Bits, Bytes, & Radio Waves

A Journey Through Discovery

  • Real World Use of VMware Bundle Transfer Utility

    Overview I work in a lot of air-gapped networks and unfortunately, that comes with an extra level of effort for nearly every task. In the world of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), SDDC Manager is used to perform a lot of the maintenance tasks through Lifecycle Manager. When it comes times to perform upgrades, however, not…

  • VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle: VMware Identity Manager (vIDM)

    Overview While VMware by Broadcom is a thing and Workspace ONE Access is supposedly the new name for VMware Identity Manager, you will find the Easy Installer still refers to it as VMware Identity Manager. So while there are many identity crises happening, the one crisis this post will illustrate is how to deploy the…

  • VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF): SFTP

    Overview If you are reading this, I bet you are trying to get your SDDC Manager configured to do backups via SFTP…and it’s just not working. You keep seeing a similar message in SDDC Manager, even though you are using all the correct configuration information. Invalid parameter: Validation failed for directory path <configured backup directory>…

  • VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Troubleshooting

    Overview Most of the time, when I am troubleshooting a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) bring-up, networking comes into play. Whether it be NTP, DNS, or other various ports, networking is probably the most important thing to get right for a successful bring-up. Subnets, network borders, Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU), VLANs, trunks, tags, i.e.

  • VMware Cloud Director: Deployment and Initial Configuration

    Overview I stood up a nested VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) lab and decided to delve into the world of VMware Cloud Director. I ran into a couple issues and wanted to make sure that I documented them here so that I do not run into them again in the future. I have a good feeling…

  • The Frugal Administrator: A Minimal Nested VMware VCF Lab

    Overview I have other posts on my site here for more built out installations of VMware VCF. However, while I was researching a build script for a recent nested installation I was building, I came across a post on William Lam’s website about a single host VMware VCF install. This surely piqued my interest and…

This is how it all started…

I started this site with the intent to aggregate as much information as possible in one place. I use this to record lessons learned or frustrating configurations I have experienced on the job or just tinkering (learning) and just couldn’t find a better resource available. I have tried to be as thorough and accurate as possible, but technology is rapidly evolving and every environment is different. I may miss things along the way and my setup most likely differs compared to yours.

I hope you find this site has some value to you.

Welcome to Bits, Bytes, and Radio Waves! 

If you have any questions or comments (or just want to give me a shout-out), please feel free to contact me!

Aaron Rombaut

Writer & Technologist