Dario Dörflinger
Posts by Dario Dörflinger.
See the profile · Senior Solution Architect
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Fix NSX to Re-Import ESX into VCF
If you stumble upon this blog chances are you are working on VMware Cloud Foundation 9.x.
VMware Explore Las Vegas – Hackathon 2025
The VMware Code Hackathon is a special event that took place during this year's Explore in Las Vegas. Whenever I am allowed to go to an Explore I'm excited if there is a Hackathon.
Get Online Depot working in VCF 9
In VMware Cloud Foundation 9 we can configure a Online Depot to get access to the Binaries for the Management as well as the Instance Components.
VMware Explore 2025 Las Vegas – soulTec will be there
VMware Explore, the big cloud event for VMware technologies, goes to Las Vegas in 2025, from 25 to 28 August at the Venetian Convention and Expo Center.
Renew the STS Signing Root Certificate in vCenter
I recently had a call from a customer that received multiple alerts about their ESXi Hosts certificate was about to expire.
Create a password hash for vSphere Configuration Profile
Configuration Profiles have emerged as the modern successor to VMware's legacy Host Profiles, bringing enhanced automation and streamlined management to your vSphere environment.
VMware Hackathon 2024 Project
The VMware Code Hackathon is a special event that runs alongside VMware Explore. Since 2016, I've been fortunate to participate in both the main event and hackathon most years.
Partner Technical Leadership Forum
We are live in Barcelona at VMware Explore 2024, the first VMware Explore since the acquisition by Broadcom was finalised. A lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same.
Monitor Cronjobs with Aria Operations
On a professional services project the customer wanted the VMware SRM backup monitored automatically, with a warning raised if the backup job ever failed. Here is how I did it.
VMware Hackathon 2023 Project
The VMware Code Hackathon is a special event that runs alongside VMware Explore. Since 2016, I've been fortunate to participate in both the main event and hackathon most years.
PowerShell Script to test multiple IP Addresses
This small scriptlet reads a CSV with a column called “IPaddress” and pings its way through the addresses. In a lot of projects I have to confirm that a set of IPs is free.
redfishlib.cpp:264 :: In executeRedfishCall()
On a current project we run vSphere Lifecycle Manager together with HPE OneView and HPE OneView for vCenter, so a cluster image can carry the firmware as well.
iSCSI Datastore Not Consumed
On a customer project running current vSphere 8.0 U2, some hosts recognised their iSCSI devices but reported them as “not consumed”, so the ESXi host saw no iSCSI datastores at all.
Health check: a new default in the advanced settings
We run a lot of health checks. One advanced setting changed its default in vSphere 8, and it turned up in our reports as a deviation that was not one.
Software-Defined WAN
SD-WAN uses software and cloud-based functions to deliver internet connectivity simply, quickly, at good quality and securely.
VMware Master Services Competencies
Our small team takes on large things. Within our first year we reached the top and are now among the leading VMware partners in Switzerland.
Hybrid office and flexibility at work
I am writing this from my home office, at my corner desk, in front of the large monitor, with a view across the city from the ninth floor.
Certified Kubernetes Administrator – CKA
soulTec has something to celebrate. Three of our engineers passed the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam.
VMware Security Advisory
VMware has disclosed new vulnerabilities, covered by VMware Security Advisory 2022-0030 and 2021-0025. They are rated 7.1 to 7.5 on the CVSS scale.
soulTec becomes Switzerland's preferred PSO partner
We won the tender and are now the preferred VMware PSO partner in Switzerland for the next two years, just short of a year after founding the company.
VMware Security Advisory
VMware has disclosed new vulnerabilities in VMware Security Advisory 2022-0021. They are rated 4.7 to 9.8 on the CVSS scale.
Cloud on AWS
VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC on AWS) brings the familiar VMware infrastructure software straight into the AWS cloud.
Automatically deleting VMware VM snapshots
Automatically deleting VMware VM snapshots with vRealize Operations Manager (vROPs) is very easy to implement.
VM News Collector 1.0
A new fling to keep up to date On January 4th 2022 VMware has released a new Fling: VM News Collector.
Setting up a small DNS server for your Homelab
Setting up a small DNS server for your home lab Setting up a small DNS server for your Homelab is actually quite simple.
