vRealize Business for Cloud – Lost EC2 Instances?

by Matthew KimlerNo Comments
This one is going to be short and sweet, at least it was to me. I upgraded my vRealize Automation environment in our IAS lab to version 7.3. I had a few hiccups because of an old IaaS node that had been replaced and never cleaned up (which you can read about in my other post this week), but other than it was pretty smooth. I also took the opportunity to upgrade the vRealize Business for Cloud to 7.3 to keep everything the same version, as a good engineer would. :) There were quite a few updates to vRB this time around, and those familiar with vRB will noticed the significant changes to the UI layout and reporting. A lot of the plumbing is similar when you start to drill down into things, but some new information is now available for customers. I'm not going to go through all of the new features in this post, but if you want to read...
Read More

vRealize Automation – Removing an IaaS Node

by Matthew KimlerNo Comments
Recently in my lab, I was frustrated over an attempted upgrade to version 7.3 from version 7.2 of vRealize Automation. It had been a while since I had last used my vRA deployment, so I naturally assumed I was probably bound for some sort of issue due to neglect. However, typically I can figure these things out pretty quickly and go along my way. This time was different and the solution, was frankly disappointing. Perhaps a lack of understanding on my part, but I think it was more of a lack of documentation from VMware on vRealize Automation. When I attempted to upgrade the vRA appliance to 7.3, I received an error in the Upgrade panel stating the following: The VMware certificate was not installed on the nodes listed below. Make sure the Management Agent is up and running on them and that it has connectivity to the VA. It then displayed a single IaaS server from my lab. When I took a...
Read More

A Circle in a Round Hole

by Matthew Kimler Comment Closed
I'm pretty sure that the title is confusing, but Jameson's education is always fascinating to me. Several months ago, we purchased various Fisher-Price toys, either that has educational or fun value. At this age, I'm pretty sure it's a bit of both because learning is fun when everything is just new and colorful. One of the toys we purchased is a pretty typical shapes blocks game. I'm guessing we bought this when he was about six months old. In a typical fashion, the goal for him at that stage was to just pick them up and drop them and really had nothing to do with putting something in a hole. In fact, the main goal was not to put anything in the bucket. But as months progressed, this simple game changed a lot. First it was keep the blocks out of the bucket and toss the yellow top. Next, the goal was to toss the blocks behind him, but he enjoyed when...
Read More

IAS Seattle Security Conference 2017

by Matthew KimlerNo Comments
Yesterday, I was honored to host one of the panelist discussions at the IAS Security Conference in Seattle. I hosted the panel on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) while my counterpart, Tim Adams, hosted the session on IoT Security. From the audience attendance and engagement, I believe the sessions were well received and educational. As usual, I'm always pleased on the number of questions that come from the audience when it comes to GDPR. Even though we're only a few months away from the go live date for GDPR, there are still customers struggling to understand how the GDPR impacts them and what can be done to be compliant. But I think there is a comfort in knowing that other organizations are also struggling with the same thing that they are. Working together, we get the answers we're looking for and get compliant. A special thanks for the panelist involved in the GDPR discussion: Keith Deighton - Hitachi Systems Security - https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-deighton-9361901/ Derek Keen...
Read More