Dell EMC Unity – Quick Tip- Be careful with Auto LDAP config

Sometimes you learn things the hard way. I recently had a Unity 550f Array that developed a penchant for a couple of sub-optimal behaviour traits….. Freezing NAS server and SP reboots. Not often, but these are the sorts of issues that can cause you a lot of grief, in a Continue Reading

Dell EMC Unity AFA-OE version 4.5x Upgrade

Gone are the days of 6 hour, nerve racking updates for Storage Arrays. They used to be a logistical nightmare. Change Control, careful planning. What if it goes pear shaped ? These are things that used to keep us up at night. Driven by a requirement of quick and frequent updates, Continue Reading

Dell EMC CloudIQ – Mobile version

CloudIQ, the free, cloud based monitoring and management application provided by Dell EMC is a very useful tool.  You can get the low-down onit https://blog.dellemc.com/en-us/cloudiq-a-web-based-fitness-tracker-for-your-storage/ Jon @ Fast Storage also give some excellent details here: https://faststorage.eu/cloudiq-is-looking-out-for-your-storage-systems-health/ Recently the notification/updates showed , a mobile version was released, and it’s very useful. Once installed, Continue Reading

CommVault – Software Updates via HTTP/HTTPS

This is an early release feature that was slipped in without much fanfare. If you installed your CommCell using or after Version 11 SP5, you’ll be quietly downloading CommVault updates over HTTPS. For many of us though, our CommCells have evolved over various upgrades and downloads would be using FTP. Continue Reading

ESXi 5.5 – Automating VMFS UNMAP w/ PowerCLI and PowerShell

With vSphere 6.5 recently released, a nice feature was the automated execution of the UNMAP command against thin provisioned datastores to reclaim space. This requires no user interaction, it’s fully automated for you and can free up significant amounts of space from your datastores. There’s some good information regarding the Continue Reading

Dell PowerVault MD3660f – Firmware Upgrade Process

The DELL PowerVault MD series Storage Arrays are solid and reliable units. Whilst I don’t use any for what may be considered “Primary” Storage, I use them for many workloads. Backup targets, Image Respositories, Archives, Unstructured data etc. In a 5 RU form factor, it’s a dense package with over Continue Reading

VMware PowerCLI – What are you waiting for ?

I still talk to people who are reluctant to jump in and learn some basic scripting techniques. Usually their response is that it’s easy in the gui or “scripting is hard” or the “I’m not a developer so why bother ?”. Meh, make it happen. The facts is, learning some basic Continue Reading

VMware PowerCLI – What are you waiting for ?

I still talk to people who are reluctant to jump in and learn some basic scripting techniques. Usually their response is that it’s easy in the gui or “scripting is hard” or the “I’m not a developer so why bother ?”. Meh, make it happen. The facts is, learning some basic Continue Reading

VMware PowerCLI – Suppress vCenter Certificate warnings

A very quick post this one, but an annoying thing I often see left unchecked in environments, that is simple to fix in a minute. Yes, this is an old topic, but it’s still too evident today…. This should be in your “just do it” category. It’s the awful Certificate Continue Reading