Gabbs' Random Thoughts – Page 15 – Finding a Way To Fill The Web

Virtual Updates 2020-10-19

This post is a bit light….
Spent a lot of time reviewing vSphere 7 Update 1, and updating my documentation around it. Validating upgrades, installs, and prepping for getting vSphere with Tanzu going on a vDS.
Then ESXi on ARM was released….another source of my time drain these past 2 weeks….and I haven’t even installed it yet!

vSphere 7 Update 1 Released!!!
Now that SP1 has been released….
vSphere with Tanzu (the new naming) is now available….and you DON’T need to run VMware VCF to get it. Short VMware Blog Post here highlighting how to get the eval license key….Here is a link to the getting started docs for Tanzu.
Don’t forget that you now need to be aware of vCLS (Blog Post).
…More on the vCLS from Duncan Epping on his blog.
VMware Blog post is here.
vCenter Release Notes are here.
ESXi Release Notes are here.

ESXi on ARM – VMware Fling
Flings usually get thrown in the bottom of the page each post.
This one….this is cool.
I can now take my Raspberry Pi 4 systems, and install ESXi on them.
The use cases? Quite a few. Folks have already been making vSAN Witness hosts for their 2 node vSAN clusters.
Read up on the ESXi on ARM fling, via VirtuallyGhetto, or VMware Blog.
Get to the fling easily here.
Here is the first walkthrough install post I found.

Virtual Updates 2020-10-05

vSphere Clustering Service (vCLS)
With vSphere 7 update 1, you’ll need to be aware of this.
vCLS, in short, is 3 x VMs that manage and orchestrate DRS for you.
VMware is removing the dependency on vCenter for DRS operations.
Looks like Agent VM settings need to be revisited…..
VMware Blog post is here.

Tanzu Mission Control expanding Policy based Management
It is all about security, and policy definition nowadays.
Define your polices and apply to your workloads.
VMware Blog post is here.

VMworld Announcement Summaries
My summary is short.
Lots of announcements, but very few focused on vSphere itself.
Networking, Edge, Kubernetes, ….those were the big items this year.
SASE (Secure Access, Service Edge), if you haven’t heard it yet is called out a lot.
Here is the VMworld Announcement Summary
Here is the Media Kit link covering all announcements.
Here is a summary of EUC Announcements, by Shawn Bass.

Virtual Updates 2020-09-21

Nutanix .NEXT – content still available!
Nutanix .NEXT is done, and nicely summarize here.
Want access to all the content?
No problem….all the content is still available to continue learning!

VMworld is coming up!
Don’t forget….free to attend, just get registered.
(Yes, there is a premier pass for $299 for access to things like INSTRUCTOR led Hands on Labs.
September 29 & 30 (for USA).

Virtual Updates 2020-09-07

Such a quiet two weeks.
Given I focus a lot on VMware & Nutanix, and the conferences coming up…no surprise there. I expect that to change as these conferences get held this month.

Nutanix .NEXT is this week!
Nutanix .NEXT registration is also free!
Jump in, and spend Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday of this week.
(Thursday is Partner Exchange, meaning for Partners of Nutanix)

VMworld is 3 weeks away!!!
….and it is free as well!
(there is a Premier Pass, which gets you access to a few additional talks).
Get registered here.

Make SURE you have reserved a host for HA
Duncan Epping covers a topic that is important.
Ever had a vSphere HA event (losing a host) effect VM performance?
Probably your own fault.
You never changed this value to 0%
Sounds backwards, but watch this 1 minute video on how to guarantee the performance your cluster was designed for.

Virtual Updates 2020-08-24

vRealize / vCloud Suite – 50% off upgrades
Not yet running vROPs and vRealize Log Insight?
This might be a cost effective way to get them.
VMware Blog post is here.

VMware Workstation 16 & Fusion 12 announced
While not available just yet, these new versions now have…
… a free version!
Free for Personal use only, license required for Commercial use.
Paid for license? now you are licensed for 3 devices!
(you can mix & match Workstation and Fusion)
Lots of new features…like Kind support out of the box.
I’d expect we see these in September….
VMware Blog post is here.

Virtual Updates 2020-08-10

Run Kubernetes for Free – the open source way
Why post this here, when I’m all for the commercial offerings to provide a Kubernetes platform for the enterprise?
Because this 40-minute video from VMware Code goes into all the different tools and packages required to do this the open source way.
Yes, it starts with the why of Kubernetes, but it gets good quick.
….and at around the 30 minute mark, they start to focus on the Tanzu products.
After watching this, I’ll easily take the commercial offerings, and save the time in managing all the different pieces through their lifecycles and dependencies.

vSphere 7 Performance Best Practices
The PDF is now available!
(since May 29th…..missed it)
VMware Blog Post is here.

vSphere 7 DRS – Load Balancing Performance
Now available!
Noticed this post from Frank Denneman
Here is a direct link to the paper.

Virtual Updates 2020-07-20

VMworld Registration & Content Catalog – now live
VMware is holding 1 event this year for VMworld.
Registration is free.
There is a paid option for a couple of perks.
The content catalog (sessions list) is now available.

vSphere with Kubernetes – for evaluation?
Sure.
William Lam, a pretty good source, lays it out for us.
His recent blog post will help a lot.
Customers want to skip the NSX-T piece, and just use Calico for the networking part of the vSphere with Kubernetes deployment.
Can’t …. (Just ask William Lam).
vSphere w/K8s requires NSX-T ….

vSphere 7 Performance Best Practices
The PDF is now available!
(since May 29th…..missed it)
VMware Blog Post is here.