MarkGabbs – Page 18 – Gabbs' Random Thoughts

Virtual Updates 2019-07-22

VMworld 2019 US
For those of you who have registered, I hope you have had time to get your session builder going.
Lots of sessions fill up fast, so getting registered for the sessions you want is a big priority.
…and so are parties.
Who wants to go to such an event, and not enjoy themselves at night after a long day of filling your brain with new ideas & thoughts…..
A couple of long time collectors of this information keep track of all the events going on at VMworld.
Andreas Lesslhumer from Running-Syststem.com keeps a list of VMworld parties.
Manfred Hofer keeps a list going to complement Andreas Lessluhumer.
Another thing, apparently, that is news around that, is the new
VMworld 2019 backpack.
Not sure if people are reading into it the same way I am, but look at the badge on the strap on the back! …..could that be an acquisition?….no sure thing, but you can infer what you’d like…..

VTUG – the final episode…
VTUG started out as the NE-VMUG back in the days when the VMUG’s were run by users in the community.
It is a sad day when VTUG officially ended….. (2019-07-18)
@TheCUBE interviewed @dawnharney & @csharney during the last event.
Give them an 8 minute view, and see what the community is all about.

Virtual Updates 2019-07-08

VMware Security Advisory VMSA-2019-0010
This effects a long list of products.
It covers two issues, an important, and moderate issue.
Patches are still pending for most of the product list….

VMware vSphere 6.5.0 Update 3 released
For those of you still running 6.5, U3 has been released.
vCenter and ESXi installation media is available.
Check out the release notes here for vCenter.
Check out the release notes here for ESXi.

Garage Door Openers & LED Lights

So…definitely not a technical post here….

As a homeowner, with a 2 bay garage, I get to have garage door openers. Nothing magical nowadays, hit a button on the wall (or the button on the remote in your car), and the garage door opens (or closes) for you.
It’s even better when you can park your car in the garage!

So this problem bit me, and I’m not even sure WHY i was looking at this topic in the first place, but i came across quite a few posts with people who were having the same issue as me…
Garage door openers works flawlessly when opening from in the garage, but as I pull the car out of the garage, and try to use the remote again….I had to point at the opener, hold the button longer, or in some cases, even open the car door and point at the garage for the remote to close the garage door. This, in case you can’t read my thoughts, is what the problem is.

I always blew this off (or forgot to look it up once I got somewhere).
It never bothered me on my way home though….the button works flawlessly from 50ft away each and every time I arrive at home, and use the remote to open the door. This meant that the problem was never there when I arrived home, and never had it in the front of my mind to look into it.

I thought about why the remote wasn’t working, were the batteries running out? Changed the batteries and no change. Then, what in my car could be causing this, but that didn’t sound right, as it worked as I arrived home…..

Stupid technology….worked fine when I bought it….

Until I came across multiple posts in multiple sites that focused on this one thing…..
Did you replace the light bulbs in your garage door openers?
Were they by chance, LED lightbulbs?
Yup…..I did do exactly that….
Were they the cheap LED bulbs?
Um….probably…I am pretty frugal….
Replace the with GOOD LED bulbs……

What?
Turns out, that LED and CFL lightbulbs create RI (radio interference).
Cheap LED bulbs do not have RI shielding.
You know that FCC description on products we never read, cause it means nothing to most of us?
Well…..it does matter here.

Replace my Garage Door Opener with LED (shielded) bulbs.
Problem is gone!

Go figure!!!!
Hope this helps someone else solve this problem!

Virtual Updates 2019-06-24

VMware Tools Vulnerability
So vulnerabilities are everywhere, but this one should be easy to resolve.
The recommendation is to get up to VMware Tools 10.3.10
With VMware Tools updates available separately from ESXi versions, this should be pretty easy to resolve.
If you use the option in the VM to auto-update tools, a reboot of the VM should bet that done for you.
Cool that this script gives you some PowerCLI scripts to help you parse your list of VMs and update VMware Tools with a no reboot option.
Linux VMs are NOT affected (and should be using Open-VM-Tools anyway).

VTUG (Virtualization Technology User Group) – The Last Event
I have been a member of this group for many years now, and it is sad to see this group having its last event.
I am biased, of course, as I have been involved for years….
Those of us in New England are lucky…between VTUG, VMUG, and other Virtualization User Groups in the area, we have had the opportunity to have at least 12-24 events a year where we can network with peers, and continue our learning while contributing to the community.
If you have the time, the final VTUG Summer Slam is July 18, 2019.
It would be great to see this event have the sendoff it deserves…..

AWS:reInforce in Boston, MA this week
Really interested in heading out to this.
Hopefully, I don’t get distracted away from the event….

Virtual Updates 2019-06-10

Cisco Live!
Is this week in San Diego CA. Looking forward to hearing what my team learned out there….

HPE Discover
Is next week in Las Vegas NV. I know the WEI team has some insights into some of the announcements….can’t wait to talk with folks about what is currently under NDA…..

VMware Visio Stencils – Updated
At the end of May, updates were made to the Visio Stencils used in the VVD.
Funny…18 years without any stencils, and now…updates every 2 weeks?

VTUG (Virtualization Technologies User Group) – The Last Event
I have been a member of this group for many years now, and it is sad to see this group having its last event.
I am biased, of course, as I have been involved for years….
Those of us in New England are lucky…between VTUG, VMUG, and other Virtualization User Groups in the area, we have had the opportunity to have at least 12-24 events a year where we can network with peers, and continue our learning while contributing to the community.
If you have the time, the final VTUG Summer Slam is July 18, 2019.
It would be great to see this event have the sendoff it deserves…..

Virtual Updates 2019-05-27

VMware CPU Scheduling – 6.7 update 2 has choices…
With the release of vSphere 6.7 update 2, there are now choices with the way CPU scheduling occurs.
The reason for these choices is due to vulnerabilities that have been discovered and patched for CPU hardware (think L1TF and MDS).
There is now:
Default Scheduler (no inherent security awareness, but performs well)
Side-Channel Aware Scheduler v1 (SCAv1) (most secure, but slowest)
Side-Channel Aware Scheduler v2 (SCAv2)
This blog post by Bob Plankers on VMware’s site goes into the details….

VeeamOn
The infamous Veeam Backup & Replication v10 was announced (again).
Lots of great features announced, but I want to see it become generally available before getting excited.

Virtual Update 2019-05-13

VMware Visios of VVD with NSX-T
OK, so Visio’s might not be exciting….but take a look here.
So many good diagrams that you can use for NSX-T, SDDC, Networking configurations,……well worth the 10 minutes to download and check out the 3 drawings in this ZIP.

NUMA / vNUMA / Design & Considerations
Frank Denneman & Johan van Amersfoot host another ITQ lightboard.
This is awesome.
I have been sharing this same drawing with customers for years when discussing the sizing of VM workloads, CPU Ready %, constraints based on the hardware of the server you select (though with high CPU core counts today, this last bit is less of a constraint).
34 minutes long, and ABSOLUTELY worth watching!!!!

VeeamON is next week
I am unable to attend this event, so hoping to get feedback from my team to share here…..
Let me know if you see something at VeeamON that excites you!

VMware EMPOWER
The last of the VMware EMPOWER events is next week in Lisbon.
Perhaps there will be a final set of updates announced? We’ll have to wait and see….