How to get around “your connection is not private”
This little post is about how to get around the “Your connection is not private” message.
vSphere Update 3 releases withdrawn
VMware has withdrawn all vSphere 7.0 Update 3 releases.
Getting started at our StartUp
The first of November marked a new stage in my career. Together with four good colleagues, I started at soulTec AG.
How to skip vSAN HCL Checks for ESXi Upgrades
A short blog about how one can disable vSAN HCL Checks in VCF SDDC manager.
First Steps
I learn how the newly released vRealize Automation 8.0 works. I am documenting what I learn as I go by doing a Series of blog posts about this. Stay tuned.
vRO Masterclass
This post is about my experience from this week's VMware Livefire training about vRealize Orchestrator that took place at the VMware offices in Zurich.
Lisbon
In my third week working I was sent to the VMware EMPOWER Partner Conference in Lisbon.
2019: I'm in!
Good news! Made it into the program once more. A small thank you post with an outlook of things to come on my blog.
Moving VMs into resource pools based on a tag
A script which automates the assignment of VMs into resource pools based on tags. Has some added functionality to make sure all VMs have tags.
Assigning Tags based on VM Notes
Addressing the problem with not finding VMs based on information in the notes when using the HTML5 client.
How To make sure your USB Device always gets passed through to your VM
A short story about a support request that involved VMware workstation, a Windows XP VM and a custom keyboard for a perfectly good use case.
Releasing my vCheck Fork
I have been working on a lot of improvements to the popular PowerCLI HTML Framework script “vCheck Daily Report” which was originally developed by Alan Renouf and has been enhanced by the VMware Code
Setting Resource Pools right
I wrote a script to set resource pools right.
Changing default Backup location for MSSQL database
Just yesterday I upgraded Zerto from 6.0 U2 to 6.5 at a customer site.
Progress report
Today I want to share an update about my VCDX journey. In the past weeks I have intensified my efforts towards the goal of achieving the VCDX-DCV certification.
HA Admission Control Cluster Resource Percentage Misconception
Today I was working on my VCDX design and came across HA admission control. With VMware vSphere 6.5 a new feature introduced was “Cluster resource percentage”.
Breaking and Fixing
Today I realized that my GitLab server was severely out of date and the underlying ubuntu (17.10) was end-of-life.
Moving VCSA&PSC across data centers
Today I was at one of our customers that use Zerto as their BC/DR software. The customer is in the process of migrating his workloads into two new data center locations.
9 Free NSX eBooks to download
Last year I was fortunate enough to go to VMworld in Barcelona. One of the coolest “goodies” that I brought back was a small NSX book about automating NSX using PowerNSX.
First time vExpert!
This morning I got a very cool e-Mail: I was accepted as vExpert 2018. This is a great honor for me and I am very excited about it. Becoming a vExpert is actually not that difficult.
Success Story with Coop Switzerland
After an open RFP for a BC/DR solution from a well known retail company in switzerland we answered with Zerto and won the RFP. I am proud to share the success story following this project.
Copying my scripts to Github
I have been blogging for almost 4 years now. After a slow start back in 2014 and some quiet months every now and then I have published quite a lot of powershell code on here over the years.
Automating VPG journal limit changes
I helped one of our customers implement Zerto in their environment.
Change Admission Control Percentages
I was recently asked by a customer to explain some of the vSphere 6.5 features that would be interesting for his environment.
Getting the Usage of a cluster
Our customers sometimes call us in to check their environment. Because this happens quite often we created a basic checklist on what checks we do when we start.
Reporting the duration of snapshots
One of our customers had a problem with VMs losing network connectivity while the backup was running. Their backup solution was based on VMware snapshots.
Checking ESXi Hosts Advanced Settings against VMware's default
Over the years and releases from VMware the best practices change sometimes.
Adding a disk to a VM
Recently I stumbled upon a stubborn vSphere Client at a customer. It just would not let me add a disk a VM.
Setting up a greenfield vSAN cluster on 6.5 Update 1
Recently I had the pleasure of doing a vSAN project for one of our customers. The project scale was very small but nonetheless very interesting.
Getting Started with Clarity UI
As you know when you read my blog, I like to develop and script a lot of things. One things that was always hard for me was the design of the user interface.
