Virtual Updates 2024-07-22

Multiple Account Hacks….AT&T, UnitedHealth Group
Couple of big hacks….
In April 2024, AT&T “learned” that data from May 2022 to October 2022 was leaked….who called who, texted, etc. Seems serious.
An article about AT&T.
An article about UnitedHealth Group.

Crowdstrike causes international BSOD event
Friday July 19th, IT teams work up and wondered why nothing worked…
Technical details from Crowdstrike.
Jon Towles post on using InTune for remediation.
Omnissa post on remediation for Horizon Pools.
William Lam post on using vSphere API to automate VM Console interaction.
Microsoft’s new Recovery Tool, created for this incident…

VMware Explore – Schedule Builder is live
Get registered for your sessions!
VMware Explore US link is here.

vSphere 8 Update 3a already available
Looks like bug fixes….
vCenter Release Notes are here.

vSphere 8 Update 3 – now can use Configuration Profiles
Well, you could always use Configuration Profiles, but it was limited to only be configured on clusters managed with “Image Based profiles” (not baselines) for their vLCM (vSphere Lifecycle Manager)….the “new” VUM (vSphere Update Manager).
What are Configuration Profiles?…an updated Host Profiles (my opinion).
Now, with update 3, you can use Configuration Profiles for vSphere Clusters that are still using baselines.
VMware keeps stating that using “baselines” will be deprecated next release.
That means we all need to get to “Image Based” clusters at some point.
I like Image Based, but I believe their integration with HSM (Hardware Support Manager) to do firmware updates leaves a lot to be desired (improved).
VMware Blog post is here.

vSphere 8 update 3 – what’s new for GPUs?
Quite a bit, actually….
VMware Blog post is here.

Windows 365 Cross Region Disaster Recovery
Great overview for those considering or using Windows 365….
Give it a read….
Post by Jon Towles here.

HPE throws hat in ring for Virtualization play
HPE is building (has built?) a solution using KVM as its core.
Interesting….
VMware built off of Red Hat (going WAY back to 2001)….now minimal kernel.
Nutanix built off of Red Hat KVM.
Be curious to see how this all works out….
A CRN post from HPE Discover last month…
A fair price is one thing….
When considering Availability, Manageability, Orchestration, Performance, Recoverability, Scalability, Security…and support….Let’s see how those criteria are met with this new offering (once we can get our hands on it….)
A release is promised 2nd half of 2024…..

ESXi Configuration Backup – in PowerShell
Daniel Keer posted about his backup script he wrote.
Looks like a nice PowerShell Script!!!
Loops through all ESXi hosts on your vCenter, and. backs it all up locally.

vSAN Stretched (Metro Cluster) – why does witness look offline?
Duncan Epping explains the behavior when multiple failures occur, and what the witness is doing when things look offline….

Aria Operations 8.18 – coming soon…
Short blog post about some of the changes in the interface of Aria Operations.
Looks like some feedback from users got implemented!

Want to learn COBOL in Kubernetes?
Here’s how…
IBM/kubernetes-cobol GitHub link.

Need to create Windows unattend.xml files?
Works for unattend.xml or autounattend.xml.
Got to give this more of a try

Nutanix – don’t forget to send logs!
With so much going. on in the Nutanix space nowadays…
this question keeps coming up (and is part of the NCM blueprint).
How to Send Logs to a Remote Syslog Server Nutanix Article# 000007250.
Added this to my internal checklists during cluster build….

Nutanix MIBs
Same as above….
Nutanix MIB

Nutanix University – Free Exams!
Complete certain Nutanix University courses (online or in person), and get yourself a free exam voucher.
Looks like all the NCP’s are covered here….
Nutanix post is here.

Continuing Education – a list of resources that come with references
(of people who have used those sites & are happy with the results).
Free Learning – GitHub Repo
KodeKloud
Nutanix University
PluralSight
vBrownBag
VMware Hands On Labs
VMware Explore 2024 – August 26-29 (Las Vegas, NV – Venetian Hotel)
VMware Explore 2023 Sessions (William Lam’s easier to search list version)
VMware Explore VMTN Sessions (vBrownBag)
VCDX Mentoring Series