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Holy Crap.. this Community

One of the things about working in technology is how much people tend to share. For as long as there have been forums, chats and channels, there has been some form of community. Growing up, it was neat to build a computer and when I had an issue, I knew that someone somewhere had the same exact issue, using the same exact hardware. That person would likely have asked somewhere and I’d look for that thread.

Moving forward, as I was taking programming classes and working on java, C and later objective-c, I started going to the Orlando iOS Developers Meetup. I thought it was amazing to see a group of people getting together to talk about the tech. So as I progressed and I started working on virtualization, there was this mountain of information available.

Not all areas within technology are the same, some hold information close to their chest, so when I needed information on VMware, it was shocking how much was available. But its not just bloggers, the sheer volume of tweets dedicated to this is outrageous. Then, there is VMUG. I’ve been through and seen a couple communities, but the support and help surrounding virtualization (not just VMware) is incredible. The VMware User Groups are local groups, lead by volunteers who are also customers. Specifically, a leader CANNOT work for VMware.

So, if you’ve been a part of this community for awhile, thank you! If you are just joining, strap in, there is a LOT of content and the list grows hourly. I’m looking forward to 2016, to see what this community will do, and to see more users join in and sharing their knowledge.

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ESXi 5.5 and older images in Update Manager 6

After recently upgrading from VCSA 5.5 Update 3 to VCSA 6.0 Update 1, we wanted to continue upgrading hosts to 5.5 Update 3 because we were waiting on Lenovo to release 6.0 Update 1a custom ISO’s.

In uploading the 5.5 U3a ISO’s to Update manager, both through the web-client and through the fat-client, we would get the following error:

Failed to import data. The uploaded upgrade package cannot be used with VMware vSphere Update Manager

After reaching out to VMware Support, we finally got this response:

This is to let you know that with With Update Manager 6.0 you can upgrade hosts that are running ESXi 5.x to ESXi 6.0. Host upgrades to ESXi 5.0, ESXi 5.1 or ESXi 5.5 are not supported.

So there it is, Update Manager only supports 6.0 and up images. Well, Lenovo’s ESXi 6.0 Update 1 target release date is December 22, 2015.

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I think I can, I think I can…

I’ve attempted to blog 3 times in my life, first on tumblr with no topic, second as a blog on general tech as I was working in retail and a third time when I wanted to blog about tech I was learning and getting involved with. Each time amounted to about 2 posts in a year or so. I just couldn’t continue writing because I felt it wasn’t good enough or I was too busy trying to learn the tech to sit down and write about it.

The vDM30in30 challenge came up and I thought I would give it a try. Even as I wrote the 7 or so posts, it was hard to find the time in the beginning, let alone the 15 or so drafts that are still awaiting to be published. The challenge is hard, but just as @kylog pointed out in his post “Writing is Hard, Redux”, this is still more than I’ve written in a single year, and I did this in a month! This isn’t the end, especially as I try to focus on writing about virtualization for first-timers.

I spoke about this topic with @cxi during VMworld and feel like its how I really want to approach this blog. Unfortunately I did not take that approach during this month, its how I want to move forward with this. Ideally, presenting each new tech or feature as if using it for the first time. In the spirit of the category, I am truly #New2 blogging. Watch for those 15 drafts as I clean them up, and maybe as I rewrite a couple. I think I can keep this up, I really do, because I enjoyed it so I am looking forward to 2016!