Hate technology ... or labs ... or both ...

I thought it is time to clean up the lab and reinstall my lab making sure I run the whole vRealize Suite as it is a big part of my job.

So over the last two weeks I have been
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1. Reinstalling my physical host
2. Created a virtual vSphere infrastructure (AD, SQL and whatnot)
3. Installed two vCloud Director environments (5.6.4 &
4. Installed a vCAC 6.0 environment
5. Installed a vRA 6.2.2 environment
6. Installed Hyperic
7. Installed Log Insight
8. Installed Infrastructure Navigator
9. Installed vROPS 6.0
10. Installed a second virtual vSphere Infrastructure
11. Installed vROPS 6.1
12. Installed Veeam, backed up the lot

Then there is tonight .. Thursday 3pm

1. Call from manager, I am getting a tech screen within the hour for a couple of projects
2. Panic settling in
3. Wasn't sure what project the tech screen was for (vRA / vCAC / vCD / vROPS - who knows)
4. Trying to connect to lab .. nothing .. no connection
5. Checking DRAC of server - pink screen of ESX host - reset
6. No USB drive found - bust - reinstall of ESXi on new USB
7. No LUNs visible
8. Log in to first NAS (Synology) - 2 !!! out of 4x480GB SSD failed - whole infra bust
9. Replaced SSDs, re-created LUN, re-created physical host

Heh - Love Veeam .. so what could possible go / gone wrong

10. Reinstalled Veeam onto a VM
11. Realized I am missing my local storage (6x 2TB SATA) - which hosts the first set of backup
12. Checked Raid card - error saying battery degraded
13. Inside Raid bios - raid 6 failed - corrupt meta data - cannot be recovered
14. Checked second Synology - 4x2TB SATA - backup backup
15. Can't check Synology - turned off
16. Can't be turned on
17. Synology bust
18. Move disks from one to another synology - filesystem damaged

So .. two weeks of labbing to create a perfect infrastructure - down the toilet
Hardware costs to replace broken parts : £400 (without Synology) + delivery
Time needed to reinstall lab : priceless

So what else could go wrong .. oh yea - a. tech screen ...
b. Checked time : 6:30pm ... missed GP appointment, no other appointments for a week
c. Checked Amazon : parts out of stock - no new lab hardware for now (affordable)
d. Needed a whisky .. went to kitchen, dropped bottle, kitchen floor smelling nice but needs cleaning

Moral of this story : Sometimes you just need to stay in bed ..... or win the lottery ... or have a stupid job which doesn't require thinking, tinkering or .. well anything really
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