IT Consulting and Project Outsourcing

While setting up a Linux Heartbeat failover cluster, you may be tempted to set up one server node and clone the machine to create the other nodes that will make up your cluster.

This is a great approach, however, there is one little caveat you should be aware of...  Heartbeat generates a unique UUID for the node the first time it starts up.  If you had already started Heartbeat on the "template" node then you will need to force Heartbeat to generate a new UUID on the cloned nodes.

Already a VMware Certified Professional (VCP) at version 4, I decided that I would take advantage of the very generous window provided by VMware which allowed me to take the VCP 5 upgrade exam without the training course requirement when taken before February 29th, 2012.

In this post, I will outline my experience.  Please note:  I will NOT go into detail as to the exact questions on the exam.  Doing so would be placing me in violation of the terms of agreement between myself and VMware I accepted when before taking the exam.  I will point out topics that I feel a potential candidate needs to focus on in greater detail with the release of the VCP 5 exam.

Thanks to game changing companies, such as VMware, the IT industry's “status quo” has been rapidly evolving. Virtualization and cloud computing technologies have enabled businesses to become more agile and able to adapt to changing business needs quickly and efficiently without worrying if their IT infrastructure can keep up.

The explosion of virtualization and cloud computing technologies has been helped tremendously by changes in thinking, as well as more powerful hardware. Three of the “core four” components have seen huge upgrades in the past few years. CPUs now have 6+ cores per socket, motherboards support terabytes of memory, and 10 gigabit connections and deep integration with hypervisors has become more mainstream in the networking realm of things. Unfortunately, I feel as if storage has been left behind.

We have successfully launched our new web site!

On our new site, you will be able to find information about our many different services and, our specialty, our VMware solutions.

After starting out in the Saginaw, MI area, we are proud to have completed our transition to Lansing, MI.