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Install or Upgrade VMware ESXi from HPE iLO

Install or Upgrade VMware ESXi from HPE iLO

There are multiple ways to install or upgrade VMware ESXi. In the past, we have discussed how to upgrade ESXi via the HP Onboard Administrator, VMware Update Manager, and ESXCLI. Today, we will walk through the ESXi upgrade process from HPE Integrated Lights-Out (iLO). If you are unfamiliar with iLO, it is HPE’s lights out management flavor to manage servers remotely. Install or Upgrade ESXi from HPE iLO To begin, launch an iLO Remote Console Session. In this instance, the…

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Spectre Vulnerability – How to Patch VMware ESXi

Spectre Vulnerability – How to Patch VMware ESXi

Yesterday, news broke about vulnerabilities affecting AMD, Intel, and ARM CPU’s. These vulnerabilities, termed Meltdown and Spectre, have the potential to expose information that the machine(s) process. Check out this post for an in-depth look. At this point, it appears that VMware ESXi is not vulnerable to Meltdown; however, they have released patches for Spectre. It has been speculated that patching the flaws will cause performance hits. To what degree varies by reporting source. As always, test patches before deployment and…

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Downgrade VMware VM Hardware Version

Downgrade VMware VM Hardware Version

A few weeks back, we discussed how to downgrade ESXi versions. These downgrades or rollbacks will often time bring compatibility issues into play. One such issue is the compatibility between the ESXi version and virtual machine hardware version. If a virtual machine with a higher version of hardware resides on an unsupported (lower) ESXi version, you will receive an error and not be able to start the machine. The error will state – This virtual machine uses hardware version x,…

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How to Downgrade/Roll Back ESXi 6.5

How to Downgrade/Roll Back ESXi 6.5

Occasionally, an issue or bug will require admins to revert to a previous build or version of ESXi. In the event you patch your hosts (as opposed to fresh installs), it is possible to rollback to a prior installed version via the GUI. Rollbacks should not be taken lightly. If you are reverting in a production environment, discuss options with support first. A few housekeeping items before we jump into the rollback process. Compatibility – If you are leveraging new…

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Install Nested ESXi 6.5 on Ravello

Install Nested ESXi 6.5 on Ravello

Recently, I had the opportunity to test a nested lab deployment on Oracle’s Ravello Cloud Service. If you are unfamiliar with Oracle’s Ravello offering, it enables you to deploy your VMware or KVM workloads on Oracle Public Cloud, AWS, or Google Cloud. Ravello seamlessly runs your environment on top of their own nested hypervisor, HVX. HVX, in turn, is run on resources provisioned by Oracle, AWS, or Google Cloud. Utilizing Ravello’s HVX hypervisor allows the underlying cloud infrastructure to behave like your traditional datacenter; thus, enabling…

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