring routing to get traffic into and out of our new NSX environment.

Changes in 2016: New Role and Professional Goals

Mon, 18 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been well over a month since the last post, and while I’ve had many ideas on topics since the last one, nothing has come to fruition!

I wrapped up a busy 2015, with hopes to knock out a few posts during the Christmas break, then the New Year break, and now we’re over halfway thru January and my whiteboard hasn’t changed. I’ve still got my plans for wrapping up my NSX post, especially since I’ve rebuilt my lab for the umpteenth time!

FEX Topologies for Nexus: Complete Configuration Guide

Thu, 19 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a big an of the Cisco Fabric Extenders when it comes to getting more ports in a data center topology, I like the easy of management and simple layout for getting connections onto the FEX. However, after speaking with a few coworkers and friends, I came to the conclusion that the supported FEX topologies are still somewhat confusing between the Nexus line, and what is actually supported from a connectivity standpoint on the FEX’s.

Trick to Horizon View EUC Access Point Deployment

Sat, 14 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Finally!!

I’ve been trying to get the Horizon View EUC Access Point deployed in my home lab for a while now. No matter how I did it, I could just not get the Access Point to work correctly.

I love the idea of the Access Point, being a simple ‘if it breaks, redeploy it’ method, but it really was making me wonder just how ready this was. Turned out, it was all on me…

Installing ManageEngine OpUtils on CentOS 7

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Background
I’ve been using ManageEngine’s OpUtils product for a few years now for IP Address Management (IPAM). While it has a lot of other great features, I’ve really liked the way they do IPAM. Yes, Microsoft has IPAM now built into Windows, but I’ve never liked the setup of the Windows IPAM configuration, and the lack of a good Web UI for IPAM made me like it even less.

OpUtils provides a subset of the OpManager Suite from Manage Engine, and subsequently integrates into OpManager. OpUtils 8 runs on both Windows and Linux platforms, and I’ve always run it on Windows, a) because it’s easier to setup and get going, and 😎 it offers the ability to pull OS level information once you setup domain credentials thru WMI.

Data Center Power 101: Infrastructure Fundamentals

Tue, 27 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’m always having to look up power connectors when quoting equipment or reviewing with a customer, to make sure that PDU’s have the appropriate receptacles. I always feel like the information provided by equipment providers doesn’t match up with what’s on the PDU or what the customer states they have.

On the Packet Pushers blog, I ran across this post by John Kerns that provided great background and detail for those of us that occasionally or directly deal with Data Center power. He also came up with an amazing cheat sheet for power and cooling, with a great visual aide for receptacles and plugs!

Deploying NSX in a Home Lab - Part 1

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a fan of NSX.

Ever since I deployed it for the first time, and got it working, I realize the power, AND ease of what it would provide.

I’ve had VMware NSX deployed in my lab for a while now, but I wanted to migrate my vSphere environment over to utilizing NSX fully for all VM’s, minus vCenter, the PSC, etc.

At the time, I never put much thought into how I deployed NSX, just got it install, working and done. I decided since I’m starting the process of rebuilding my lab (again…), to document the process of getting it installed.

Goodbye Mint Quick View: End of an Era for Mac Users

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Got this email today, and it makes me very very sad to see this product go. I’ve been a huge fan of Mint for many years now, and being a Mac user, have loved the Mint Quick View in my Menu bar.

_“Hello,
_
We are writing to inform you that we will be discontinuing support and development for QuickView, the Mint Mac OS desktop app.
We’ve promised to hold ourselves to the highest standard of quality in our products, and strongly believe that shifting our efforts to the Mint Web, iOS and Android applications will help us deliver above and beyond that promise. There’s so much about QuickView that we love – and it’s hard for us to say goodbye to it – but we are confident that this change will help you get even more out of Mint.”