Configuring the VMware ESXi Dump Collector on vCenter 7

For those not familiar with this topic, it relates to a recent presentation I made at a VMware User Group virtual meeting around managing vSphere and some best practices. This also is applicable to a recent home-lab upgrade and wanted to provide a current method for configuring this setup and the lack of official support documentation around the configuration of this service.

When I used to be a VMware customers, I always wanted to ensure I had a good handle on driving root cause on any issues experienced in our VMware environment. Purple Screen of Death issues on vSphere hosts was always a challenge due to the issues around the knee jerk reaction to reboot a host when a PSOD event occurred just to get things operating normally as fast as possible.

Continue reading “Configuring the VMware ESXi Dump Collector on vCenter 7”

My Light-board, Whiteboard, GreenScreen Home Office Setup

I’ve had a few requests now that the home office has been moved into a bigger room to share how I setup the home office to enable remote work capabilities and leverage conference calls with a whiteboard and green screen as well as video presentations using a Light-board. For those of you that are now working from home more due to pandemic reasons, this is a good way to stay connected with your customers and business partners while making it fun at the same time. It works well with family and friends too of course.

Whiteboard and GreenScreen setup

Not much to share here other than purchasing a whiteboard of your choice and mounting it on the wall, but the whiteboard is magnetic so it made it easy to add a blue screen or green screen backdrop behind my desk.

4’x6’ magnetic whiteboard with Neewer collapsible GreenScreen/BlueScreen backdrop

I also have a green cloth backdrop I use more permanently as the collapsable one is good for road trips and conferences where vLogging may come into play. Keep in mind the whiteboard makes it simple as I just use some magnets to hold the cloth on the whiteboard. The placement of my Logitech camera makes it easy to both use the whiteboard with the extended boom mic for customer presentations and doubles as the GreenScreen backdrop for Zoom meetings.Continue reading “My Light-board, Whiteboard, GreenScreen Home Office Setup”

Video and Lightboard Series

I’m trying something new to get better at presenting whiteboard sessions with customers and the community.  I’ll be doing a combination of video, whiteboard and light board sessions around VMware topics on YouTube.

Session 1 – Interview from Keith Townsend at The CTO Advisor

This is Keith’s interview in preparation for the VMware User Group Virtual Event providing a little history on how I went from a non-traditional IT career into my role working at VMware.

VMUG Virtual Event interview by Keith Townsend

Session 2 – Nate’s VMware Story

A little background, to prepare for VMware’s WWKO in Vegas this year (2020), we were asked to put together a video for a Pitch2Win contest.  The video was supposed to cover a bunch of information around our Any Cloud, Any App, Any Device strategy.  Although I submitted a separate video internally to meet the requirement, I wanted to take some additional time and make it a bit more creative and not focused on a customer conversation.  Here’s my interpretation of our VMware Strategy story for your critique and enjoyment.

Nate’s VMware Story

Session 3 – VMware Hybrid Cloud Evolution and logical design

As part of the VMware Any Cloud, Any App, Any Device story, I thought I’d dive into the Any Cloud portion and dig into the components and logical design requirements to move towards a hybrid cloud platform.

VMware Hybrid Cloud Evolution

Session 4 – VMware’s Future Ready Workforce Reference Architecture

With Covid19 and more corporate employees working from home, I thought it would be good to discuss how VMware’s Future Ready Workforce Reference Architecture provides an elastic, secure and resilient model to enable remote workers access from any device or location using any work style to all their apps used to perform their daily jobs. This aligns nicely with the Any Cloud, Any App, Any Device strategy VMware has been using for a while now. The lightboard is still a work in progress so I can get the whole board in view with my camera but we’re getting there.

VMware’s Future Ready Workforce Reference Architecture Lightboard and model

My Experience rebuilding a VMware Corporate MacBook in the field using Workspace One Intelligent Hub

I don’t know how many people have run through this scenario, but back when I used to do Altiris consulting, the process of rebuilding any laptop was painful and time consuming. It usually involved requesting a loaner laptop with nothing customized, while waiting for approval, shipping your broken laptop back to a corporate office and waiting for someone in desktop support to contact you with the good or bad news on data loss and personalization details. This could take up to a couple weeks before you would have a fully functioning computer back.

I recently had a hiccup with my work laptop (MacBook) where it went to sleep on low battery. When powering the laptop back on after hooking it back to the power supply and logging it, I started getting a never ending prompt that my application library was hosed. My profile looked different, none of my documents were accessible, and it was essentially unusable.

I submitted a help desk ticket with our internal IT team to assist and after 3 hours of troubleshooting, determined that somehow the laptop encryption hoses the laptop making it an expensive desk ornament. I asked, how hard would it be to just reload the operating system and reconfigure it for work? I was cautioned on data loss, but assured my helper that I had all my data on SharePoint or OneDrive. My helper informed me that the time to reload the operating system would take the most time as I would be reloading Mac OS X over the air.

Here’s the details based on when I started and ended the process and my experience using VMware’s own internal tools to restore my corporate laptop to a working state.  Call this my personal VMware on VMware experience as a field solutions engineer.Continue reading “My Experience rebuilding a VMware Corporate MacBook in the field using Workspace One Intelligent Hub”

VMworld 2019 Conference Info

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VMworld 2019 captures the momentum of today’s rapidly changing IT environment and puts it within your grasp so you can accelerate your cloud journey to support your business. Transform networking and security for speed and flexibility. Deliver digital workspaces for amazing mobile experiences. Whatever you need to know, you’ll find the best information, tools, and partnerships to take IT—and your power to shape it—to the next level.  Shake things up.  Defy the expected. Blaze the way ahead. Welcome to a world that empowers you to Make Your Mark. Welcome to VMworld 2019.

Not interested in reading further and want the VMworld 2019 in a box version, then check out the VMworld 2019 Mindmap for the quick and easy way to find what you’re looking for.Continue reading “VMworld 2019 Conference Info”

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