We are going to cover the basics of user configuration that Turbonomic makes available. Authentication methods and RBAC are the two main focus areas. We will step through connecting to AD and providing users access. Authentication Methods Turbonomic provides two platforms authentication platforms. You can use local authentication and AD. AD authentication provides improved flexibility and management. Managing local authentication comes with significant management overhead. Generally speaking, local authentication is best used for times when AD is unavailable.

Learning new skills is essential to stay relevant. If we are not learning new things, we are going backwards. This is not to say you should study at every moment. But, there is a need to learning something new. Different people have different methods for learning. Some people learn best from reading, others from hands on. Myself, I need hands on and a lot of notes. Becuase a learning method works for someone doesn’;t mean it will work for you.

Layer2 Invisibility L2 traffic is a major blind spot for many companies. Most security filtering only happens when traffic traverses a Layer3 boundary. If traffic does not cross this boundary, it is not scanned and not seen. Attackers can move unseen within a L2 network, due to this lack of visibility. Physical firewalls work well for North-South traffic. They do not perform as well for east-west. Creating a shell, that offers no internal protection.

Bose QC 35 headphones are considered by many as market leaders. The provide excellent comfort and effective noise cancelling. The noise cancelling excels with continuous noises, such as engines. Making frequent travellers an ideal target market. The constant drone of an engine is fatiguing. Use of noise cancelling headphones, you are able to arrive more refreshed. The good My last flight was on a 2 prop to Tassie. The headphones did not cancel out the noise completely.

Turbonomic is an operations management platform, built on a rich set of APIs. It has the capability to connect to many different systems and gather extensive datasets. This entry will cover the fundamentals of Desired State and Virtual Market Place. These two components are the basis for Turbonomics recommendations. Platform Support A Target is a management system; such as vCenter. By connecting to a Target, Turbonomic can gather data and perform actions.

QoS is a method of providing a minimal Quality of Service to network traffic. This is done through adding values to the Ethernet or packet headers. By adding these values, priority can be assigned to network traffic types. Some services do not a significant amount of bandwidth but are sensitive to latency. These services can benefit from QoS. Networks use QoS as a way to give priority where needed. A service provider often provides a level of service for their clients.

Last night Sydney VMUG hosted a VCDX Workshop, with Travis Wood presenting. This is the first workshop that I have attended and thought that I would share some thoughts on my impressions. Travis holds two VCDX certifications for Data Center Virtualization and Desktop and is a VCDX panelist. Being a VCDX panelist means that Travis reviews design submissions and sits on the examinor panel, grading defences. What is the VCDX Certification VCDX is VMwares top level certification and validates a mastery of VMware technologies and design methodologies.

RDM High-Level Cover VMware vSphere RDM or Raw Device Mapping is the method to remove levels of abstraction from the storage presented to vSphere VMs. RDMs are used to meet use cases and could be considered a deviation from the ‘normal’;. When creating an RDM, there are two options; Virtual and Physical. A Virtual RDM provides some level of storage abstraction. Physical does not, the full capabilities are visible by the VM.

I’;ve been having some issues with the conversion of a VMDK to a Physical RDM. This is a request from a client, as the storage and backup vendor has stated that there are advantages to doing this. Not something I have done before, but nothing wrong with that. I found the KB article with ease: https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=3443266 Steps looked straight forward, get the identifier and power down the server, run the commands.

Recently I have started using a Das Professional 4 and I thought it might be time to do a review. I’;m not going to go through the features of the keyboard, cable length etc. You can find that everywhere. This review covers my experience with it. I have been long time user of the Das Ultimate with Cherry MX blues. It was a fantastic keyboard and was an excellent trial by fire to improve touch typing.

A lot people in a recruitment position, comment on the importance of attitude when hiring a new staff member. Usually summed up as “You can train skills, not attitude”. This is also a major factor in determining a cultural fit. Attitude has a major impact on our careers, our motivation and also our health. The tricky part is that it’;s not just our attitude that affects these things, it’;s also those of who we work for and with.

The NSX Edge can be configured to provide site-to-site VPN connectivity using IPsec. If you’;re not familiar with IPsec, I suggest having a read up on that first. As IPsec is a standard, information already published will be transferable. An NSX Edge can connect to any other device that supports IPsec. If a peer is not an NSX Edge, you need to verify that it will be compatible. The NSX Edge supports the following.

It’;s coming up to two years that I have been running this blog, and roughly the same amount of time since I started being involved in the IT community. I thought it’;s a good time to sit back and reflect on being involved in the IT community and maybe help some people looking to do the same. Involvement in the IT community has a fairly broad scope, it can be blogging, answering questions on forums, making podcasts, volunteering to help at community events.