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How to configure FreeNAS 8 for iSCSI and connect to ESX(i)

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FreeNAS is working a bit differently than Openfiler when it comes to configuring iSCSI connection to ESXi host. When I finished building my homelab recently, I at first tested several distributions but finally sticked with FreeNAS which I think has the coolest user interface, and which can be up and running in less than 10 minutes. […]

SIOC and Adaptive Queue Depth testing on iSCSI LUNs

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SIOC and Adaptive Queue Depth testing on iSCSI LUNs This is a guest post by Andy Grant. This is a continuation of the post Some Answers About Queues: LUN and HBA Queue Depth on ESX(i) Hosts. Questions arose about conflicting support statements for Storage IO Control and in an effort to further the investigation, I have performed […]

Some Answers About Queues: LUN and HBA Queue Depth on ESX(i) Hosts

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LUN and HBA Queue Depth on ESX(i) Hosts. This is a guest post by Andy Grant. This article is in response to the post More Questions About Queues: LUN and HBA Queue Depth on ESX(i) Hosts.  I previously posed a few questions about the behavior of vSphere’s SIOC and (LUN) Adaptive Queue Depth algorithm and […]

More Questions About Queues: LUN and HBA Queue Depth on ESX(i) Hosts

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LUN and HBA Queue Depth on ESX(i) Hosts This is a guest post by Andy Grant. Jason Boche has posted an interesting article on the VMkernel parameter Disk.SchedNumReqOutstanding.  I confess that I have never thought much about the setting other than following VMware’s recommendation when changing HBA queue depth. Changing the Queue Depth for QLogic […]

Update to PXE Manager for vCenter Fling

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Update to PXE Manager for vCenter Fling This is a guest post by Andy Grant. Max Daneri has released version 4.1 Update 1 of PXE Manager for vCenter.  Be sure to uninstall the old version including the client plugin prior to installing the update. For all changes see the changelog. A new feature that caught […]

VMware ESXi Total lockdown – what’s that?

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For paranoiacs? Not only. If you really want to close down access to your ESXi servers and make your network more secure, you might missed that there is a Total Lockdown Mode available in ESXi hypervizor from VMware. But watch out, when enabled and if you loose an access to your vCenter, the only way […]

VMware vSphere Converter Standalone 5 goes public beta

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A public beta of VMware Converter Standalone 5 is available for download. One of the features which is interesting is the optimization of disk alignment of systems. I think that it’s quite evident that the full product will support vSphere 5. One can clearly see it in the release notes. The product supports more OS […]

Avoiding the VMware Compliance Checker Headache – PowerCLI to the rescue.

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Avoiding the VMware Compliance Checker Headache – PowerCLI to the rescue. This is a guest post by Andy Grant. In Vladan’s post Free compilance checker for VMware vSphere he introduced one of VMware’s free audit and compliance tools.  This can be a great way to kick-start a discussion with your Information Assurance (security) department regarding […]

My homelab – The Network design with Cisco SG 300 – a Layer 3 switch for €199.

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Lately I was working on the redesign of my lab at home and I purchased a Cisco L3 capable switch. In my quest for a VMware vSphere homelab, I recently purchased my first Cisco switch. You could see it in my recent post called My switch adventures where I bought the wrong switch because of similarities […]