VCF 9.1 – Skylake Support no longer requires TQ/RPQ by VMware
Now it is just supported.
Finally…..
That hardware that was still in vendor support, but not Broadcom support….
…now you get a little more time with that hardware (and it will be supported)….
Blog post is here.
VMware KB is here.
VMware Explore Content Catalog is live
Planning on heading to VMware Explore?
Always a good idea to review the Content Catalog before they open up the scheduler, to make sure you get the sessions you want in your calendar.
Can you deploy VVF, and apply VCF Licenses?
No.
Since I couldn’t find that answer specifically, did it in the lab.
Deployed a new VVF 9.1.
Tried to apply VCF licenses.
While I could give VCF Operations a VCF license, it could not be applied to my vCenter server.
So, again, the answer is no, VVF deploys require a VVF license.
Designing VCF for SAP HANA
This is a multi-part post, on designing for availability.
SAP HANA has explicit performance & availability requirements.
The post is a good walkthrough of design decisions that architects think about, the trade-0ffs of availability vs operational complexity….and what the business outcomes need to be.
vSphere 9.1 Performance Best Practices
Yea, I know….it is not VCF or VVF.
But, under either product, you still run vSphere (vCenter and ESX).
So here are the latest Performance Best Practices for vSphere 9.1.
VMware Blog post is here.
VCF Edge
Had this conversation a few times in the last week.
Folks who wanted to use VCF Edge for a small “datacenter” workload.
It’s not like the ROBO of old….
Here’s a direct link to the VCF Edge SPD (Specific Program Documentation).pdf
VCF – Starting & Stopping a cluster
It’s easy to shut down vSAN from the vCenter interface…
Unless vCenter is running on the cluster that is running vSAN….
This may seem like a big deal if it is the first time you are doing it….
It’s not so bad, and the process has been available for many years.
Now, it’s formally in the VCF documentation.
How to Shut Down a vSAN Cluster (with vCenter running in it).
How to Start Up a vSAN Cluster (that is hosting the vCenter managing it).
converting RDMs into VMDK files
Anyone who has RDMs knows what a pain it can be to deal with migrations of said RDMs.
This blog post covers some of the reasons why we might have used RDMs in the past, and for good reasons.
Years later, and technological improvements negate the old requirements which led to use of RDMs.
The Broadcom Article covers the steps/process.
Broadcom Article ID: 374087 is here….
(but something I find hilarious, is that the images in this KB article all appear to be from the old “Flash Client” html interface….meaning this process has been documented for some time).
Revisiting PDL vs APD
A setting most of us don’t think about in a vSphere Cluster’s HA settings.
I believe it was in vSphere 8 that these options are on by default, but what do they do and what are the options available?
This is a longer post, but it revisits the details of these settings in vSphere Cluster’s HA options.
AI Tokens – metrics, consumption, and cost explained
Someone asked, so I did what anyone would do….asked an AI.
Grok provided answer is here.
Island Enterprise Browser – designing for failure
Whether or not you use an enterprise browser, the design partition of this is what caught my attention.
Using 3 hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, and GCP) to run your backend SaaS, so that you avoid any one hyperscaler outage from effecting your services was a design choice.
This is the conversation architects have….what is important to the business, and how to achieve it.
Island Blog post is here.
Free Learning – GitHub Repo
AWS Workshops
KodeKloud
Nutanix University
Nutanix Next 2027– March 30 – April 1, Las Vegas, NV
PluralSight
vBrownBag
VMware Hands On Labs
VMware Explore 2026 – August 31 – September 3, Las Vegas, NV
VMware Explore 2025 Sessions (William Lam’s easier to search list version)