Category Archives: Lab Infrastructure

Creating a MongoDB Replica Set

Posted on May 12, 2024 by brian.wuchner

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 →

Posted in Lab Infrastructure, Scripting, Virtualization | 4 Comments

How to Build an Ubuntu 24.04 Template using Packer and vCenter Server Customization Specifications

Posted on May 3, 2024 by brian.wuchner

I’ve heard from several people who have highly recommended Packer (https://packer.io) to create standardized images, and with the recent release of Ubuntu 24.04 I decided now would be a good time to build a new template to try it out. … Continue reading →

Posted in Lab Infrastructure, Scripting, Virtualization | 2 Comments

Updating VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) from 5.1.0 to 5.1.1

Posted on April 29, 2024 by brian.wuchner

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

Posted on March 26, 2024 by brian.wuchner

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

Posted on March 5, 2024 by brian.wuchner

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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