virtuEs.IT

… sharing my IT Quests

How To ...

When you are setting up a Proof of Concept or a est environment, you often have to setup up de default environment, including setting up Domain Controllers, DNS and DHCP Services and more ...

This page shows a collection of short postings with those how-to answers to regular admin tasks of which the syntax might just have slipped you mind. This personal KnowledgeBase contains articles on the different tools and configuration settings I've used in scripts to automate the configuration and installation of Windows Servers, XenApp applications and Test tools.

Using Visio layers to create custom views (part 3)

May 6

Posted by virtuEs in HowTo, Scripts | 5 Comments

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In the first part of this series I explained how you can create layers and assign shapes to each layer to toggle the visibility of them as you manage your layers. The second part explained how you can use the Developer tab to add a command button to your drawing and even create custom User Forms using VBA. So now it is time to get to the final part of this series and explain the VBA code that gets all components to work together and offer users a simple interface to toggle the visibility of the layers.

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Using Visio layers to create custom views (part 2)

May 6

Posted by virtuEs in HowTo, Scripts | 5 Comments

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After explaining the manual configuration of visio layers in part 1, it is now time to add some VBA code to the mix and build ourselves a more user friendly interface to toggle the visibility (and printability) of the layers within a drawing.

In order to use the code I will provide, you’ll need to have VBA installed with your Visio installation and enable the use of Marco’s for your drawing.

Visio Setup VBA

Visio Setup VBA

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start with the basics on how to setup Visio to work with VBA.
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Using Visio layers to create custom views (part 1)

May 1

Posted by virtuEs in HowTo, Scripts | 8 Comments

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I’m usually blogging about Citrix and/or RES Software products and my experiences implementing and designing SBC and VDI solutions with those products. This blog will however deal with a different tool … one that I use alot during the design phase of projects to ensure all parties are talking about the same components and their inter relationships, whether they have a technical background or not. A (simplified) picture still is more powerfull than 1000 words.

In order to create a sort of design poster to start the discussion with all parties involved I am a big fan of Microsoft Visio, which still does not have a good Open Source alternative to combine multiple views into one drawing. And with views I mean the option to show different components, other connections of special shape groups with just a couple of clicks by unleashing the power of layers

 

So let me explain the way I’m using different layers within one Visio drawing to provide specialized views to different parties within a project in this blog

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Automatically start a vApp on XenServer boot

Jan 31

Posted by virtuEs in HowTo, Hypervisors, Scripts | 14 Comments

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Yesterday I was made aware of a new blogpost by @MichelHelderman on Twitter by my colleague @KBaggerman who refered Michel to a blogpost I wrote on enabling the VM autostart through the CLI for XenServer 6.0.
This feature is no longer available through the XenCenter GUI in XenSeerver 6.0 as it was interfering with the HA features on XenServer.

Michel provides you with a great alternative, namely the introduction of the new vApp feature for XenServer 6.0, which allows you to group VMs on a XenServer and control the automatic startup of the entire VM group. Even allowing you to set the boot order and wait time between boots.

The only setback with using the new vApp feature to group you VMs is that the vApp itself cannot be configured to automatically start when a physical XenServer Host is booted. It still requires a manual action through the GUI or CLI to start the vApp and have all VMs booted in their set order. Something we most definately want to be automated.
As there is no attribute for the vApp to configure it to auto-start, like my previous post explains for individual VMs, there are alternative ways to have a vApp be automatically started when a XenServer Host boots.

In this blogpost I have gathered some of the alternative methods to implement the auto-start feature for your VMs as I have found them on the internet.

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XenServer 6.0 reference posters

Jan 10

Posted by virtuEs in HowTo, Hypervisors | Comments off

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A very quick blogpost to keep track of some great reference posters that are created for Citrix XenServer 6.0.

 

Björn Andersson (diversetips.se) has created two great posters for XenServer 6.0:

In addition to the already published poster from the Citrix Community:

… a great set of reference posters to get the best out of your XenServer infrastructure!

 

 

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