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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How to Remove or Assign Brocade Port Licenses

How to Remove or Assign Brocade Port Licenses

Brocade switches have the ability to automatically assign licenses from a license pool with the Dynamic Ports on Demand (POD) feature. Once a server blade with an HBA is installed, the Dynamic POD feature will assign port license(s) as they come online. When the active ports have exhausted the current POD license pool, additional ports will not be assigned a license. Ports not assigned a license can be identified by a state of (No POD License) Disabled. After a port…

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Oracle Ravello Second Blogger Day

Oracle Ravello Second Blogger Day

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend Oracle Ravello’s second blogger day, aptly coined #RBD2. RBD2 consisted of a group of 29 vExperts/bloggers from around the globe. I had previously been introduced to Ravello through the vExpert program, so I had a working knowledge of the offering going into the day. A few months back, I posted about my experience installing ESXi on Ravello. Since then, I have tested various VMware workloads with exceptional results. What is Oracle Ravello? If…

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How to Test Pure Storage Email Alerts

How to Test Pure Storage Email Alerts

Quick byte today – Let’s talk about sending a test email alert from your Pure Storage FlashArray. Whether you leverage an SMTP relay in your environment or simply would like to ensure storage alerts are being sent, we can test e-mail notifications via CLI commands. For this example, we will assume the relay host and sender domain have been specified. If not, these can be set from the GUI under System > Configuration > Alerts. Test Email Alert from Pure…

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Spectre/Meltdown Vulnerability – How to Patch VMware vCenter 6.5

Spectre/Meltdown Vulnerability – How to Patch VMware vCenter 6.5

As per Security Advisory VMSA-2018-0007, VMware has begun releasing virtual appliance updates to address side-channel analysis due to speculative execution vulnerabilities. One of the first virtual appliances VMware has patched is vCenter 6.5. The latest release, vCenter 6.5U1f, patches the VCSA’s Photon OS to address Spectre-1 (CVE-2018-5753) and Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754) vulnerabilities. Mitigations for Spectre-2 (CVE-2017-5715) are absent from the latest patch as Spectre-1 and Meltdown mitigations were ready to be released; whereas, Spectre-2 patches were still being prepared. UPDATE –…

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