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273 articles

VCF Automation Upgrade Prechecks, Explained
VCF 9.1VMware Cloud FoundationGuidesAutomation

VCF Automation Upgrade Prechecks, Explained

Forty three prechecks run before a VCF Automation upgrade, and most of them are testing things you can check yourself a week earlier. Here is what they look for, what the exit codes mean, and the thresholds worth knowing before you book the window.

15 min read0 views
VCF Management Services Models, Explained
VCF 9.1VMware Cloud FoundationArchitecture

VCF Management Services Models, Explained

Deploying a VCF instance asks you two questions about management services: which components run here, and how is the cluster built. The documentation answers both in two tables and two diagrams. Here is the same thing as a story.

4 min read0 views
Managing Passwords in VCF 9.1
VCF 9.1VMware Cloud FoundationGuides

Managing Passwords in VCF 9.1

VCF 9.1 adds password policies, so you can set length, complexity, expiration and lockout once and apply them across the fleet. VCF Operations keeps no copy of your passwords, and CyberArk integration gives you somewhere to store them.

6 min read0 views
Deploying a VCF Operations Orchestrator Cluster
VCF 9.1VMware Cloud FoundationGuidesAutomation

Deploying a VCF Operations Orchestrator Cluster

Sizing for VCF Operations Orchestrator is a short answer, one fixed appliance spec and exactly three nodes. The longer part is building the cluster, which is a load balancer, three OVA deployments and five commands over SSH.

5 min read0 views
VCF Automation Config Maximums, 9.0 Through 9.1.1
VCF 9.1VMware Cloud FoundationArchitectureAutomation

VCF Automation Config Maximums, 9.0 Through 9.1.1

Every published VCF Automation configuration maximum from 9.0.0 to 9.1.1 on one page, Medium and Large profiles side by side. Those numbers are the All Apps figures, so the vRealize Automation limits that a VM Apps organization keeps are here too.

13 min read0 views
VCF Automation Sizing: What You Are Actually Choosing
VCF 9.1VMware Cloud FoundationArchitecture

VCF Automation Sizing: What You Are Actually Choosing

Two dropdowns in the planning workbook decide the VCF Automation footprint. Small deploys a single node, Medium and Large deploy a three node cluster, and the numbers follow from that. Figures taken from the VCF planning and preparation workbooks.

4 min read0 views
Patched the Migration Service Engine First? Here Is the Way Out
VCF 9.1VMware Cloud FoundationTroubleshooting

Patched the Migration Service Engine First? Here Is the Way Out

If the Migration Service Engine was patched before VCF Automation, both components end up stuck with a PackageDeploymentsCompleteWaitTimeout error. Broadcom KB 455559 has the recovery, and this is what it involves.

4 min read0 views
Patching VCF Services Runtime 9.1.0.0 to 9.1.1.0
VCF 9.1VMware Cloud FoundationGuides

Patching VCF Services Runtime 9.1.0.0 to 9.1.1.0

Patching the VCF Services Runtime component to 9.1.1.0, from prechecks through a five hour rolling replacement of every node, with the kubectl commands to follow it from the control plane.

3 min read0 views
High Availability Is Not Disaster Recovery
ArchitectureGuides

High Availability Is Not Disaster Recovery

The two get used interchangeably and they solve completely different problems. What separates them, the two numbers that define both, and a worked example of three failures where only one of them saves you.

7 min read0 views
Nobody Has 100% Uptime
ArchitectureGuides

Nobody Has 100% Uptime

Product teams keep asking for applications that never go down. Here is why 100% uptime is not a real target, what people usually mean when they ask for it, and how to decide whether zero downtime upgrades are worth what they cost.

9 min read0 views
The Human Nervous System: A Visual Guide
Health & Personal

The Human Nervous System: A Visual Guide

How the nervous system is put together, from the organisation chart down to a single neuron, with illustrations covering the CNS and PNS, action potentials, reflex arcs, and the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches.

5 min read0 views
What Is a Prion, in Plain English?
Health & Personal

What Is a Prion, in Plain English?

A prion is a protein folded the wrong way that forces its healthy neighbours to misfold too. What that means, why it matters for the human brain, and why the normal version of the protein is already sitting in your head right now.

7 min read0 views

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