Azure Backup Vault retry failed backu...

If you ever need to kick off a re-try of multiple failed backups in Azure Recovery Services (VM Backup Vault), there is currently no way of initiating this through the Azure Portal, apart from via the VM or Recovery Services “blades”. That’s a lot of clicks and room for error if you have a lot of […]
EC2 based Software VPN AWS Auto-Scali...

In some circumstances there may be a requirement to setup an IPSEC Site-to-Site VPN tunnel into an AWS VPC using something other than the AWS VPN Service. This usually means configuring an EC2 Instance based VPN endpoint and is what AWS refer to as a “Software VPN”. Unlike the AWS VPN Service (which is managed […]
AWS Simple Email Service (SES) Domain...

Recently I had to verify a domain for use with AWS SES. Creating the initial Domain Verification request is simple in the AWS Console and if your domain is in Route53 then Domain Verification is automatic. However, the domain I needed to verify was running on DNS servers we manage ourselves (I work for a […]
vCenter 6 Appliance (vCSA) ESXi Net D...

Login to your vCenter as [email protected] (or use an account which has been put into the “Administrators” group from Home > Administration > Single Sign-On > Users and Groups > Groups). Now go to Home > Administration > Deployment > System Configuration > Services > VMWare vSphere ESXi Dump Collector Now right click the service […]
vRealize Automation Windows Blueprint...

Here is a very simple way (i.e. non Orchestrator workflow route) for allowing your users to define their own passwords for a Windows VM when they request it via the catalogue. This method uses the vRA Guest Agent. An excellent walk through on vCAC 6.2 of how to do this for Linux VMs (and the main […]
post upgrade vRA 7 orchestrator endpo...

I upgraded vCAC 6.2 to vRA 7 the other day. Everything looked good until I tested some blueprints which call custom workflows configured in the embedded Orchestrator. I had my endpoint configured as per the documentation, listed here:- http://pubs.vmware.com/vra-70/topic/com.vmware.vrealize.automation.doc/GUID-9E9E2393-A268-432C-B9EA-2CBEFA25361B.html#GUID-9E9E2393-A268-432C-B9EA-2CBEFA25361B You can test if your Endpoint is working or not by either running a refresh or […]