VMware vSphere 7.x – END OF SUPPORT!
I’m going to leave this here, until October 2, 2025.
Hopefully, you have already upgraded to vSphere 8…..
vCenter 7.0 was released April 2, 2020.
Got hardware that is not supported for ESXi 8?
….that means that hardware is 8+ years old….time to replace it!
VMware Blog post is here.
Broadcom VMware “Tokens” to get access to patches
Time to do something not many have done….
Go into vLCM (vSphere Lifecycle Manager…aka Update Manager)….
…and change the default download locations….
I took the scripted way, so download the VMwareDepotChange.ps1….
…which will work For SDDC Manager or stand alone vCenters….
You will need PowerShell Core 7.2 or later
…PowerCLI 13.3 or later (you can’t skip this check)….
…you’ll also need your “new” Broadcom Download Token….
You can find (or generate) your token …
….1 token per account, not per person!
Everyone needs to do this, or you will stop getting patches as of April 24, 2025.
VMware KB is here….
The script that it leads you to…..not sure it is as helpful as you want it to be….
A great way to approach it for your homelab ESXi hosts….Thanks, John!
ESXi 9.x – New Minimum Boot Disk Size
Even though the linked article has to do with SD / USB boot drives…
(no one should be booting off of these anymore….)
128-GB is the minimum HDD size for ESXi 9 boot volume.
Read about half-way down….under section Options for vSphere 8.0/9.0
Broadcom Article ID 317631 is here.
ESXi Free Edition returns!
First noticed this on a blog post.
Find it in the “Free Downloads” section of the Broadcom Portal.
VMware Flings now in Broadcom Portal
Per William Lam’s post….
The section is now in the main “Free Downloads” section, along with Fusion, Workstation, Converter,….
(even Avi Load Balancer appears here…wonder what that is about?)
You can find this by logging into the Broadcom portal, clicking My Downloads, & the first thing you’ll see at the top of the page is “Free Downloads, click here”.
vSAN Networking Topologies & Oversubscription
Never hurts to review how networking plays into your vSphere design.
Especially with vSAN.
Great review of different networking implementations.
VMware VCF Blog post is here.
VMware VCF Blog post on Oversubscription is here.
Change vmxnet3 speed to 65-Gbps
Never knew you could do this (since 8.0 update 2).
vmxnet3 vNICs are normally 10-GbE.
Just need to find a VM that needs this kind of throughput.
Broadcom article ID 368812 is here.
ESXi Lockdown Mode Script
Cool little PowerShell script posted by Vincent Jansen.
Sets the ESXi Lockdown Mode of all ESXi hosts within a vCenter
to “Disabled” or “Normal”.
VeeamON Summary
Jorge De La Cruze captured the highlights of VeeamON this year.
Software Appliance (ISO or OVA), Web Client (is that Dark Mode?), enhanced client, iDP integration, granular RBAC, Instant Cloud Recovery, and CDP.
Omnissa releases Horizon 2503
Some nuances with this ESB release.
Read the release notes, please!
Horizon 8 Release Notes are here.
Omnissa & Nutanix for VDI?
We knew it was coming, and you COULD already do manual desktop pools with Nutanix AHV.
Now, Instant Clone pools are getting closer to GA, when running AHV.
This is in beta now, and we all know what that means…
Omnissa post is here.
With all the V2V’s going on….
Many of us forget about “hidden devices” (vNICs) in our Guest OS.
With Windows….here’s how you get to cleaning up “hidden devices” if you end up with any issues with your vNICs after a V2V….
I prefer the 1st way, as you are interacting with the Guest OS at the time….
Windows OS Hub article is here.
Hertz has data breach
Not sure if this involves more than NH customers….
At the least, change your Hertz password….
WMUR story posted here.
SSL/TLS certificate lifespans reduced to 47 days by 2029
Time to start planning your Certificate Authority updates / strategy.
The lifespan of certificates is currently 398-days.
March 15, 2026, lifespan will be reduced to 200-days
March 15, 2027, lifespan will be reduced to 100 -days
March 15, 2029, lifespan will be reduced to 47-days
DCV (Domain Control Validation) are being reduced to 10-days
Bleeping Computer article is here.
Digicert article is here.
How Manufacturers are changing 3D Printing
This is genius!
Phillips introduces print your own replacement parts!
Check out the post here.
Windows 10/11 – Managing BitLocker
Via the GUI or the CLI.
This post covers it.
Nutanix v4 APIs – VM Report using PowerShell
A short example script to get info about VMs.
What is better part of the read here, is how you can use APIs via PowerShell…
Blog post is here.
Nutanix & PowerFlex finally available!
If you want to use your Dell PowerFlex with your Nutanix AHV solution…
You finally can!
been talked about for ~1 year…..
I’ve seen the integration a while back, and it is remarkably smooth.
I would bet that additional storage solutions will be available in the future….
Dell Announcement is here.
Try out the process yourself? Someone captured it here!
This covers recovery points & replication too!
Nutanix & Pure Storage coming soon!
Well, soon might be misleading, but it’s now on the roadmap.
Pure Storage News post announcement.
Pure Storage News post regarding mission-critical workloads.
Nutanix DR Products, Services, and Options
Great post summarizing the different approaches you can take (active DR site, warm, DR site, Cold DR site), all with different RTO/RPO objectives.
Remember…its not one or the other, but could be a combination of approaches, depending on different RTO/RPO objectives.
Free Learning – GitHub Repo
KodeKloud
Nutanix University
Nutanix .NEXT 2025 – Coming Soon
PluralSight
vBrownBag
VMware Explore 2025 – Aug 25-28, Las Vegas
VMware Hands On Labs
VMware Explore 2024 Sessions (William Lam’s easier to search list version)