Can’t deploy Citrix Receiver with the CLI when using NetScalers?!?!

As I begin typing this post, I'm not sure if this post will end up being informational, a plea, a rant, or some combination of all three.  Maybe it's just me, and I'm fully aware and able to accept that in all likelihood it probably is, but my biggest pain point when deploying new Citrix … Continue reading Can’t deploy Citrix Receiver with the CLI when using NetScalers?!?!

EMC Unity Datastore “not available in the VMware Hypervisor”

Recently, when creating the first VMFS datastore on an EMC storage array, I received and error stating that “the specified disk is not available in the VMware hypervisor”.  Though the VMFS datastore was successfully created on the array, the error occurred when trying to assign permissions to the vSphere hosts themselves. In this particular circumstance, … Continue reading EMC Unity Datastore “not available in the VMware Hypervisor”

2018 AWS Public Sector Notes – Cost Optimization on AWS

As promised through Twitter, here are my notes from my second Thursday morning session from last week’s AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington, DC.  This session, on AWS Cost Optimization led by Matt Johnson, was packed!  Honestly, I was a little surprised by that initially though I’m not sure why….I mean, I have my AWS … Continue reading 2018 AWS Public Sector Notes – Cost Optimization on AWS

2018 AWS Public Summit Notes – Culture Shock: How a Legacy, Siloed Organization Can Move to the Cloud

In this session, which was filled to overflowing, Sherry Stevens of NAIC and Jeffrey Olson of The College Board discussed their organizations journey to the AWS cloud.  I found it interesting to hear their thoughts and appreciated that both organizations were in different stages of their cloud journey.  NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners) is … Continue reading 2018 AWS Public Summit Notes – Culture Shock: How a Legacy, Siloed Organization Can Move to the Cloud

Baselining Performance using Liquidware Stratusphere UX

This afternoon I was on an interesting and informative webinar hosted by Liquidware in which they discussed using SpotCheck Inspection of an environment as a means to provide visibility into the user experience. NOTE: Let me make this clear, in this post I'm focus on VDI in regards to a SpotCheck inspection, but Stratusphere's scope is … Continue reading Baselining Performance using Liquidware Stratusphere UX

VDI – Adding Notes to Horizon VMs to ID Citrix App Layering Image Templates

I had a Citrix App Layering (formerly Unidesk) customer ask me recently if there was an easy way to display or determine the OS layer version of a given virtual desktop from within vCenter.  Prior versions of CAL/Unidesk 2.x “built” the virtual desktops itself, meaning it did not rely on Horizon tools like Composer to … Continue reading VDI – Adding Notes to Horizon VMs to ID Citrix App Layering Image Templates

Recovering from a failed AWS Tape Gateway

If you deploy an AWS tape gateway that encounters an unrecoverable failure, you can "potentially" recover any virtual tape data that has already been uploaded to AWS to another tape gateway.  I say "potentially" because I have experienced the corruption of (1) virtual tape; this could happen if your tape gateway experiences its fatal failure … Continue reading Recovering from a failed AWS Tape Gateway