Technology – Page 2 – Gabbs' Random Thoughts

Virtual Updates 2025-08-04

VMware Explore Aug 25-28
If you are heading there, let me know.
Vegas in summer….drink lots of water, wear comfortable shoes!
Link at the bottom….

VCF 9 – Private Cloud for SMB to Enterprise
Bringing back workloads to datacenter from public cloud means you need a private cloud to bring them back to.
If you are running VMware, let’s talk about your options moving forward.
Fabian Lenz has a great take on it, in this short post.

Technical Benefits of VCF 9
Written by Graham Barker, he covers some of the benefits that VCF 9 brings us.
His post is here.

VCF 9 – deprecation….
Couple of weeks ago, captured a good list provided by Christian Mohn.
In short…vCLS (so enable retreat-mode,) Auto Deploy, vVols, ELM (Enhanced Linked Mode), Host Profiles, baseline in Update Manager, & hybrid vSAN configurations.
Now found this, which adds to that list…..Aria Log insight, ESXi host cache, VMware Identity Manager (Workspace One Access) in NSX, SDDC Manager UI, …among other things
Yup….no upgrade PAK file for Log Insight to get to 9.0.
That means a new deployment is required.
I took a shortcut…..shut down the old Log insight cluster, deployed a new VCF Operations for Logs cluster (using the same IPs and hostnames, so I would not have to reconfigure any of the clients sending logs).
….AND found this
Broadcom Article ID: 313839 vSphere Client Local plugins deprecated

Getting started with VCF NSX
So William Lam has a series of posts going about configuration & consumption of the new VCF 9 release.
Assumptions are you have your NSX T0 router running….
His post on Configuring NSX Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
His post on Configuring vSphere Supervisor with NSX VPC Networking

Rufus – making Bootable USB drives
Don’t take the simple things for granted.
A nice Windows tool for making bootable USB drives.
Blog post is here.

US Passport Renewal – Online?
Apparently….Did not know this.
There are some restrictions, but I think this would work for most people.
Dept of State link to start renewal process (and has all restrictions listed).

Nutanix AOS 7.3.0.1 patch released
As AOS 7.3 had an issue with Deduplication on Storage Containers….
The patch has been released.
Still not available via LCM, but that’s OK, as no one wants to be a cowboy…
Nutanix Blog post is here.

Nutanix MST (Multicloud Snapshot Technology) – Intro to
This is a great 2 minute read!
Super simple explanation of using AWS S3, Azure Blob, or even Nutanix Objects to hold any Business Continuity or DR copies of data.
Immutable S3 anyone?
Nutanix Blog post is here.

Nutanix Cloud Native AOS 1.0.0
that’s a mouthful….but in short,
AOS now runs as Kubernetes pods (AOS Pods), delivering software-defined storage directly within EKS environments—no CVMs required.
I can see why they started with EKS, and we all know the others are right behind it…..
Nutanix Blog post is here.

Nutanix VM Placement Affinity & Anti-Affinity rules
A friend of mine, Mike Dent, did a great 2-part post on this.
It’s a topic I take for granted.
….things like keeping Domain Controllers on separate physical hosts.
…Node 1 & 2 of a cluster on separate physical hosts.
….or keeping VMs on nodes licensed to run expensive software (databases anyone?).

Nutanix AHV – run Red Hat HA Clusters
A 3-node cluster of Red Hat VMs.
Using fencing, provided by Nutanix.
Nutanix Dev post is here.

Free Learning – GitHub Repo
KodeKloud
Nutanix University
Nutanix .NEXT 2026 – April 7-9, Chicago, IL
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)

Virtual Updates 2025-07-21

VCF 9 Design
Recently updated…this can get deep.
There are lots of things to consider BEFORE you start clicking deploy.
While you have to deploy certain things with VCF 9, the way in which you do can provide different outcomes for your business.
VCF 9 Design Documentation is here.

VCF 9 Support Model & Release Cadence
The predictable release cycle will definitely help teams plan better.
A new major release every 3 years.
A new minor release every 9 months.
(let’s see how well that holds up)
…and the model has changed for software support lifecycles.
What used to be 5 years of planned software lifecycle, with 2 years of extended support available….is now 6 years + 1 year extended support available.
VMware Blog post is here.

