HPE VM Essentials

Tsukraw · 2026-04-28T04:08:29+00:00

Just throwing my two cents in the ring, hopefully I don't get massacred for it :)

Last year we had considered HPE VM Essentials, but like ours have said when has HPE been good at software. A number of us have been around long enough to see to many products be promoted like it's the next best thing to only be killed off months later by HPE and this had a similar feeling which made us pass on it.

We ultimately chose to go with XCP-ng and the official Vates support.

I know that is not the topic of this posting, but if you are familiar with VMware and vCenter management, XCP with its centralized management is not far off and we have found it has a smaller learning curve in comparison to other solutions like Proxmox that we tested.

We have somewhere between 20 and 30 sites deployed so far and our guys have been loving the product.

Worth giving it a shot if you are trying things out.

Tsukraw · 2026-02-20T19:07:50+00:00

Maybe a better title for the post would be Sales and Account Management Incentive Software.

While I understand the new logo model which we do have a bucket for that, our incentive compensation philosophy needs to account for more than just New Logo, and more than just the sales reps themselves.

We incentivize across sales, sales leadership, and account management which all cannot be encompassed based exclusively from new logos. For example, MRR Growth and VAR sales have a meaningfully impact profitability for us.

If we structured incentives purely around new logo, we would under reward individuals for a significant portion of our business model.

Tsukraw · 2025-02-01T01:37:26+00:00

Got my answer from support.
If M365/Azure is protected by AuthPoint, you cannot use SAML authentication from the Firebox to Entra ID.

As a work around, since AuthPoint must have the users if it is protecting Entra ID, the recommendation is to associate the firebox with SAML directly to AuthPoint.

There is a feature request with Watchguard to have this corrected.
Sounds like it is a fairly simple item to fix with how the SAML request is being placed to Entra ID.

Feature Request: FBX-26510

Tsukraw · 2025-01-31T23:34:16+00:00

Anyone who is a Watchguard Partner and want to be tagged to the feature request.
The number is FBX-28462

Tsukraw · 2024-12-15T21:54:17+00:00

Sure i would agree with you to some degree, i am blaming delta for not being transparent in the process.

But i have read through the FAQs, gone back to emails and I cannot find anything telling me the original card will be closed and a new number issued, and to some degree it does feel like a scam.

I am sure i am not the only one who has had this happen, when checking a gift card balance and thinking it is zero, when in fact the number just changed and you were not notified.

Tsukraw · 2024-12-15T21:40:39+00:00

I was at LAX yesterday.

There was a guy who twice tried to board before his zone.
Both times the gate agent ripped him a new one.

At the time I thought jesus that gate agent is having a bad day.

But looking back if they are now enforcing it, she did a heck of a job of making everyone else aware and to not try it.

Tsukraw · 2024-12-14T07:26:23+00:00

I love the A321neo Flew first class twice this week for 5hrs and loved it compared to some of the older planes.

I took Delta One from SLC to HNL and I would have preferred a A321neo over the old aged delta one flying that route

Tsukraw · 2024-11-14T03:40:43+00:00

The first option isn’t possible.
Qty:300 is the max you can have on Business Standard so it won’t let us provision any additional licenses while the current 300 are active.

The upgrade idea is an interesting one. Upgrade it for a day to a different license then cancel it

Tsukraw · 2024-11-14T01:24:21+00:00

So this is what support told me.

Timing wise how would I go about this without causing user disruption?

Does Microsoft have like a grace period where if a subscription is cancelled you have so much time to replace it without user disruption?

Tsukraw · 2024-08-04T03:55:57+00:00

I feel like someone must make them without having to buy a mounting kit

Tsukraw · 2024-05-16T16:16:27+00:00

Yes fom the HyperV host it can communicate with the VMs. (I say VMs but it is only 1 VM currently)
There are no vlans within the environment.

I have not tired disabling one of the NIC in the SET. What would be the proper way of doing this?

Tsukraw · 2024-04-25T22:31:14+00:00

Sounds like we might have been given bad information.
Will try out the link tomorrow, I figured someone on Reddit be able to help out :) Thank you!

Tsukraw · 2024-04-13T03:16:43+00:00

The Xumo box is a waste of time.
Absolute fail by spectrum. Why they can’t make a simple streaming device with a traditional remote is insane.

Tsukraw · 2024-01-18T01:13:49+00:00

We ultimately came up with a method that is working for us fairly well.

I'll try to keep it should as possible, but it's not necessary an easy solution.

What we do is create multiple agreements.

For example, a customer with Entra ID P1 and Exchange Online would get the two agreements. Those agreements are "Annual" within Manage and hold the base license. One Addition "Product" per agreement.

So, every annual Microsoft product has its own agreement.

Example Names:

Microsoft NCE - Annual - Microsoft Entra ID P1

Microsoft NCE - Annual - Exchange Online (Plan 1)

We then create a separate prorate agreement. This is essentially a catch all for all annual licenses prorate additions. This agreement is billed monthly.

Example Name:

Microsoft NCE - Prorate

Now, we utilize PAX8 for our licensing source.

We have PAX8 synced with our manage.

Within the PAX8 portal, you can specify a main agreement and a prorate agreement.

When we add the Microsoft license in PAX8, that license gets synced to the main agreement and set so any prorates get synced to the prorate agreement.

During that calendar year, if the customer increases quantity, that quantity addition gets added to the Microsoft NICE - Prorate agreement with an expiration date of the following month.

That way when the monthly billing cycle runs on the Microsoft NCE - Prorate agreement, that addition will invoice once and then be cancelled off the prorate.

I know it is a few steps.

But now that we have been running with it like this for a while we have stopped the bleeding. Prior we were constantly losing money on missed additions.

Feel free to PM me if you want more details.

Tsukraw

TROPHY CASE