Automate Let’s Encrypt certificate renewals with AWS Route53 DNS records

Posted on by Luca Dell'Oca

I wrote already two articles about this topic. I know that managing SSL certificates can be a cumbersome task, so any option to automate the process is a great addition to any IT administrator toolbox. This is why Let’s Encrypt certificates are becoming so popular, not just because they are free but also because the automated platform that they use allow for some amazing automation solutions. In my first article Use Let’s Encrypt free certificates in Windows for Veeam Cloud Connect I explained the basics of Let’s Encrypt technology, and how to use its certificates on a Windows machine using ACMEsharp libraries with Powershell. Then, in the second article Improved Powershell script for Let’s Encrypt certificate renewals I optimized the script even more. But still, there was room for improvement and even more automation.

The new book about Veeam Cloud Connect 9.5 Update 4

Posted on by Luca Dell'Oca

More than two years ago, when we released Veeam Cloud Connect 9.0, I massively reworked my original paper on the topic, and the final result became a book available as a pdf. The book was also printed and I have some copies at home; not something to win any nobel price, but it's nice to see them there as remind me of the massive work it took. Then, the cloud was calling, and I decided it was time to make it more modern and after some re-editing and learning how markdown and github work, the book became an online resource that people can freely and easily read.

Automated Veeam Cloud Connect deployment: 3 – connect to VMware virtual environment

Posted on by Luca Dell'Oca

In the previous posts we completed the automatic configuration of the Veeam Cloud Connect environment. In this third post of this short series, we will add additional resources in order to offer replication services. In fact, all the Cloud Connect components are now successfully deployed, so Backup services can already be offered, but to offer also replication services we need to connect our environment to the virtualized platform. Historically, Veeam Cloud Connect supported VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V, but since the soon-to-come 9.5 Update 4 will also add support for VMware vCloud Director, we will see how to add both to the infrastructure.

Automated Veeam Cloud Connect deployment: 1 – add all the managed servers

Posted on by Luca Dell'Oca

Everytime I receive a new version of Veeam Backup & Replication, with inside also a new Veeam Cloud Connect, I try to install it as soon as possible in my personal lab to test it. My lab is a bit complex, because it uses a dozen virtual machines, spread over multiple VLAN connected via a firewall that only allows the minimum amount of TCP/UDP ports; this is done on purpose to simulate as much as possible a real Veeam Cloud Connect installation, so that everything I test is good also for our Service Providers which I work with. This is a good thing, but it also means that each time there’s a new version of the software, especially Beta versions which don’t allow in-place upgrades, I need to uninstall and re-install everything.
This is an insanely boring and error-proned task, and because of this I recently automated almost the entire process. In this first post, I’ll show you how to add all the managed servers to the Console and install the base components.

Good old FTP (and cloud!) to protect your vSphere environment

Posted on by Luca Dell'Oca

Lately, I had to rebuild my personal lab after a major crash of the storage system I use, and even if I was able to restore everything, the procedure I had to use involved many manual rebuilding of the resources. This time, I decided that everything has to be protected in a way that it would be really easy to perform e restore of every component of the lab. I started with the basic infrastructure based on VMware vSphere, and I realized that, as much as it sounds something from the jurassic age, the best way to create backups of those resources was to use an FTP server!