For the next part of this Image Pipeline project, I needed to search Artifactory for all OS Image artifacts within a repo that have a specific property key, filter for the newest artifact with the same key value, download the items, and then upload OVA's to vCenter. When working on large automation projects, there's always... Continue Reading →
Large Scale Image Pipeline – Part 2 – Image Build Process
In the past couple of posts I've outlined our environment and our goals/requirements for an on-premises Image Pipeline process. I then went through setting up vSphere JSON Persistent Content Libraries to a single datastore for faster item sharing across multiple vCenter servers. In this post, I'll go over the Image Build process itself. I'm not... Continue Reading →
Large Scale Image Pipeline – Part 1 – Content Library Setup
Now that I've laid the groundwork for this image pipeline series, let's get started by setting up our vSphere Content Libraries. As stated in the overview, we have roughly 40 vCenter servers across multiple sites, multiple data centers within some of these sites, and multiple network boundaries within some data centers. The sites with multiple... Continue Reading →
Large Scale Image Pipeline – Overview
I've been working on multiple projects over the past couple years and most of them need to consume images of some flavor across multiple data centers (we have 10 in our metro with multiple network spaces). One team was managing vCenter templates (in case automation platform failed or a custom deployment needed) while an automation... Continue Reading →
Using CURL to Add Additional NIC to Packer Image
Recently I was working on a project to streamline virtual machine images for clustered databases. I was using Packer to create the base images and Terraform to deploy them for new requests. This all runs via Linux containers that do not have PowerCLI installed (though I could ask to get it installed). The issue I... Continue Reading →
Monitoring vCenter 6.7 Scheduled Backups with Log Insight
One of the great features within VCSA 6.7 is the ability to schedule daily backups. The only challenge is that there is no built-in notifications as to whether they succeeded or not. At times I've gone a few days (weeks) until I noticed they weren't successful so I decided to monitor the jobs with Log... Continue Reading →
Applying vSphere Encryption when cloning a VM
We are implementing vSphere Encryption on top of vSAN encryption in a specific solution area. The basic setup is a vSAN cluster in each of 10 data centers. The templates are in one data center and cloned to the clusters in each of the other data centers. We created the new storage policy called "VSAN-RAID5-FTT1-Encryption"... Continue Reading →
My trudge through IT Burnout and the fight to keep it at bay
IT Burnout… In my first 15 years of working in IT I heard the term a handful of times. IT Burnout was kicked around for a short time after someone in OUR IT community committed suicide, but was never talked about otherwise. It was so far gone from my thoughts that I had no idea... Continue Reading →
Building a Fan-Tunnel
One of my favorite places to sleep when growing up was in a fan-tunnel. I've slept in one soo many times it probably led to some of my sinus issues as I've gotten older. It was worth it!! I've built a fan-tunnel to read in with my daughters a couple times a year and thought... Continue Reading →
