Finding a Way To Fill The Web
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.
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!
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….
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…..
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.
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….
VMware EMPOWER review
This was a great event.
Meeting my peers from around the world.
Validating that the company I work for, WEI, is focusing on the right things for our customers from the VMware point of view, as well as what my peers are doing.
The NDA insights received on many things, products and vision….
Working with the leadership at VMware during the event.
Working with the VMware Education team at the event.
I really wish that all customers could see what the partners do during this VMware EMPOWER event, and how much effort goes into it.
Yes, it is a “Partner-Only” version of VMworld, but what the partners get from this event benefits our customers so much. Our recommendations to our customers, our designs, implementations, and other choices we offer to customers is heavily influenced from these types of events.
Other than the networking with peers, the best benefit of this event for us partners, is that the REAL experts are right there for us to engage with.
I wish this was an event all partners could attend every 3 months……
Conferences Coming Up
This week is DellEMC World.
Next week is both Nutanix Next & RedHat Summit
Should be quite a bit of news from those events in the next two weeks….