Tips & TricksCategory

You may not know that VMware provides some online courses for free. All you need to do is register for a myLearn account and then you can register for – and complete – various foundation courses. Go to http://mylearn.vmware.com/portals/www/mL.cfm?menu=topfreecourses and you will see an up to date list of the available… Continue Reading Free training courses from VMware!

Many of us have to give directions; it might be in a project, when managing a team, instructions for someone to pick something up for you from a shop, defining a business strategy – but the way to give directions is important. What is wrong with the way people are… Continue Reading The only way to give directions

If you have implemented VMware VM Monitoring (part of HA), and your virtual machine rebooted quickly, you may not know why the virtual machine rebooted. Most often this is due to a Windows bluescreen, but you may want to see why VMware HA took the action to reboot the VM.… Continue Reading Why did my VM reboot?

How do you work out what data you need to capture for a system? This is a question not often asked, at least not in the right way. Designing data entry for a system should be driven by the wants and needs of the output. It’s no good gathering data if… Continue Reading Designing data entry for a system

I frequently get contacted by my customers with concerns that their vC Ops licensing is not working, or that they key they have is not recognised. It’s important to acknowledge the order of installation for vCenter Operations Manager so that the license is applied and acknowledged. Is your vC Ops… Continue Reading vC Ops licensing not working? Common vC Ops licensing mistakes

With VMware vCenter Operations Manager, you can create custom dashboards that provide at-a-glance information on custom parameters that have been gathered by the vCOps system, enabling in-depth visual analysis of information that is not represented in the default views. The custom dashboard functionality is a value-add feature only available in… Continue Reading Free customised vC Ops dashboards with Standard edition

You may know that with Microsoft’s inclusion of User Account Control, starting from Windows Vista, you need to “elevate” your permissions so that you can do system wide actions that make changes. This simply means that for most tasks, like installing software, you need to open the installer with “Run… Continue Reading Install MSI as another user

Sometimes I get asked, where can I download the client integration plugin for Firefox or Internet Explorer? The simple answer is that it is on your vCenter server. However, let’s answer some questions first; Why do I need the Client Integration plug in? You can do many tasks in the… Continue Reading Download Client Integration Plugin for Webclient

Running release N minus 1? What about release N plus 45 days? Software update best practice should mean that patches and updates are tested, but not held back when it provides known fixes. It is common practice for risk-averse companies to not run the very latest release of software, instead… Continue Reading n-1 is dead, long live N+45

After converting a physical operating system installation to a virtual server, you should follow some additional steps to clean up the new virtual server. I recommend you read my previous guides on preparing for conversion and how to accelerate a P2V, and then once you have your new VM, clean… Continue Reading Cleaning up after a P2V conversion

If you are converting the Window installation on a physical server to a virtual server, and keeping all the operating system and installed software in place (called a P2V or Physical-to-Virtual conversion), here are some tips and tricks for speeding up your P2V to make a faster P2V. Converting a… Continue Reading Tricks for a faster P2v