Posts

VCF Administrator VCP Exam Study Group

Earlier this year I participated in a Community lead VCF Administrator VCP Exam study group alongside fellow vExperts James T, Franky B & Gareth E. We did a total of 6 sessions covering the topics of the exam blueprint with a focus towards a more show an tell approach to various administrative tasks, as well as general tours of the VCF platform, for anyone starting at the beginning of their VCF administrator journey.

Thursday, May 22, 2025 | 1 minute Read

vSAN HCL DB Out of Date - How to Update via SDDC Manager

During some recent upgrade work in my home lab I came faced with the following error when running the Upgrade PreCheck. This could be for a number of reasons but being that I power my lab off everyday, its likely just become out of date as a result. After a bit of digging around, I needed to confirm the date of the current HCL file on the SDDC manager DB, was indeed out of date. There is a way of doing this via the appliance CLI and detailed here, but after some further digging I found an API you can call to get the same info and time/date stamp of the remote data file.

VCF
HomeLab

Thursday, March 13, 2025 | 2 minutes Read

Rotating Aria Suite Local Account Passwords Using API’s & PowerShell

Password management is a critical aspect of maintaining a secure and efficient IT infrastructure. The Aria Suite is no exception and password rotation is necessary as part of addressing security policies & compliance requirements. VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager simplifies this process by providing a centralized endpoint to manage your suite’s configurations and settings both in the UI or via API’s. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at how we can reset passwords for the various components of the Aria Suite, all through the Lifecycle Manager, using the API’s via PowerShell.

Friday, December 20, 2024 | 7 minutes Read

Importing Aria Products into Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager

I recently began exploring the process for bringing standalone Aria products, such as Aria Operations or Aria Operations for Logs, into Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager. I knew there was an import option but not something I had ever actually used, so decided to try it out to see if it was as simple as I thought, it was! One thing that is worth checking before you start this process is that the root accounts aren’t expired or locked out and that you have the passwords stored as passwords in the Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager Locker, as you will need to reference these in the import wizard.

VCF
Aria

Wednesday, December 18, 2024 | 1 minute Read

New Year, New Certifications

December is normally a quieter time at work with customers change freezes kicking in and I like to use this time to get in the training I don’t find time to do the rest of the year. We are extremely lucky at work and are allowed to take some exams as well and I use this time to either try to get some new ones or refresh those I might already have.

Certification

Thursday, January 11, 2024 | 5 minutes Read

Visualising Aria Operations for Logs Data in Aria Operations

Its been a weird couple of years since I joined VMware. I have taken a step back from hands on, but with working with customers from such a diverse background I have had access to issues that have never presented themselves before. Presenting and blogging has always been something that was on my list of things to do but I always struggled to think of something to write or talk about that others might find interesting. It was not until I joined VMware and was able to use all that past experience with my customers that I realised I did have things that might be useful.

Thursday, December 21, 2023 | 2 minutes Read

Upgrading VMTools with PowerCLI

I recently got asked if it is possible to upgrade the VMTools on a VM at the VM level and target a group of them, but not at a host or cluster level. The answer is yes. There are multiple ways to handle VMtools upgrades/patching. Below I will show how it can be done via the UI and also using PowerCLI where you can target an array of VM objects.

Wednesday, December 6, 2023 | 1 minute Read

VCF - Exploring Your Operational Toolbox - VMUG UK UserCon 2023

This last week I had the opportunity to present a session at the VMUG UK UserCon with friend and colleague, James T. The session built on a previous session we did, diving deeper into some of the technical aspects and use cases of some of the tools available to help you manage your VCF platform. The slides and some of the code are available here on my GitHub. As always, thanks for reading!

Monday, November 27, 2023 | 1 minute Read

Exporting Aria Operations Content via the API and PowerShell

I recently spent some time creating custom dashboards in Aria Operations and realised very quickly that I would not want to lose them! So I looked at exporting the content using the API and then automating this. Firstly I used my go to language, PowerShell (this requires PowerShell 7) to make my life easier, specifically the Invoke-RestMethod cmdlet. I thought it would be worth while sharing for anyone else out there creating custom content in Aria Operations and is looking for a way to back it up.

Saturday, November 11, 2023 | 4 minutes Read

Upgrading VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5 to 4.5.1

For anyone looking to begin an upgrade or process that they have never done before, it can be daunting. Being able to see the process before attempting it can give you some level of comfort, although doesn’t replace good testing! I little while ago I upgraded VCF in my lab from 4.5 5 to 4.5.1 to apply some fixes and recorded it for others to get an idea of what to expect. Enjoy.

VCF

Tuesday, September 26, 2023 | 1 minute Read