The VMWare vExpert Program: A Community of Excellence

As a vExpert, I can confidently say that the best part of this program is the community. The members are truly valuable and always willing to help out. Whether it’s a question or a new technology to explore, there’s always someone who has done it before and can offer guidance. The sense of camaraderie and collaboration is unparalleled, and it’s a testament to the strength of the vExpert community that we can all come together to share knowledge and expertise.

One of the standout benefits of being a vExpert is the leadership. Corey and the team are always introducing us to new technologies and bringing us into vExpert sessions led by leading vendors. These sessions are an invaluable opportunity to learn from the best and get hands-on experience with cutting-edge technology. And let’s not forget the access to licenses that we can use for POC (proof of concept) and testing. This is a huge benefit for those of us who like to tinker and explore new ideas.

Last year, one of the benefits was receiving a Maxtang Mini PC as a gift (BYO RAM & HDD). While I was happy with my current Gigabyte/NVidia NUC, I decided to give the Maxtang a try. Unfortunately, the Realtek NIC was not supported, so I had to order some additional hardware to get it up and running. But that’s a story for another time.

One of the challenges I faced when installing VMWare on the Maxtang was the lack of support for USB network cards in the install ISO from VMWare. Luckily, the community has developed a ‘fling’ that supports USB network cards, so we have to create a custom ISO of ESXi and inject the drivers into the image. If you’re interested in learning more about this process, Florian Grehl from Virten.net has a great article on how to install the fling and make a custom ISO.

Once I got the ISO written to a USB, the installation was relatively smooth. I did have to disable TPM in the BIOS, as I was getting an error. But after that, I was able to install ESXi 8 and run a few VMs without issues. My plan is to install some Kubernetes and possibly NSX-T, so we’ll see how far I get.

In conclusion, the vExpert program is an incredible resource for anyone interested in virtualization technology. The community is top-notch, and the leadership is always pushing us to learn more and explore new ideas. So if you haven’t already, I highly recommend joining the vExpert program and becoming a part of this amazing community.

Thank you to the vExpert team and all those who support this program!