Category Archives: Lab Infrastructure

Creating a MongoDB Replica Set

I was recently looking at the Aria Operations Management Pack for MongoDB (https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Aria-Operations-for-Integrations/9.0/Management-Pack-for-MongoDB/GUID-73744E17-88DD-49A1-8B86-5BD896C874D8.html) and wanted to kick the tires in my vSphere-based lab. To be able to test this management pack, I wanted to deploy a three node MongoDB replica … Continue reading

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Ubuntu 24.04, Packer, and vCenter Server Customization Specifications

I’ve heard from several people who have highly recommended Packer (https://packer.io) to create standardized images. I’ve been wanting to dig into this for some time, and with the recent release of Ubuntu 24.04 decided now would be a good time … Continue reading

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Updating VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) from 5.1.0 to 5.1.1

I recently upgraded a nested lab from VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.1.0 to 5.1.1. A few lessons were learned along the way, and I’m going to document those below. Step 0 – Validate the environment My VCF lab had been … Continue reading

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Fine-Tuning Updates: Targeted Host Remediation with vSphere Lifecycle Manager

In vSphere 7.0 functionality was introduced to be able to manage a cluster of ESXi hosts with a single image. In addition to being a bit easier to configure than the prior Update Manager Baselines, this feature also integrates with … Continue reading

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Video Card Power Consumption & Savings

The primary system in my homelab is a Dell Precision 7920 Tower. I recently had the case opened and looking inside I saw the video card. This is a physically large Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080ti GPU, but for my purposes … Continue reading

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