The Storage Field Day 7 Delegates

by | Feb 24, 2015 | Storage Field Day 7

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I’m very exited to tell you all I’ll be at Storage Field Day 7 in San Jose in a couple of weeks. Really looking forward to see a couple of the Storage Field Day Alumni, as well as a couple of exciting new people. Let’s have a look at the delegate list:

  • Chris M Evans is one those Storage Field Day Alumni that brings a lot experience and knows exactly when to ask the right question. What you guys don’t see is the awesome guy he is when the camera is off, he’s one of those people that makes you feel good and gives you the possibility to be yourself. His website and twitter account are always very informative, so make sure you follow them here:
  • Christopher Kusek will be at the Storage Field days for the first time, although it seems this Cat loving, humoristic, cloud jumping, vegan Ninja has always been around in spirit. throwing his own parties at VMworld and making sure you have a good laugh whenever you’re in the neighborhood… He wrote a couple of great VMware books as well as some awesome whitepapers. Make sure you’ll visit his website and follow him on twitter:
  • Dan Frith will be at Storage Field Day for the second time. At Storage Field Day 6 I met Dan and got to know him as a great guy who has the looks of wolverine, but is way cooler. As an Aussie he needs to travel a lot of miles before he is in the Silly Valley area. Really looking forward to meeting him again and reading his blogposts:
  • Dave Henry is one of those new storage field day delegates I really look forward to meeting. I’ve met him a couple of years ago when he was in his EMC role during the San Francisco VMworld. Dave is really knowledgable and I’m curious what he’ll have to say about the Storage Field Days:
  • Enrico Signoretti is known by everyone in the storage industry. If you don’t know him you should take a look at his website, twitter and other social media outlets out there, and you’ll know exactly what I mean. I’ve met Enrico during multiple Storage Field Days as well as VMworld and VMUG events and it’s always awesome to meet him. As said make sure you follow him on twitter and read his blog:
  • Howard Marks is also known by everybody who is in storage and VMware as he’s the storage veteran. He’s a writer, speaker and blogger for multiple media, and he’s the one making sure vendors aren’t talking gibberish… It’s always an honor to meet storage veterans like Howard, and you should really follow his blogposts and twitterfeed:
  • Jon Klaus  is one the new “storagekids” on the block. During Storage Field Day 6 he was was one of the new guys, and it was awesome to have him around. He’s a storage guru and he has an awesome blog providing great information. He’s a EMCelect from the start of the program and you should follow him:
  • Keith Townsend is probably the only dutch storage guy born in the USA ;-P He’s one of the guys coming for the second time and he’s an awesome and knowledgable guy who always seems to have the right questions at the right time. I look forward on meeting him again and look forward on his tweets and blogs:
  • Mark May is another first storage field day delegates. I don’t really know a lot about Mark, but seeing he’s an EMCelect and a infrastructure veteran, he’ll be an excellent fit in this group. Make sure you follow him on twitter an through his blog:
  • Ray Lucchesi is another Storage Field Day veteran and he’s also a great blogger, podcaster and an awesome guy to spend time with. Ray and Howard are the creators of the greybeards on storage podcast, and Ray is the guy that always has some awesome questions to make sure he (and thereby we) know exactly what a certain feature means. Always looking forward to read Ray’s blog as well as the things he mentions on twitter:
  • Vipin V.K. will be at storage field day for the first time. He’s an EMCelect as well as a vExpert. It’s always great to meet people from other continents and I’m really looking forward to meet him and read his blogposts as well as following his twitterfeed:

I want to thank Stephen Foskett, Tom Hollingsworth and Claire Chaplais, the oragnizers of this awesome event for inviting me, they are hosting a lot of awesome events and you can be part of it too. Make sure you follow them through the techfieldday website, as well as on twitter an facebook:

Last but not least the best way to follow Storage Field Day 7 is by watching the livestream here, and follow the #SFD7 hashtag on twitter. Over and out for now, but there will be more soon 😀

Realtek NIC on vSphere 6

by | Feb 7, 2015 | VMware

During the beta fase of vSphere 6 I was looking for a couple of workarounds for problems during installation process in my homelab. One of those problems is that (as with vSphere 5.5) certain not supported hardware are the onboard realtek NICs on the cheaper “homelab” motherboards. During this search I came across this workaround (login needed) by Andreas Peetz explaining a method to install the drivers onto the vSphere host(s) in your environment. Thanks Andreas, it worked well for me!!

here is a workaround for you … I have created a package that includes the original VMware net-r8168, net-r8169, net-sky2 and net-s2io drivers and uses the name (net51-drivers), and published it on my V-Front Online Depot.

If your host is already installed and has a direct Internet connection then you can install it from an ESXi shell by running the following commands:

esxcli software acceptance set –level=CommunitySupported

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esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient

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esxcli software vib install -n net51-drivers -d http://vibsdepot.v-front.de

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As you can see I had to add the –no-sig-check to install the vib. It might be this is not needed in your situation, though.

reboot

If you need the VIB file for injecting into an installation ISO or offline installation then you can download it from

http://vibsdepot.v-front.de/depot/vft/net51-drivers-1.0/net51-drivers-1.0.0-1vft.510.0.0.799733.x86_64.vib

(right-click the above link and save as …)

I have not yet tested this myself, and of course this is completely unsupported by VMware! Use at your own risk, but – honestly – I expect it to just work …

Andreas

As Andreas points out this is totally unsupported by VMware! But hey, it’s your homelab so probably most of it is unsupported ;-P

The other thing to notice is the awesomeness of the VMware community! Always helping one another and making sure people are able to get hands on experience with the little resources they have at home.