WilliamLam.com

How to setup custom vSphere Content Library on a Synology?

by // 2 Comments

The ability to run a diverse set of custom add-on applications from backup, security, multimedia, developer tools and many more directly on a Synology NAS makes it extremely versatile and can enable a number of new capabilities within your environment.


While browsing through the packages, I noticed there is a WebStation package which can be used to host a basic website (can also support advanced web applications). This immediately gave me an idea as I can now host my own custom vSphere Content Library, also referred to as a 3rd party content library that are managed outside of vCenter Server, directly on the Synology!

Note: Installing add-on applications will consume additional CPU and memory resources on your Synology, make sure you have enough resources, especially memory before running additional services on your Synology.

[Read more...]

ESXi on SolidRun V3000

by // 4 Comments

The name SolidRun is no stranger to the VMware ecosystem, both the Honeycomb LX2 and MacchiatoBin are two popular Arm platforms that are used with the ESXi-Arm Fling, especially for development and testing purposes.

However, what I did not know about SolidRun was that they also catered to the x86 market, which I recently came to learn about with their launch of the Bedrock V3000 (AMD Zen 3) and V7000 (AMD Zen 4) platforms respectively.

Given the opportunity to get hands on with one of the SolidRun x86 kits, the V3000, I knew I had to take it for a spin!


After unboxing the V3000, the first thing that immediately stands out is the overall build quality and aesthetics. The system is truly beautiful to look at and hold, not words I typically use to describe a server 🙂 The V3000 is not for a typical homelab, it is designed to run in harsh and demanding industrial type environments, especially those found at the Edge.

The unique fanless design and cooling of the V3000 enables it to be deployed to a number of locations, including ruggedized environments where traditional mounting kits may not be available and the use of DIN-Rail are required. Another thing that stood out to me while reading about the V3000, is the modularity of their platform where you can easily add a Networking and I/O board (NIO), Storage and Extension Cards board (SX) and Power Module (PM) to address your different use cases and requirements.

Lets now take a closer look at running ESXi on the V3000!

[Read more...]

Synology NFS VAAI Plug-in support for vSphere 8.0

by // 6 Comments

After sharing my recent Synology DS723+ setup for my Homelab, where I initially decided on using iSCSI storage since it had out of the box support for VMware vSphere Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI), I had received a number of comments and recommendations to actually stay away from iSCSI and just use NFS due to the various inconsistent and performance issues that other users have observed with the Synology.

The only reason I opted for iSCSI was purely for its VAAI support, I certainly would have preferred to use NFS for its simplicity of setup and management. Timing could not have been better as I recently came to learn on the VMware Reddit channel, u/MrGimper had shared an update that they were successful in installing and consuming the latest version of the Synology NFS VAAI Plug-In (2.0-1109) on an ESXi 8.0 system, even though vSphere 7.0 was the highest supported version from Synology.

Disclaimer: Synology does not officially support vSphere 8.0, please use at your own risk. I did hear back from Synology and their current stance on support for vSphere 8.0 with their NFS VAAI Plug-In is that "They do not know when the next version will be supported".

I had considered installing the latest Synology VAAI plug-in but I figured since vSphere 8.0 was not listed as supported, that it probably would not install but this actually gave me some hope, so I decided to try this out on my vSphere 8.0 Update 1 setup.

[Read more...]