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I recently found a very easy way to upgrade a Supermicro BIOS. It entails getting an out-of-band license key for the Supermicro BMC IPMI interface. This allows you to use the BMC IPMI to upgrade BIOS versions. Best thing: no more need to roll your own (usually ill-working) DOS-based boot media. Read up on this method in my previous post The better way to update Supermicro BIOS is via IPMI. Part of getting the license key to unlock BIOS …

I’ve been enjoying my new home lab tremendously in the last couple of months. Enough oomph to run Azure Stack, DC/OS, Docker 1.12 in Swarm Mode, all kinds of unikernels; all at the same time. The Supermicro in my lab I’ve written about this awesome form factor on the Open Home Lab website, and have evangelized the Xeon-D and Supermicro form factors to friends and co-workers. I thoroughly enjoy my Xeon D based system, which is …

I recently tweeted about O365Undo, a script that leverages auditing capabilities in Office 365 to resolve issues with ransomware. . @[email protected]_ict created a script to aid restores when your @Office365 env is infected with a crypto locker http://www.lieben.nu/liebensraum/o365undo/ — Joep Piscaer (@jpiscaer) July 7, 2016 From O365Undo to Netwrix Auditor The script is created by one of my coworkers, Jos Lieben. He describes O365Undo as a great way to roll back the havoc of cryptolocker or …

With three weeks since DockerCon and well into my summer vacation, I’ve had some time to digest DockerCon, and I want touch on the disconnect between traditional applications, running them inside containers, and how Docker is addressing this. From this perspective, I’ll highlight some of the announcements made during the show. Docker is for Developers Docker is generally aimed towards at the software development cycle and minimizing the gap between development and operations by offering a simplified and unified workflow and …

As hinted at in my previous post on Platform9 (Can Platform9 solve fundamental OpenStack challenges?), they have entered the Container-as-a-Service space today during #DockerCon. I talked about Platform9’s ability to enter new SaaS-realms easily: their core business is delivering difficult-to-implement/operate infrastructure software like OpenStack as a service, making it easy for customers to deploy in production. Today, they’re coming out with a managed Kubernetes Container-as-a-Service platform with support for the Docker container runtime engine . Not only do they take …

I recently bought a new Home Lab so I can tinker around with new, cool technology like Docker, DC/OS, Azure Stack and unikernel stuff. The lab server I bought really is cool: it’s a Xeon D-1500 series based home lab. The Xeon D-1500 processor family is a low-power, high-performance System-on-Chip processor based on the 14nm Broadwell architecture. It has all the processor features any home lab needs, like hyperthreading, VT-x and VT-d, EPT, AES-NI, NSX-NI, Trusted Execution, …

Platform9 is an awesome OpenStack-as-a-Service solution that ties into your enterprise infrastructure running vSphere. I’ve seen them present at Tech Field Day 10 and I encourage you to watch the videos posted here and read my overview and architectural deep-dive posts. Let’s look at OpenStack specifically, as I have my doubts about the project: I am afraid though that the OpenStack-specific use case will disappear over time if the OpenStack project isn’t able to regain focus and find the …

My first Platform9 post gave an overview of the Managed OpenStack service, its use cases, the benefits and an architectural overview. In this post, I will dive into the architecture deeper. But let’s go back to the architectural overview just to refresh your minds: And the OpenStack architecture: SaaS-components I haven’t learned much about the SaaS-part of their solution though this really is the part that makes the offering work. At the same time, this is …

At the recent Tech Field Day 10 event, I spoke with Platform9. They offer a managed OpenStack service that ties into your on-prem infrastructure. Platform9 is the simplest way for organizations to implement an OpenStack-based, agile, self-service private cloud, with intelligent self-service provisioning of workloads onto their private infrastructure. With Platform9, organizations can go from just a bunch of virtualized or non-virtualized servers to a fully operational, OpenStack-based cloud in a matter of minutes. Platform9 significantly …

For the 2nd time, I’ll be attending a full Tech Field Day event. It’ll be Tech Field Day 10. This is a fantastic honor! tl;dr Awesome event where seven cool vendors present to a kick-ass panel. Watch Livestream and comment via hashtag. A little history I first met the TFD-crew and the concept in during VMworld 2012, when I was invited to spend the day with presentations from Veeam and Nutanix. I attended an ‘TFD Extra’ event, as these smaller events during …