Nutanix – Page 2 – Gabbs' Random Thoughts

Virtual Updates 2020-03-02

Not a lot of updates this week.
VMware updates will be plenty in the next update, after the 3/10 announcement coming from VMware….

Nutanix Global Tech Summit 2020
Just got back from a week in Las Vegas for this event.
I consider myself lucky to have gone to this event, as only a handful of Partners get the invite to attend.
Passed the NCSX (Nutanix Certified Sales eXpert) in person defense.
Never thought I would stress over a sales exam….
Then all the learning and sharing. What a great week.
Really gets me excited to see the upcoming things this year will bring.
(will share as I can, when I can)

Virtual Updates 2020-02-17

VMware Licensing Change – Per CPU and Per Core
VMware is pushing out a change on how it licenses ESXi.
We are all familiar with the per CPU Socket model that has been in existence for some time (since the release of ESXi 1.x).
Well, now they are moving to per CPU with a max of 32-cores.
While that may not impact you right now, as CPU core counts go up, this will be something you have to deal with…maybe the next year or two.
What happens when you get a 36-core CPU? you will need 2 x CPU licenses to run ESXi on that.
Why don’t they just change their licensing to strictly be per core?
I don’t know…they didn’t ask me.
I truly believe if they want to start addressing cores, then just go straight core, and forget the CPU socket count. They already have figured out how much per core licensing would cost (~$118 or so, given the cost of ESXi Enterprise Plus per CPU socket licensing). Why not just do per core then?
With a mix of CPU socket and Core Count, I can see the nightmare coming….just like the vRAM Tax fiasco of the vSphere 5.0 release.
Remember that?
Having to do different designs for each solution to figure out the most cost effective way to deliver a mix of CPU and memory and determining how many hosts in each too.
I have no problem changing the licensing from CPU Socket to core, if that’s what you want to do.
I do have a problem with keep CPU Socket licensing, and limiting the number of cores to 32 per socket. Adding unnecessary design constraints to something in this manner will be a pain….again, not today, but next year & forward. If you run the new AMD chips (with 64-cores), you now have twice the expense to run ESXi on it…..
This happens on April 2, 2020.
Read the VMware News Post here.

Intel – another CPU vulnerability
Got another one to be aware of now.
Bob Plankers put out a post about these new vulnerabilities.
Nothing for us to do yet, as Intel hasn’t shipped a code-fix, but as long as you are patching your vSphere environment, you should be covered.

Virtual Updates 2020-02-03

Microsoft LDAP Changes…cont
This is an important one, and it was first highlighted here 2 weeks ago.
The VMware Blog post highlighting this is here.
so I’ve done some of the changes recommended…

vSphere Certificates Expiry
Short version?
VMware electronically signs software release as they come out.
Software released recently have had 2 certificates….an old and a new.
The old certificate expires 12/31/2019
The new certificate expires 6/2037
This impacts your upgrade path, and given that there is still quite a bit of vSphere 6.0 out there about to be upgraded, you may hit this snag.
This means to go from vSphere 6.0 to 6.7, you may have to do a multiple-step upgrade, even though you can infer that an inlace upgrade is supported.
VMware Blog post is here.

Virtual Updates 2019-11-11

Conferences…..
VMworld 2019 Europe has wrapped up this past week.
So has MS Ignite 2019.
Lots of good announcements, some of the ones I found most exciting are below…..
AWS re:Invent 2019 is coming up in a few weeks!
A Veeam online event is next week….

VMworld -Security, Project Pacific & Project Tanzu
Was able to find some pretty good summaries of these from VMworld.
(sorry that they are embedded in Twitter, but these are all short & sweet)
Tanzu Mission Control in 82 seconds
Project Pacific in 97 seconds
NSX Intelligence in 72 seconds
NSX + AppDefense + Carbon Black in 102 seconds
Workspace ONE + Carbon Black in 132 seconds
…and of course, William Lam has already posted his VMworld 2019 EU direct playback & download URLs for all VMworld sessions

vCenter / Skyline – Upgrade Checker & Validation
Skyline had a VMware Blog post on this.
VMworld Europe sessions highlighted this within vCenter.
Software Interoperability checks to be performed in vCenter /Skyline.
Upgrades processes (when you have multiple products) & sequence provided.
To me, this means less time spent int he VMware Interoperability Matrix, and less risk in performing updates / upgrades.
Can’t wait to see that feature become reality.
Even still…..we’ll have to upgrade the old way to get to a point where these checks and validations are done for us….THEN the NEXT upgrade will be easier.

vROPs – Expiring Certificates
Saw this in my inbox this week. First I’ve heard about it….
Replace expired internal certificate in vROPs 6.3 & later
Sounds like anyone who’s deployed vROPs should check this out….
Apparently, the certificates expire on 11/19/19?
Simple check and fix in the linked VMware KB article.
This could be for things deployed as late as 8.0 (possibly)?

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 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….

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).