VCF Automation DNS precheck fails

When I first installed VCF in the lab, I decided to skip Automation for now so that I could read up on it a bit. Today, I was trying to install it through VCF Operations in the lifecycle tab, but the pre-checks kept failing with a pretty ambiguous error message. When testing DNS resolution, for the record that was mentioned, it resolved fine on my jumphost and laptop. So I figured the issue must be with DNS resolution on the Fleet manager appliance (ex-SDDC manager). I connected to the fleet manager appliance and tested DNS resolution there. ...

13 November, 2025 · 2 min · Maarten Van Driessen

The future of VMUG

As many of you know, VMUG is very important to me. So much so, that I immediately stepped up to become a leader when the previous Belgian leader stepped down. Ever since then, I’ve been very active in the community, hosting several succesful UserCons, vBeers, smaller meetings and presenting at VMUG events online and abroad. UserCons Many of you know the big UserCon events and for a lot of people, the UserCon is their sole interaction with VMUG. They’ve been a massive part of the VMUG community all across the globe ever since their first introduction. When I attended my first UserCon, back in 2016, I felt like a kid in the candy store! So many great sessions, inspiring people and just awesome tech and conversations! I knew righ then and there that I wanted to be an active part of this community. Fast forward to 2019, I presented my first talk at the Belgian UserCon. The thought of presenting in front of a crowd made me incredibly nervous, I was afraid people were going to call me out or ask hard questions on purpose, but nothing could be further from the truth! Kristof, who I didn’t know all that well back then, happened to ask the first question and that made me more at ease. ...

6 November, 2025 · 4 min · Maarten Van Driessen

Publishing Containers using Traefik and PocketID

I’ve been getting into self hosting a lot more services over the past few weeks and months as I’ve been on a quest to actively get rid of subscriptions and cloud services and hosting the services myself. At the start, I just made these services available over VPN because I didn’t feel comfortable exposing them to the internet. But as time went on, I noticed I was really missing the public access. So I decided to figure out how to safely expose services publicly. ...

2 September, 2025 · 10 min · Maarten Van Driessen

VCF 9 - News and Thoughts

Today is the day a lot of people have been looking forward to for a long time. Ever since VMware by Broadcom announced VCF 9 at VMware Explore Las Vegas 2024, people have been wondering what this release would be like. I was one of those people as well. Over the past few weeks, during the beta program, and during a briefing we got through the vExpert program, a lot was made clear. ...

17 June, 2025 · 4 min · Maarten Van Driessen

VMware Explore Las Vegas 2025 - Tips for a succesful conference

VMware Explore Las Vegas 2025 is almost upon us! In a little over 100 days, the biggest virtualisation conference will kick off in Las Vegas. Just like last year, I’ll be going again with high expectations! In this post I want to take a moment to talk about some tips and tricks to make your Explore a succesful conference. Packing Last year, I got a new found appreciation for humidity. Las Vegas is in a desert after all, but I underestimated how much of an effect it would have on my lips and skin. By day 3, my lips were all cracked and the skin on my hands was irritated, very dry and becoming a wound. The dry desert air, combined with non-stop AC really did a number on me. So the first tip: pack lipbalm and moisturizing creme for your skin! If you forget, just pick it up at a CVS in Vegas, you will need it. ...

8 May, 2025 · 6 min · Maarten Van Driessen

VMUG Connect 2025

WHAT. A. WEEK! I can’t put it any other way. This past week, I was in St. Louis to attend the VMUG Leader Summit and the inaugural VMUG Connect together with my co-VMUG leader, Kristof Asaert. VMUG Leader Summit When the submission form for the leader summit opened late last year, I jumped on it immediately. Kristof had attended the previous one in Lissbon and has been consistently saying how great it was. Naturally, I wanted to experience that first hand. He wasn’t lying… ...

26 April, 2025 · 4 min · Maarten Van Driessen

Changing DNS server in NSX

We recently spun up a new datacenter and used another site to bootstrap our DNS configuration. Now that we’ve got local DNS services, it’s time to change all our configuration! In this article I’ll show you how you can change the DNS configuration in your NSX environment. The process is the same for both the managers as the edge nodes. Keep in mind that you will have to perform these steps on ALL your managers and edge nodes. This configuration is not synchronized! ...

20 February, 2025 · 2 min · Maarten Van Driessen

Speaking at VMware Explore for the first time

VMware Explore 2024 Las Vegas is in full swing and what a ride it’s been already! I love attending VMware Explore, it’s my favorite event of the year. Having the opportunity to talk to so many amazing people and getting to know them better has been really rewarding. As much as I love attending sessions, there has always been an itch. An itch to get up there myself and share something I’ve done with the rest of the community. ...

28 July, 2024 · 3 min · Maarten Van Driessen

VMware Explore Las Vegas 2024 - Why you should go

Summer is beginning, school is almost out here so that means it’s time to start preparing for my favorite time of the year, the VMware Explore conferences! In the past, I’ve always gone to Barcelona because it’s the closest to Belgium. This year I decided to change things up and also attend Explore in Las Vegas. In this post, I will go through some of the top reasons why you should attend the Explore conference. ...

23 June, 2024 · 3 min · Maarten Van Driessen

Daily redeploy of functions on VEBA

This post outlines how you can get a daily redeploy of functions on VEBA.

20 November, 2023 · 3 min · Maarten Van Driessen