VMware CSP (Cloud Service Provider) Program Changing – Again!
Not sure how many times this has changed, but now…..
“Current VMware CSPs that didn’t receive an invite for the new program by today have reportedly been cut & will receive a notice of non-renewal.
Broadcom subsequently launched a white-label program allowing smaller CSPs to work through CSPs that were still VMware partners, but that program is also shuttering on October 31.
Businesses relying on cloud platforms based on VMware tech licensed through the white-label program could suddenly be forced to migrate hastily, which has inherent risks, including hight costs.
In a statement to The Register, Broadcom encouraged CSPs cut from VMware’s channel to work with authorized partners to “ensure a smooth transition for customers who seek to renew a service at the end of their current term,” but it offered no incentive or resources.”
Ars Technica post is here.

ESXi Patches
Latest ESXi patches release notes.
Release Notes for ESXi 9.0.0.0100 are here.
Release Notes for ESXi 8 update 3f are here.
Release Notes for ESXi 7.0 update 3w are here.

VCF 9 – Importing an Existing vSphere Environment
After you get VCF 9 deployed (hopefully on net new gear)….
How do you import existing environments?
NOTE THE DIFFERENCE ABOUT WHERE vCENTER & NSX RUN!!!
If you deploy net new, versus if you import….
Tom Forta did a nice, short, summary here.

What’s New in VMX-22
A short & sweet listing of new VM features once upgraded to VMX-22.
I’m really interested in the Span Policy to Group VMs to Specific # of hosts (bot specific hosts outright).
Blog post is here.

Holodeck for VCF 9 is released.
Perfect for Partners who need to develop and/or demo VCF.
Get one beefy ESXi server (or a few physical servers in a cluster), and run a 100% nested VCF 9 environment (can be nested with approximately 30 CPU cores, 325 GB memory, and 1.1 TB disk).
Holodeck isn’t new, but the VCF 9 release is.
VMware Blog post is here.
Holodeck for VCF 9 documentation is here.

VCF 9 – Developer Experience & Documentation
An explanation about how the documentation is now structured.
Links to all of the docs are here as well.
VMware Blog post is here.

VCF 9 – VPCs
Well, it needs NSX behind the scenes.
You can build your VPCs then in vCenter
VMware Blog post is here.

VCF 9 – Configuring Edge Clusters
While the place to configure it has “changed”, you could still do this from NSX.
Now….all the same networking requirements exist…it’s just WHERE you do the deployment / configuration of Edge Cluster that has changed.
Blog Post is here.

DSM 9.0 Metrics to VCF Operations
DSM (Data Services Manager) can orchestrate PostgeSQL & MySQL databases.
Not sure why this isn’t already builtin to the DSM…
Though Cormac states that it will get builtin at some point…
Cormac Hogan’s post is here.

Citrix back in the Hypervisor Market?
I remember when they killed off XenServer years ago.
OK, they didn’t kill XenServer, but gave it to the open source community under the Linux Foundation as a Collaborative Project in 2013.
Now, they want to say they are a player in that market.
Time will tell….
The Register post is here.

McDonald’s AI Bot Exposes Millions of Applicants Data
Whoops!
So if you apply, you get to talk to an AI Chatbot first….that would irk me.
I’ve tried using some of those, as we all have, to varying levels of success.
so….if you AI platform has a security flaw…things can go wrong.
Guess you need to pay attention to what your 3rd party providers do.
…and was it AI’s fault, or theirs?
I wonder if the 3rd party prover was the lowest cost?…you get what you pay for.
Wired post is here.

Wireshark – 2025 Beginners Guide
Nice walkthrough, and even covers using Wireshark from a VM!
That’s what I do when learning new things (run them in a VM first).
Blog post is here.

Google ending support for older Nest Devices
Saw this when I was planning to add a camera to my home.
I like Nest when it was Nest, not Google.
Granted, that was 10 years ago…
Devices will still work, but no smart features.
Personally, I reset everything I have that’s Nest, and already have things running well without the “smart features”.
I wonder if Google will push 1 last software update that puts ads to upgrade your thermostat on them?
Tom’s Guide post is here.
Google post is here.

Opting Out & Secure YOUR Personal Data
Great post covering basic hygiene for the modern age….
Long read? YES!
That’s because of a very thorough details explanation of things, written so well, my grandmother could follow along.
Derek Seaman’s post is here.

Virtual Updates 2025-07-07

VCF, VCFE, VCF for CSP, & VVF
VCF (VMware Cloud Foundation)
VCFCE (VMware Cloud Foundation Edge)
VCF for CSP (VMware Cloud Foundation for Cloud Service Providers)
VVF (VMware vSphere Foundation)
All the components included, their potential add-ons listed out.
Just forget about any of the other options …their last gasp is in vSphere 8.x.
Another William Lam post is here.

Licensing VCF 9.0
Kudos where they are due….
Managing & Consuming licenses has gotten a whole lot easier.
Yes, you need to manage your keys in Broadcom Business Services Portal.
The short?
Your company gets a license key. https://vcf.broadcom.com/
You can carve out sections if needed (to split up between orgs).
Easy to reclaim licenses.
oh yea…. 90 day evals of VCF after deployment!!!
VMware Blog post is here.

vSphere Enterprise Plus & Standard are deprecated
That means dead. No more.
Their last breath of life is vSphere 8.0 update 3.
Want vSphere 9?
You must get VCF or VVF to do so.
Blog post is here, and yes, the document it points to states it.

VCF 9 – deprecation list
Quite a few things have been deprecated, so just a good list provided by Christian Mohn.
In short…vCLS (so enable retreat-mode,) Auto Deploy, vVols, ELM (Enhanced Linked Mode), Host Profiles, baseline in Update Manager, & hybrid vSAN configurations

vCenter ELM (Enhanced Linked Mode)- replacement
Since ELM is no more…what to replace it with?
Well, first, you have to be in the same VCF Fleet. Why Fleet?
VCF Operations is outside of the Management Domain, so it is part of “Fleet”
So any vCenter within that Fleet can use this SSO approach.
You can even create “groups” vCenter servers together for permissions.
VMware Blog post is here.

VCF & Microsoft CA Integration
The 2 x big things to note, its that your CA must respond to HTTPS requests, and that the template you build must have NO SPACEs in its name.
Once you have that prepped, integration is fast & easy.
This blog post captures it nicely.

Storage in VCF 9 (well…vSphere)
So quite a few things got tweaked in version 9 around storage.
NFS 3 get TRIM support.
NFS 4 can encrypt data in transit.
End to End (E2E) 4kn support
SE Sparse Disks (Space Efficient Sparse Virtual Disks) for NFS & VMFS-5+.
vNVMe 1.4 spec support – Support for Write Zero command.
iSCSI Multiple Connections per Session support.
VMware Blog post is here.
Duncan Epping post on some of the new vSAN 9 features….
Global Deduplication
vSAN Stretched Cluster Site Maintenance Mode
vSAN Data Protection and VMware Live Recovery feature
No more vSAN Data Protection appliance!!!

VCF Install – Offline Depot Configuration
William Lam must not sleep.
While his example shows how to do this on a Synology….
You can now see what it takes to do this in your “Dark Site” for an offline depot.
William Lam blog post is here.

DBaaS in VCF
Yes, DBaaS (Data Base as a Service) is in VCF 9.0.
Cormac Hogan has been writing about this for a couple of years,
and here is Cormac’s latest blog post on the topic.
A great read which addresses the different audiences that this covers.
So much of this is why I’ve been a champion of Nutanix Database for years.

vDefend integrations with VCF
VPC-Aware Lateral Security
Self-Service Micro-segmentation
Global IPS/IDS Policy Management
IDS/IPS Signature Portal
Geo-IP Filtering
Not my area of expertise, but I’m sure the security team will take note.
Could be a lot of benefits here, as I read through the highlights…
VMware Blog post is here.

VMware PowerCLI gets renamed to VCF PowerCLI
Just run the following to get updated:
Uninstall-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI
Install-Module -Name VCF.PowerCLI
Everything still works as it has in the past per Broadcom announcement/post.
….and it aligns with VCF versioning, so it is version 9.x.
VMware Blog post is here, and gets a bit deeper.

VCF SDK 9.0 for Python & Java
For our programmatic friends…
Need to integrate your new VCF with applications & solutions that drive your business and its outcomes?
Check out the APIs that drive PowerCLI, Terraform, & Ansible (among others).
VMware Blog post is here.

Enhanced vMotionfor VMs with vGPU
Frank Denneman post on many of the details of why these improvements were necessary, though its all in VCF 9.

VCF Operations – create your first Super Metric
Creating a super metric….well explained…
Blog post is here.

Ultimate LAB Resource for VCF 9.0
A nice guide.
How to use older CPUs, to newer SmartNICs.
William Lam’s post is here.

ESXi and CDP
Since we were digging up this info for a customer…
I noticed that ESXi supported CDP, which when I think back, used to only be supported on vDS.
Broadcom Article ID 324750 shows how to configure CDP on ESXi hosts on standard vSwitches (all screenshots & examples show Standard Switches).

To Upgrade your VMX version, or not to?
Have this discussion all the time….
Do you upgrade your VMs to the latest Hardware Version (often referenced as VMX version or compatibility), or just leave it alone.
Well, don’t consume things just because you can.
BUT…if a VM needs a feature only exposed in the latest Hardware Version (VMX version)….you are on the path to upgrade.
Broadcom Article ID 315390 states you can, & provides instructions on how to do so,…BUT it comes with some “it depends” statements (in the Article).
One of which states to have VMware Tools up to date first!

Windows VM unresponsive
Windows Event Log shows: Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued
So the situation that created this is pretty unique (right now anyway).
Using NVMe disks to the VM (doesn’t matter what physical storage is).
Added another disk to the VM….didn’t pay attention….
it got added as a LSI SCSI disk, along with a new SCSI controller.
I changed the disk to NVMe, but forgot to remove the SCSI Controller.
So…a SCSI controller with no disks is what caused this.
Old OS too.
On Windows 2022…the default is to add a Parvirtual SCSI controller, which would not have caused the issue.
Broadcom Article ID 316553 is here..

Microsoft Intune – issue or not at issue?
last week, Intune Security Baselines had issues if you upgraded from 23H2 to 24H2…but only if you deviated from recommended settings…
Let the expert tell you about it.
Jon’s latest post is here.

Monster & CareerBuilder file for Bankruptcy
Never thought I’d see that….
Yahoo Finance article is here.

Dutch Energy sues Broadcom for Support
When someone wants to pay you for support, you take it, right?
You don’t strong-arm them into buying something new at an increased cost….
“…Senior Hague judge Mr HJ Vetter writes that VMware and Broadcom are required to provide support to RWS after 22 July 2025 for a period of two years at the most, to allow it time to phase out its use of VMware’s software.”
The Register post is here.

Market Basket & Local Brands
Like to shop local?
Well, we all love Market Basket (or is it Demoulas?) and I caught this post of theirs highlighting some of the local brands from MA, ME, NH, & RI.
Market Basket post is here.

Nutanix v4 APIs – deploy VMs from template
Using Python SDK and REST APIs…
Nutanix Dev post is here.

Nutanix MST (Multi Snapshot Technology)
Cool way to take your snapshots to a public cloud (or even on premises)
to S3/Blob storage.
You can have a Nutanix Cluster there, or not.
You can mix & match the options to meet your Recovery as well as DR needs.
Nutanix documentation is here.

Nutanix Cross-Cluster Live Migrate
Live migrate a VM between 2 closets?
Sure,….just verify the prerequisites or run the script!
Blog post & script are here.

Virtual Updates 2025-06-23

VCF 9 released
So much to cover….and its only been a few days…..
Already did a few deploys and imports of existing environments.
Works well for both, just polishing up the process & planning documentation…
TLS 1.3 by default for everything!
NSX now has VPCs! Daniel Krieger’s post is a great read.
Broadcom VCF 9 What’s New post.
Broadcom VVF 9 What’s New post.
What’s New with Licensing post from VMexplorer

VCF 9 – deprecation list
Quite a few things have been deprecated, so just a good list provided by Christian Mohn.
In short…Auto Deploy, vVols, ELM (Enhanced Linked Mode), Host Profiles, baseline in Update Manager, and hybrid vSAN configurations

VCF 9 – Automatic Certificate Renewals
Just gotta get my CA configured appropriately….
Then to give this a go….
Broadcom Blog post is here.

vSAN 9
Now with Global Dedupe (post-process)!
…well, within a cluster, at least……and limited (for now) availability.
vSAN Data Protection with 1 minute RPO.
VM replication across clusters.
Stretched Cluster get Site Maintenance Mode as well as the ability to have a “manual takeover” if they lose 2 sites of the 3 in their stretched cluster.
Duncan on vSAN 9 post.

vLCM (vSphere Lifecycle Manager) what’s new
Mentioned in there posts….has new behavior when dealing with Image Based Management in a cluster.
As Baselines are deprecated since 8.x was released, the planned migration to Image Based management had some constraints that were tough to swallow.
A vocal community led to some changes, and you can easily find them written out in the VVF What’s New post above.
In short, up to 4 Images (different vendors or server models) per cluster.

VCF 9 – Need passwords for your deployed appliances?
Here’s a way to get them from the API.
Another way is to use the GUI to reset the one password you need, then rotate it when you are done.
Blog Post is here.

NVMe Memory Tiering
Introduced in vSphere 8, this is a cool capability.
Most folks run out of RAM before anything else.
With this capability, you can “add RAM” by adding NVMe capacity to your host, adding “more RAM” into your hosts.
Was excited when this came out, but saw limited adoption in production, though I put that off into hardware lifecycles.
Homelabbers do use this though…
Is it right for you?….we’ll see.
Written out in the VVF What’s New post above

NSX VPCs
Good write up by Daniel Krieger
Somewhat long read, but the topic dictates that…
Will take a couple weeks for me to get up to speed on the details of this….

vSAN – is RDMA right for you?
Remember…implementing technology just for the sake of implementing technology doesn’t help anyone. Only if it solves a business requirements.
That said…
Is it worth the cost (minimal) and complexity (nominal) to offload some CPU cycles with RDMA?
That’s up to you, but I believe in the K.I.S.S. principle….
this post even makes comparisons with FC, above and beyond the RDMA discussion.
VMware Blog post is here.

ESXi 7.x still running – patching problems
Was led this way with a customer who has vSphere 8 deployed, but still has a couple of 7.x ESXi clusters (hardware only support version 7).
Having problems patching that cluster.
Found Broadcom Article ID# 340445 which describes the error perfectly.
Too bad there is no resolution….so much for supporting it till October 2025…

vSphere Admins Sample Scripts
Nicely presented, short & sweet.
VM Infrastructure blog post is here.

AWS offers EVS (or ‘Elastic’ VMware Service)
This was a popular use case, before Broadcom crippled it.
Now, AWS has worked through the kinks to bring this capability back.
Those using VMware Cloud on AWS, it looks like you can use your own VPC now!
AWS Blog post is here.

Veeam Backup Support for VCF 9?
I’m waiting too.
Veeam KB2443 covers supported versions of vSphere, uh….VCF.

Homelabs – no 10-GbE NICs, or vSAN ESA Compatible Gear?
William Lam has you covered (of course).
Blog post on how to deal with no 10-GbE NICs precheck.
Blog post on how to deploy ESA without ‘supported’ hardware.

Asus AX86U Pro – now with VLANs and proper Guest Network isolation
Now I can shut off my Guest WAP…..
Check out the Asus Support doc.

USA’s Air Traffic Control – “modern” technology
Glad they are fast-tracked to do some updates.
They apparently still use Windows 95 with 3.5″ floppies to do their job.
Ars Technica post is here.
Other than in a VM, anyone think they can find Windows 95 drivers for some of the new desktops/laptops being sold today?
P.S. – Windows 95 is 30 years old!

Apple, Google, Facebook, etc – passwords exposed
Yea…you know what to do.
This is getting repetitive….
Forbes post is here.

Prism Central 2024.3.1.2 released
Not showing up yet in LCM (in case you’re looking for it).
“now works correctly in environments where ICMP is blocked.”
Why would someone do that? security by obscurity….really?
Network Latency callout between Prism Central and Prism Element (clusters)…
< 150-ms
Nutanix Blog post is here.

Virtual Updates 2025-06-09

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)

Virtual Updates 2025-04-14

ESXi 8.0 Update 3e released …AND….Free ESXi version is back!
Now with built in “free” license key.
No, can not be managed with vCenter, no Storage API benefits….
But…it is efficient and familiar!
ESXi release notes are 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 here.
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!

vSphere 8.0 Virtual Topology – Cores Per Socket Deeper Dive
With the release of vSphere 8….and the latest VMX on your VM….
You can stop trying to “right size” the vCPU vs Core ratio.
It’s being done for you.
Here’ a paper about this newest option….
Blog post is here.
Direct Link to document is here….

Migrate a vSphere environment to VCF
World
Blog post summarizing the process….
1-hour YouTube video is here.

AMD vulnerability in EVERY Zen1 to Zen5 processor
More about this from AMD post.

Graham Barker release VMware VMware Visio Stencil set for 2025
Been keeping this updated for a long time now….
Link is here.

AHV Hypervisor – where it came from
When Nutanix started, it supported existing hypervisors (such as ESXi).
At some point, AHV got started, and is now what nearly every Nutanix runs!
A brief history on AHV, via the Nutanix Website.

NDB 2.8 is released!
NDB (Nutanix Database Service) is up to 2.8.
Some useful features….
Magnus’ short post about it….

Free Learning – GitHub Repo
KodeKloud
Nutanix University
Nutanix .NEXT 2025 – May 7-9 (Washington DC)
Nutanix .NEXT 2024 Sessions
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)

Virtual Updates 2025-03-24

Nutanix Technical Evangelist of the Year
Got an award at Nutanix GTS (Global Tech Summit).
Link to the LinkedIn post with the award.

ESXi, Workstation, & Fusion
Time to update your hosts again….
Applies to all the hypervisor products…, yes, Fusion & Workstation too.
Broadcom Support post is here.

vSphere Cluster vCPU/pCPU – control the overcommit
While you can control it in the DRS settings…
Aria Ops lets you use those metrics and view the consumption.
Blog post is here.

VMware software – things going EOS (End of Support) in 2025
VirtualUK has a nice post on this.
Short and sweet, highlights things going EOS this year.
vSphere 7? …October 2, 2025

vSphere Kubernetes Service 3.3 now GA
Remember Tanzu?
renamed again….
VMware Blog post is here.

vSAN ESA for SAP HANA
Finally….and if you know how restrictive SAP is ….well…you know.
Good timing finding this, as having this conversation later this week.
VMware Blog post is here.

AD DCs – V2V (P2V) or not?
This is a conversation I had 22 years ago, when I first used the VMware P2V tool.
…and guess what? I P2V’d an AD DC (Active Directory Domain Controller)….
…Didn’t work. Still won’t work.
P2V or V2V does allow you to move the VM…just rebuild application servers
(like AD DCs) instead of trying to convert them….
Plus, you modernize your infrastructure at the same time!

A Brief History of ESXi 2001-2025
A short 5 minute read covering the major milestones of ESX and ESXi releases….
Graham Barker’s post is here.

Disable vmnic via CLI
Haven’t done this in a while, but I know my team does during troubleshooting.
A short and direct blog post.
Blog post is here.

HashiCorp now an IBM company
Don’t forget…it’s not Terraform OR Ansible….they both have their job.
HashiCorp Blog post is here.

Synology NFS Mount for Docker Containers
Came across this, and never hurts to see a bunch of options explained.
I’ll review this next time I fire up some containers at home…
Blog post is here.

homelabbers – AMD NUC with 16 threads
Huh….8 real cores 16 threads (no performance or efficiency cores!).
DDR 5600 (128-GB via William Lam) 2 x 64GB DDR5 SODIMM
Dual NICs recognized by ESXi (I expect 8.0 only).
2 x M.2 NVMe PCIe x4 Gen 4 (2280)
a 3rd M.2 NVMe, you can remove the WiFi adapter but you will need to purchase an M.2 A+E adapter so that you can add either an M.2 2242 or 2230 NVMe device.

NC2 on AWS – bring your own gateway
Great take for a great use case.
…abstracting the actual gateway from all the VMs.
Short read, but a good blog post!

Nutanix – Metro Availability for Volume Groups
Huh….a very interesting way to use Nutanix Volumes (iSCSI presentation of disks to VMs or physical servers).
An RPO of 0, with an RTO of ~0.
Then again, maybe I haven’t thought of it much, as many applications (like SQL Always On Availability Groups) take care of this…but at what cost.
Time to dive deeper into this use case (still takes on application clustering, but differently).

Nutanix – New Cloud Native Certification
New NCP-CN (Nutanix Certified Professional – Cloud Native) certification
becomes available April 22.
This is built around the NKP offering (Nutanix Kubernetes Platform), by D2IQ.
Nutanix Next post is here.