vSphere Upgrade Saga: vShield Edge Missing Manual

I bit the bullet and implemented vShield Edge within my environment along side my existing virtual firewall (thankfully I have some other IP available). But this was not without its problems, it appears there is some critical information missing from the manuals. After a call to VMware, I noticed my mistake (which I actually forgot was necessary). Finally, I have a working vShield Edge but the documents still need a bit of work. Hopefully, these notes will help those going forward.

vSphere Upgrade Saga: Fixing VMware VDR

I have been running VMware Data Recovery (VDR) through its paces for quite a while now and while it works, I am not sold on it yet. I have had way too many problems related to the target datastore. Specifically, a continual failed integrity check. Everything ran fine for a while and then poof, a failure, and just when I needed it the most. It has been a very frustrating state of affairs. But I finally found a solution that is working for now. In the meantime I will be running Veeam Backup and Replication, Quest vRanger, PHD Virtual, and several other backup tools through their paces.

vSphere Upgrade Saga: Setting up a RHEL iSCSI Server

When using the RHEL scsi-target-utils, there is some special mojo needed when connecting to vSphere 5 (perhaps any version of vSphere). Unlike the iSCSI Enterprise Target (IET), the new service makes use of modern iSCSI targeting techniques, and these did not work as expected with vSphere out of the box. For a few days, I was confused as to what was happening, but not anymore, so now my iSCSI server for my vSphere Environment is back in running shape after its hardware upgrade, new operating system, and upgraded disk drives.

vSphere Upgrade: Moving to a BladeSystem

I recently upgraded my entire infrastructure. The cost of going to 3 new servers at the latest hardware compared to going to a blade center was finally equal. In general, 3 2U DL380s are less expensive than upgrading to a c3000 blade enclosure and over the last several years I have been fighting with this decision. Finally, it was made for me. The price was attractive enough. 3 Blades were purchased with space for 5 more available within the enclosure. This upgrade-ability is what pushed me over to blades from the lower cost DL models.