Find and disconnect CD Drives on your VMs
One of the things that regularly pops up in our health checks in VMware environments are connected CD Drives that prevent DRS from functioning properly or prevents a host from entering maintenance
vSphere 6.5 Update 1
A couple of days ago VMware released version 6.5 Update 1 for some of their products: vCenter Server: Link ESXi: Link, Link to HPE Custom Image Site Recovery Manager (SRM): Link I was waiting for
Cannot power on VMs after deleting resource pools
One of my colleagues had a problem the other night. He was called to troubleshoot a VMware View environment which was not running as expected.
Tips and Tricks for vSAN troubleshooting
Today I attended a Web-Session from VMware with the topic vSAN troubleshooting tips and tricks and I wanted to share those tips and tricks with you.
Testing your networks
If you are knee-deep in a troubleshooting session with a customer you want to be able to have some tools ready that do some tests for you.
a fast and awesome way to protect your vms
First off: This article is not sponsored by zerto in any way. I got to know zerto in-depth during a PoC we did for one of our customers and I fell in love with it.
Backing up Fault-Tolerance protected VMs (the operation is not supported on the object)
How to get rid of the error “the operation is not supported on the object”
Find Zombie Files on Datastores
Everyone who works in our industry is familiar with RVTools. It's a great tool that achieves a lot in short time in terms of infrastructure checks. I would not want to do my job without it.
Automating VMware Tools and Hardware Upgrades
A couple of years ago I struggled with VMware Update Manager in a large environment. The Use case was to update about a 1000 VMs to the latest VMware Tools and VM Version (hardware).
Report Empty LUNs
Once again I'm writing about a customer use-case.
Automating VM Shutdown triggered by USV
So another customer had a requirement. They want their USV to trigger a script that moves all VMs from one datacenter to the other datacenter in case of a power failure.
Automating VCSA Backup & Restore
I've recently stumbled upon a VMware communities thread where someone had trouble backing up the VCSA database.
Automating VM Skeleton Deployment
We recently had to write a script for a customer which would deploy a VM skeleton.
New Fling: DRS Lens
I have always been a fan of the VMware Flings. There have been some great Flings in the past that eventually made it into VMware's products.
share powershell scripts on-site
If you work in the field of VMware you tend to automate things as soon as the opportunity presents itself. Either to save time or to rid yourself of tedious work that repeats itself over and over.
Starting the journey towards VCDX DCV
I always wanted to prove the skills that I obtained working for a IT service provider over the last two years.
Introducing the new ESXi Staging Appliance
A couple of years ago I made a post about the “REDA – Rapid ESXi Deployment Appliance” which was basically a customized version of the old “EDA” which was available to download from the VMware
HPE Custom ESXi Image breaks pxeboot
With the latest vSphere 6.0 Update 2 May 2016 HPE Custom ESXi Hypervisor Image to download from VMware HPE managed to reference a uppercase letter in one of its configuration files.
SDDC LiveFire Training
This week I was fortunate to be able to attend a LiveFire Class at the VMware UK Headquarters in Staines upon Thames in England.
New Ways to set vMotion, fault Tolerance Logging, etc.
Hello guys! I'm back on my blog after changing my job and generally having been very busy over the last two years.
Find differences between DNS-Name and VM Display-Name
My boss asked me to create a report which shows all the VMs that have a difference in DNS-hostname and the displayname shown in the client.
Rapid ESXi Deployment Appliance
When you're thinking about upgrading your infrastructure to the latest stable version of ESXi you have to think about how you will deploy your hosts with the new ESXi Hypervisor.
Problems with a restored VM: Invalid IDs in the Snapshot Files
Recently we've had the pleasure to restore a Database-VM from the most recent Backup because one of my coworkers accidentally deleted a vital .vmdk File on the datastore..
VCP5 – DCV: Exam Preparation Tips
I took the VCP5-DCV for the version 5.5 last week and passed with 491 of 500 possible Points.
Bootcamp. A Review
Last week I was attenting my first VMware Bootcamp. The Bootcamp consisted of two courses: “VMware vSphere 5.5 – Fast Track” and “VMware vSphere 5.5 – Optimize and Scale”.