Month: January 2023

Tips on Migrating Your Blog to AWS Lightsail

I’ve been running my blog on WordPress using Host Gator for almost 10 years. While I have never had problems with my hosting provider, I have wanted to explore options to migrate to either Azure or AWS. I recently read about how AWS Lightsail would be the most affordable and simple option. I then looked for documentation to help me with the migration and ran into a lot of conflicting information. Hopefully, the issues and solutions detailed below will help others wishing to migrate their WordPress blog to AWS Lightsail.

Getting Started

I spent a lot of time looking for documentation on how to migrate my WordPress site to Lightsail. I found two articles to be the most helpful starting points. Both of them have some overlap, but together they got me through the migration. The first: Migrate an existing WordPress blog to Amazon Lightsail, does a really good job of walking you through the steps of exporting your current WordPress site to your new Lightsail instance.

Note: There are other articles out there that advise using services or plugins that cost money. Do not use them. The abovementioned article walks you through migrating your data for free.

There are only three things that I would add to this documentation. The first is that I would recommend turning on automatic snapshotting during the creation of the instance.

Automatic Snapshotting

The second is that I would recommend patience when doing the data import. The XML file you download in the export phase is small and only details what data to pull from your existing site. So while uploading that file takes a few seconds, the actual data migration can take 10-20 minutes.

The third thing is that in this process some things will need to be redone or cleaned up. For example, in your new Lightsail instance, you will have to download the theme from your old site, reenter your site identity info, and clean up the sample pages and posts from your site.

Networking and Security

The second article: Quick start guide: WordPress on Amazon Lightsail, has a bit of overlap with the first but does a great job of addressing how to attach a static IP to your website (it is free but you will be given a dynamic IP initially), and mapping a domain name to your website. The article provides a link to another article that goes into more detail about the DNS process.

The last thing that I needed help with was the SSL certificate process. The nice thing about Lightsail is that the SSL certificate you receive from Let’s Encrypt is free. The thing that may discourage some is that it requires entering commands in the CLI to accomplish. But I think that this article uses clear and simple steps to get your SSL certificate installed.

The only thing that I ran into was that I ended up with a problem because my website showed up as being insecure because of mixed content. I fixed this by using the Really Simple SSL WordPress plugin. I used the free version and it cleared up my issue with a few clicks.

Conclusion

I went through quite a bit of trial and error to migrate my website to AWS Lightsail. It is a pretty easy process that can save you a few dollars but most importantly help you with gaining a few new skills.

How to Pass the VCP-NV 2023 Exam: Tips and Resources

Get tips and resources for passing the VCP-NV 2023 exam, including Pluralsight courses, VMware Hands On Labs, home lab practice, and study materials.

If you’re preparing for the VCP-NV 2023 exam, also known as 2V0-41.20, you might wonder what resources can help you pass. As someone who recently passed the exam, I want to share some of the study resources I used and my tips for success.

Pluralsight

One of the best resources I found was the Pluralsight course, VCP-NV 2022: VMware Certified Professional – Network Virtualization (2V0-41.20). This eight-hour course provides a comprehensive overview of networking concepts and includes labs you can follow. I found this course helpful because it explained how things were done differently in NSX-T compared to previous versions.

Hands-On Labs

If you don’t have the resources to run a full NSX implementation in your home lab, I highly recommend using VMware Hands On Labs. This free resource is a great way to learn by doing.

Using Your Home lab

I spent a lot of time practicing with NSX in my home lab. This allowed me to get hands-on experience with the platform and learn how things work in a production environment. I even found a way to install NSX from vCenter that wasn’t covered in the Pluralsight course.

Practice Exams

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any official practice exams. Instead, I made notes on everything listed in the exam guide and watched resources like vBrownBag‘s YouTube video on NSX-T. Even though the video was for a previous version, many of the concepts were still relevant.

Conclusion

In conclusion, these study resources were invaluable in helping me pass the VCP-NV 2023 exam. I hope they can be of service to you as well. Remember to practice and study consistently, and you’ll be on your way to passing the exam.

Migrating VMs from vSphere to Azure using Veeam

Early last year I ran into an issue where we needed to move virtual machines from ESXi 5.5 to Azure. Although the support matrix said that both vSphere 5.5 and Windows 2003 were supported by the migration tool, we could successfully migrate the VM using the migration tool as I demonstrated in an earlier post.

What we ended up doing instead was using Veeam to migrate the VM to Azure. I had heard of this from a Veeam rep at a conference a few years prior, but until that point, I never had a use case for that information. Below I will demonstrate how to migrate a VM from vSphere 7 to Microsoft Azure using the Veeam restore feature. In this example, I’m using a Server 2022 VM, but it will work similarly for any Windows VM.

Prerequisites

  • An existing Azure subscription
  • Azure Storage Account
  • A backup of the VM you would like to migrate (with RDP enabled)
  • An existing network security group with an inbound rule allowing RDP

Step 1: Ready the Veeam Environment

The first thing we will need to do is ready the Veeam environment. The way we do this is a little counterintuitive. We will start by clicking Restore in the home ribbon in Veeam.

Then we will choose “Restore from Backup”.

Next, we will choose “Entire VM Restore”.

Then select “Restore to Public Cloud”

Finally, click on “Restore to Microsoft Azure”

Now that you have navigated through the menus above, you will be presented with a menu asking you to perform the initial configuration. Click “Yes”.

The initial configuration screen is of no consequence. Just click “Next”

The next screen is where you will choose the deployment type. The choices are between the Gov, China, and Global Azure accounts. The default is fine. Click “Next”.

The next screen will allow you to add new Azure credentials or use an existing one. If you choose to add new credentials, which I have chosen to do here, you will likely see the error message displayed below. Veeam uses Azure PowerShell to connect to Azure and the wizard will prompt you to install Azure PowerShell. This is an easy process because the link given will help you install Azure PowerShell in a few clicks.

Note: The language in the screen below is a bit imprecise. “Create a new account” does not actually create a new account. It simply configures existing Azure credentials and saves them to Veeam.

With the installation finished you are now prompted to enter your Azure credentials.

Step 2: Perform the Restore

The wizard will ask you to add a VM to be restored. I have chosen to restore from a backup as you see below.

Note: Your VM should have RDP and DHCP enabled. If not, you will not be able to connect to the machine once it is restored.

Next, you will choose the region where the VM will be restored to. Remember that this region must be the same as your storage account.

Now, you must choose the VM size and the storage account. This is a good opportunity to resize the VM if it was previously too large.

Next, you’re given the opportunity to place the VM in an existing resource group or to create a new resource group.

Now, you’re able to choose the network and network security group.

Note: I chose to assign a public IP for testing purposes. But normally, you would have either an express route or a VPN from on-prem.

The last item to configure is whether or not to scan the restored VM for malware prior to recovery. I chose not to do this because my VM is a fresh install of Server 2022.

Finally, the restoration will start and you will be able to watch the progress similar to the screen below.

Step 3: Verifying the VM Restoration

Once your VM has completed its restoration process, you’ll want to make sure that you can connect to it. First, you will need to navigate to the resource in Azure, click “Connect” and download the RDP file.

You should be able to open the RDP file and connect directly to the VM.

Conclusion

Using Veeam restore to migrate VMs to the cloud can be a great alternative to using the Azure Migration tool.

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