Home Lab on iThinkVirtual™

Nested vSphere Home Lab – Part 4 – VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle Deployment & Configuration

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 17:21:45 -0500

Intro

Welcome back! I know it’s been some time since my last post where I covered the deployment of the nested vSphere lab, but I’d like to take a moment to thank you for coming back and supporting me! Life hits at times, and I just didn’t have the time to dedicate to creating content as my family expanded and the responsibilities took over. While time is still of the essence, I didn’t want to miss out on following up the series. In this post, I will cover the deployment and configuration of the VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle appliance to help facilitate the deployment of the remaining Aria Suite solutions. Let’s get to it!

Nested vSphere Home Lab – Part 3 – vSphere 8.x Lab Deployment

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 20:22:55 -0500

Intro

Welcome back! In my previous post, I covered the deployment and configuration of an Active Directory and Microsoft Certificate Authority server(s) for the nested lab environment.

Next, I will cover the steps used to deploy the nested lab via William Lam’s Automated Nested Lab Deployment script. This script makes it easy to deploy a set of vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) VMs, along with a VMware vCenter Server Appliance virtual machine to manage the nested lab environment.

Nested vSphere Home Lab - Part 2 - Active Directory & Certificate Authority

Sun, 23 Apr 2023 21:05:13 -0400

Intro

Welcome back! In my previous post, I covered the deployment and configuration of a virtual Sophos XG Firewall router appliance to provide routing services for the nested lab environment.

Nested vSphere Home Lab – Part 1 – Sophos Firewall

Sun, 23 Apr 2023 21:03:00 -0400

Intro

Welcome to Part 1 of my Nested vSphere Home Lab Series. In my previous post, I went over the gist of what I plan to do for my nested Nested vSphere Home Lab. In this post, I will cover the setup and configuration of a Sophos XG Firewall Home Edition which will serve as the router for my nested lab environment. My physical Home Lab is configured with Virtual Distributed Switches, or VDS (sometimes seen as DVS) for short, and since this is a nested lab environment that will not have any physical uplinks connected, I will need to create a new VDS without physical uplinks connected to it along with a portgroup for the nested environment and then configure access to the environment from my LAN. This can also be configured on a Virtual Standard Switch, or VSS for short, in the same fashion. All network traffic will flow through the virtual router/firewall to communicate to and from the nested lab. Afterward, I’ll cover the Active Directory Server setup.

Nested vSphere Home Lab Series

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 20:37:53 -0400

Intro

Hey there! I’d taken a hiatus from writing as my personal life got in the way…got married, had a child, and changed employer(s), just to name a few!

vRealize Suite 2019 - Part 3: Installing vRealize Automation

Fri, 17 Jan 2020 21:56:02 -0500

Intro

In my previous post, I covered the configuration of VMware Identity Manager in preparation for what I will cover in this post, the installation of vRealize Automation 8.0! This new release is a complete redesign of the product and now uses a similar codebase to vRealize Automation Cloud (formerly known as Cloud Automation Services), bringing those capabilities to the on-premises form factor and making it easier to transform IT delivery. I look forward to tinkering with this more after the deployment! Let’s jump right in!

vRealize Suite 2019 – Part 2: Configuring VMware Identity Manager

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 04:42:40 -0500

Intro

In my previous post, I covered how to install vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.0 and in the process it also deployed an instance of VMware Identity Manager aka Workspace One Access, which is a requirement for installing vRealize Automation 8.0. I opted to skip the deployment of the latter as to keep focus on the deployment of LCM only.

vRealize Suite 2019 - Part 1: Installing vRealize Lifecycle Manager

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 04:18:58 -0500

Intro

Welcome to Part 1 of my vRealize Suite 2019 Series. In my previous post, I went over the gist of what I plan to deploy in my nested Home Lab. In this post, I will cover the installation of vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager using the new vRealize Easy Installer released with the v8.0 of the solution.

vRealize Suite 2019 Series

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 04:14:28 -0500

Intro

Hello, and thank you for visiting my blog! I’d decided to take some time away from writing in order to focus on my role as a Solutions Engineer at VMware, and enhance my skillset by getting more acclimated and accustomed to some of the most utilized solutions by VMware customers. Almost one full year has passed since I last wrote anything, and with the new year underway, what better time to get back into writing some material for myself and the vCommunity.

NSX-T Home Lab - Part 6: Upgrading NSX-T

Fri, 22 Mar 2019 00:00:25 -0400

Intro

Welcome to Part 6 of my NSX-T Home Lab series. In my previous post, I covered how to configure NSX-T networking to be able to start migrating and running workloads on the NSX-T fabric. In this post, I am going to cover the process of upgrading to the newly released version of NSX-T 2.4. Are you excited? Good!… So am I! Let’s jump right in!

NSX-T Home Lab - Part 5: Configuring NSX-T Networking

Tue, 19 Feb 2019 17:25:44 -0500

Intro

Welcome to Part 5 of my NSX-T Home Lab series. In my previous post, I went over the lengthy process of configuring the NSX-T fabric. In this post, I am going to cover the process of configuring the networking so we can get the logical routers and logical switches in place and ready to attach VMs to them and begin running workloads on NSX. Let get to it, shall we?

