VMUG Boston – Virtual Get Together
Trying out a new platform.
Late notice, as this even is today July 6 at 4pm (sorry).
Get registered here.
Nutanix User Groups
I’ve been NUG (Nutanix User Group) Champion for the New England chapter for a few months now.
Started with plans for an in person get together, which got squashed by Covid19
In the interim, we started doing bi-weekly (every two weeks) sessions covering the Nutanix software offerings for our group.
Having discussions with users about them presenting their solutions and such now! That’s what a User Group is all about….not just the vendor’s offerings!
Can’t wait to start hosting the in person get togethers….
Join us every other Thursday until we meet up in person, and focus on networking and having fun!
VMware KubeAcademy
Been a while since I brought this up, but VMware has some free online Kubernetes web-based courses available.
Looks like the list got larger too.
Plus it has CKA exam tips.
This requires a new login (not your MyVMware login).
VMware vCenter 7.0b released
When I found this, still could not directly download this vCenter.
Might changed as the week goes on.
Ran the update in my 7.0a vCenter’s VAMI, and had no issues.
Release Notes are here.
VMware ESXi 7.0b (and 7.0bs) released
Adding Cisco & Fujitsu servers to the vSphere LCM Image Management.
Returns Quick Boot to some HPE servers.
…and of course, some bug fixes….
Release notes are here.
Why the b & bs versioning?
Duncan Epping explains here….
VMware TKG 1.1.2 released
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.1.2 got released.
Very aggressive and rapid versioning in TKG…..
Release Notes are here.
VMware VCF 4.0.1 released
VCF (VMware Cloud Foundation) just got an update.
The supported / stacked software list got updated for vSphere & vRealize.
VMware Blog post is here.
VMware vSphere LCM
Why bring this up again?
vSphere LCM looks like the new way to manage software going forward, and it won’t hurt to review it again.
The page is a different way of presenting the same materials, but happens to catch the Cisco & Fujitsu Vendor Add-Ons section.
short ~5 minute read.
VMware Google Cloud Engine available
VMware on AWS, and now Google Cloud.
With 100-GbE and plenty of CPU & RAM per node, it will be an exciting option if you are using the Google Cloud.
Google Blog post is here.
VMware vSphere Assignable Hardware
Upon reading this, I thought I missed something in the GA released Docs.
Went back and searched for “assignable” and found nothing.
Must be an undocumented feature.
So this post by Brandon Lee covers how PCI device passthru (directpath I/O) has changed in vSphere 7.
Now imagine that VMs that have been given a NVIDIA GPU directly, can now have vSphere HA (even with that hardware dependency).
No vMotion yet, but I’m sure that will come someday too….
VMware Shared VMDK Files – backing them up
With vSphere 7 and VMFS 6, you have the ability to share VMDK files for things like shared disk clusters (removing the need to have RDMs to support clusters).
….and it is supported by the application vendors!
But, are there changes to how you back up those disks (the shared VMDKs)?
This post covers some of the options, and gives a perfect engineers’ answer:
It depends.
VMware vROPs Dashboard – SSL Cert Expiry Dates
Yes, it would be helpful to know they are about to expire….
VMware Code page link here.
VMware TKGs – Monitor using vROPs
Have vROPs and now playing with TKG?
Let’s add TKG Management Pack to vROPs, and utilize the tools we already have for performance, troubleshooting, & configuration monitoring.
Setup is covered, as well as the use of Workbench for troubleshooting.
VMware Blog post is here.
VMware acquires Blue Medora
If you are a user of vROPs, and have ever looked for management packs…you recognize the name.
Blue Medora wrote up some amazing dashboards for vROPs.
I hope VMware makes it EASY to get Blue Medora dashboards into the vROPs product….I really want it in the base product versus an add on.
We shall see.
VMware Blog post is here.
VMware acquires Datrium
OK, so intent to acquire was announced.
If not familiar with Datrium, check them out.
The announcement focuses on the DRaaS feature.
Wonder if they like the HCI solution too….
VMware Blog post is here.
VMware Flings of Note
Workspace ONE Analyzer for macOS – Identify & deploy the system dependencies when deploying apps
DNS & NTP/w32Time break everything
With DNS & Time Services able to wreck havoc if not configured correctly int he environment, lots of ways to get things fixed.
This page covers NTP for ESXi hosts (as well as its security config).
Bonus….has PowerCLI as well as Ansible scripts there.
Nutanix .NEXT Registration is open
Join the (virtual) crowds at Nutanix .NEXT this September.
Registration is now open for this event…..free to all!
Nutanix AOS & Prism Central 5.17.1 released
Mangus’ blog has a good summary of notes, and links to the details of the components called out.
Nice to see ESXi 7.0 supported < 90 days after it was released (still not sure who would roll this into production, but we all have labs that need to test it).
Nutanix I/O Path Resliency
Josh keeps me learning quite a bit this year.
This topic goes over how Nutanix uses the CVM to handle I/O in a consistent, and failure tolerant, manner.
Microsoft Managed Service Account
OK….how has this been a thing since Windows 2008R2, and I just found it?
…..grrrrrr
I could have been using this for a while.
Anyway….Tim Smith had a post on this, which is where I found out about it.
His post covers how to verify this feature is enabled, how to enable it, how to create the Managed Service Account, and how to enable it on the server that will use the Managed Service Account.
Now to learn the implications of doing this….
Not that Microsoft documentation is ever any good, I thought I’d just link to anyway….Managed Service Account Overview and then a Getting Started.
Cisco UCS Platform Emulator 4.1 released
Melissa Palmer has a nice summary, and video walkthrough of the Platform Emulator.
Upcoming Conferences
Nutanix .NEXT – virtual! 9/8 – 9/10
Microsoft Inspire – Virtual! TBD
VMworld 2020 – Virtual! 9/28-9/31