Technology – Page 20 – Gabbs' Random Thoughts

Virtual Update 2019-01-21

VTUG Winter Warmer 2019
I am sure people are looking forward to this event!
Thursday, January 24 2019
Gillette Stadium, 1 Patriot Place, Foxboro, MA
Register Here!B

Operationalizing VMware vSAN – free book
Hopefully this is still available for you all when you read this (it was available for download still the morning I posted).
This 90 pager covers considerations for staff, process, and tools to own the vSAN solution.
Also linked on that page is NSX day 2 operations.
Get them while you can!

GitHub allows free Private Repos
As well as announcing GitHub Enterprise, which combines a few existing products.
I think the move to allow free Private Repos is move I would not have expected after Microsoft purchased GitHub, but it is appreciated (I can imagine many people don’t want their projects public by default).

Virtual Updates 2019-01-07

VTUG Winter Warmer 2019
I am sure people are looking forward to this event!
Thursday, January 24 2019
Gillette Stadium, 1 Patriot Place, Foxboro, MA
Register Here!B

VMware Certifications VCP-2019
VMware had announced last year that they were attempting to have VCP exams (as well as VCAP exams) released on a more predictive schedule.
Karl Childs announced that the new exams are starting to be released.
His post, and release dates are linked here.

Virtual Update 2018-12-24

VTUG Winter Warmer 2019
I am sure people are looking forward to this event!
Thursday, January 24 2019
Gillette Stadium, 1 Patriot Place, Foxboro, MA
Register Here!B

VMware vSAN Cluster Design – Large vs. Small Clusters
The team at WEI doesn’t just have this conversation around vSAN, but with all of the vSphere clusters that we build.
This VMware Docs page is dedicated to providing the options around sizing decisions for a vSAN cluster, discussing performance, scale, fault domains, and why there is no one right answer for everyone.

AWS reInvent
Finding it hard to find the specific reInvent session for replay?
Found someone who made it easy to search through the entirety.
Its a bit of an overwhelming list, but using Control+F is much easier this way.

Virtual Update 2018-12-10

VTUG Winter Warmer 2019
I am sure people are looking forward to this event!
Thursday, January 24 2019
Gillette Stadium, 1 Patriot Place, Foxboro, MA
Register Here!

Boston VMUG
A meeting in December! Cool (hahahaha).
OK, so get registered here.
Dec 13, 2018 from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM, and is the final 2018 event for the Boston VMUG.

AWS reInvent & Nutanix .NEXT London
Both conferences were kicked off two weeks ago.
I was expecting cool things in both, but some of the Nutanix announcements really got me excited. More on that below….

Virtual Update 2018-11-26

…and with AWS reInvent going on this week, I’ll be looking forward to some interesting announcements and updates…..

VTUG Winter Warmer 2019
I am sure people are looking forward to this event!
Thursday, January 24 2019
Gillette Stadium, 1 Patriot Place, Foxboro, MA
Register Here!

Boston VMUG
A meeting in December! Cool (hahahaha).
OK, so get registered here.
Dec 13, 2018 from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM, and is the final 2018 event for the Boston VMUG.

vSphere 6.7 Update 1
I have been playing with this release for over a month now, and it has treated me pretty well (minus the fact that during the first month, my Veeam based backups didn’t work without a modification to the registry).
I’ve been playing with VMware View, vSAN, vROPs, SRM, and some additional 3rd party products, all with great success.
The HTML5 is fully featured, and I have yet to find anything to complain about in its functionality.

Virtual Update 2018-11-12

VTUG Winter Warmer 2019
I am sure people are looking forward to this event!
Thursday, January 24 2019
Gillette Stadium, 1 Patriot Place, Foxboro, MA
Register Here!

vSphere Platinum
I already have Enterprise Plus licensing, so why would I need this?
The inclusion of AppDefense.
AppDefense focuses on whitelisting applications “normal” behavior, and helps keep a good focus on the internal security practices.

Plus, there are some cost savings….
You can get a 50% discount on the upgrade to Platinum
You can get up to 65% discount on vROPs upgrades
You can get $10,000 VMware on AWS credits.
Let me know if you need to review the details of this in detail.

…and to coincide with this, the vCloud Suite (which includes vRealize Suite and vSphere Enterprise Plus) now has a Platinum offering as well!

Virtual Update 2018-10-29

VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 RELEASED!
So many of us have been looking forward to this release.
The full release notes are here.
A fully functional HTML5 client.
Simplified vCenter HA (not the VMware cluster HA)
Easier ways to add multiple hosts to clusters
Easier ways to configure vSAN (not that it was hard before)
Here are a few of my favorite highlights…

vCenter / ESXi Monitor Tab –> Health
This works with the VMware CEIP program.
I mentioned in my last post that CEIP recommendations will be changed to Recommended, but it is up to you. I think that this new Health section will be absolutely worth it!

GUI Certificate Management for 6.7 Update 1
This has been here since version 6.7 was released, I just happened to find it now.
Anyone like using the CLI Cert Tool? Didn’t think so.
This appears to be a full replacement for that, in the VAMI GUI.

VCSA Converge Tool.
Want to point move your vCenter from one SSO domain to another?
Finally able to do that!
Have an external PSC that is no longer needed?
Since 6.7, embedded PSC allows for linked mode.
In 6.0 & 6.5, if you wanted linked mode, your PSC needed to be external.
You’ll find this on the 6.7 U1 vCenter ISO, here:
/VCSA-Converge-CLI/

…and my favorite: A Dark Theme!

here is a list of documentation around the 6.7 Update 1 release
vCenter Release Notes
ESXi Release Notes
vSAN Release Notes