NSX-T Home Lab - Part 4: Configuring NSX-T Fabric

Fri, 15 Feb 2019 15:15:18 -0500

Intro

Welcome to Part 4 of my NSX-T Home Lab series. In my previous post, I covered the process of deploying the NSX-T appliances and joining them to the management plane to have the foundational components ready for us to continue the configuration. In this post, I will cover all the configurations required to get NSX-T Fabric ready for network configurations in order to run workloads on it. So sit back, buckle up, and get ready for a lengthy read!

NSX-T Home Lab - Part 3: Deploying NSX-T Appliances

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 23:22:25 -0500

Intro

Welcome to Part 3 of my NSX-T Home Lab Series. In my previous post, I went over the process of setting up the Sophos XG firewall/router VM for my nested lab environment. In this post, we’ll cover the process of deploying the required NSX-T Appliances. There are 3 main appliances that need to be deployed, the first is the NSX-T Manager, followed by a single or multiple Controllers, and lastly, a single or multiple Edge appliances. For the purposes of this nested lab demo, I will only be deploying a single instance of each appliance, but please follow recommended best practices if you are leveraging this series for a production deployment. With all that said, let’s get to it!

NSX-T Home Lab - Part 2: Configuring ESXi VMs

Mon, 21 Jan 2019 22:11:56 -0500

Intro

Welcome to Part 2 of my NSX-T Home Lab Series. In my previous post, I went over the installation and configuration of a Sophos XG firewall for my nested NSX-T Home Lab. In this post, I will cover the setup and configuration of the ESXi 6.7 VMs.

NSX-T Home Lab - Part 1: Configuring Sophos XG Firewall

Mon, 21 Jan 2019 22:10:49 -0500

Intro

Welcome to Part 1 of my NSX-T Home Lab Series. In my previous post, I went over the gist of what I plan to do for my nested NSX-T Home Lab. In this post, I will cover the setup and configuration of a Sophos XG firewall Home Edition which will serve as the router for my nested lab environment. My physical Home Lab is configured with Virtual Distributed Switches, or VDS (sometimes seen as DVS) for short, and since this is a nested lab environment that will not have any physical uplinks connected, I will need to create a new VDS without physical uplinks connected to it along with a portgroup for the nested environment and then configure access to the environment from my LAN. All traffic will flow through virtual router/firewall to communicate to and from the nested lab.

NSX-T Home Lab Series

Mon, 21 Jan 2019 22:09:16 -0500

Intro

I recently upgraded my Home Lab “Datacenter” to support all-flash VSAN and 10Gb networking with the plan to deploy NSX-T so that I can familiarize myself with the solution and use it to better prepare me for the VMware VCP-NV exam certification. Since this is all brand new to me, I’ve decided that I’ll first deploy it in a nested lab environment in order to learn the deployment process as well as to minimize the risk of accidentally messing up my Home Lab environment.

Homelab Makeover 2.0

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 01:20:14 -0500

Hello and first off, thank so much for visiting my blog! If you have followed any part of my “Homelab” series, you will be familiar with the components that make up my home “Datacenter”. If not, take some time to catch up on those posts!

Home Lab 2017 – Part 1 (Network and Lab Overhaul)

Sun, 12 Feb 2017 18:53:49 -0500

For the last 6+ months, I haven’t had much time to dedicate to my home lab and overall home network. Between holidays, transitioning to a new employer/role, and everyday life getting in the way, I found that I had to put everything on the back burner for a bit…so I inevitably shutdown by home lab. Well now I am back and am looking forward to writing up some new material that I have been meaning to do for a while. I will start this by saying this is a continuation of my Home Lab 2016 Series, now being dubbed as “Home Lab 2017“!

Home Lab 2016 – Part 3

Sat, 23 Apr 2016 22:11:29 -0400

Home Lab 2016 – Part 3

Hello all! My sincere apologies for the brief hiatus, but I am back to continue my Home Lab 2016 series. In my previous posts, I covered the components that make up my new Home Lab. In this post I will quickly cover my Storage and Network solutions that connect my lab. Let’s get to it!

Home Lab 2016 – Part 2

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 23:36:15 -0400

Home Lab 2016 – Part 2

Welcome back for Part 2 of my Home Lab 2016 Series. I hope that you enjoyed my previous post, Part 1 from last week, where I covered the basis of my home lab and presented the Bill of Materials (BOM) for my mini-datacenter environment.

Home Lab 2016 – Part 1

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 00:18:50 -0500

Home Lab 2016 – Part 1

Having a home lab is every IT enthusiasts dream come true, and now I can finally say that I have fulfilled that dream! I previously was (and currently still am…) using a 1-node “white box” system I had built from a spare gaming machine I had laying around, running on an open-air tech bench from TopDeck. It’s comprised of the following: