VMware Enterprise PKS – 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 2020-01-20

vSphere 6.0 – End of Support March 2020
We all have heard that support is ending….
March is only 2 months away!
This VMware Blog Post will be linked here for the next 2 months….
Here’s a direct link to VMware Product Lifecycle Matrix for products.
Let’s not forget that vSphere 6.5 & 6.7 have end of support for 2021/11/15

Microsoft LDAP Changes
This is an important one!
For all of us who grant vCenter permissions with AD over LDAP…
A change is coming in Microsoft software in March 2020.
This affects lots of software, not just VMware…
If you are using ldap://domain.com:389 in vSphere (or other), please read.
The VMware Blog post highlighting this is here.

CVS 10-year anniversary with WEI
Awesome news. (I’m biased a bit, as I work at WEI.
CVS has recently posted this to their website.
Its a short glimpse into their diversity program, and the have a video made that highlights WEI (a nice 4-minute video), our teams, and what makes WEI special.

Virtual Updates 2020-01-06

vSphere – Where did the name come from?
Light reading to start off 2020…
We all use the term vSphere.
We know it refers to an infrastructure with vCenter & ESXi.
How did it come to be?
This VMware Blog post covers the story of then name vSphere.

Short Week of News
Well, the end of the year has been quiet.
This has got to be the shortest update ever.
At least the first story is fun….

Virtual Updates 2019-11-25

vSphere & Intel JCC, TAA, and MCEPSC/IFU: What You Need to Know
This post is all about CPU vulnerabilities & remediation in vSphere.
This doesn’t tell you what to do, but rather provides options for what you can do. Here this from customers often enough, that these posts are worth referring back to.

VMware Project Pacific – Beta open
Can’t wait for the release?
Get in on this beta.
The announcement of the beta program states it is limited access.
It provides a link to request access.

Virtual Updates 2019-10-14

PuTTY Gets updated
PuTTY is now version 0.73
Still funny that it is not even 1.0 yet….
Here is the change log.

Repointing vCenter to another SSO Domain
There were quite a few situations in vSphere 5.5 to 6.x migrations where this would have been handy. Now in 6.7 the domain-repoint command is available for performing this move.
VMware Blog post covering the steps.

Virtual Updates 2019-09-02

VMworld 2019 US
This was a great event….the most energy of many recent VMworld.
So many announcements (below) drove this.
Project Pacific, Tanzu, Kubernetes (everywhere), & security were huge.
I am so happy to have attended my 13th VMworld, and shared that experience with the WEI team, our customers, and my peers from around the world….
You’ll be hearing the: Build, Run, Manage, Connect, Protect
mantra over and over this year…..
Day 1 Recap (VMware Blog Post)
Day 2 Recap (VMware Blog Post)
Day 3 Recap (VMware Blog Post)
Day 4 Recap (VMware Blog Post)
Chris Wolf’s (VP & CTO) take on VMworld.

Tech Field Day was presenting at VMworld, and they too have uploaded a lot of their presentations.
Intro to Pacific, how Pacific was created, Pacific Architecture, Bitfusion & ML/AI, Bitfusion demo, Bitfusion & vSphere.

An amazing job, in that all the presentations are up and available for viewing. Kudos to the VMworld staff for that.
More importantly, William Lam has made it easy to find them all.
Or you can use VMware’s VMworld On-Demand Video Library to find them.

For those of us in New England, I’ll see you at the Boston VMUG 9/25.
There are 11 events scheduled right now, maybe in your town.

VMware Project Pacific
This is all about ESXi getting an architecture update for native Kubernetes support (and being able to manage via vCenter).
Kubernetes adds Harbor Registry to vSphere.
Kubernetes at an 8% speed increase over bare metal.
Looks like full SDDC support too (vSphere, vSAN, NSX) for K8s namespaces.
VMware Blog post here (which also has great links about it).
Frank Denneman chimes in here.
Cormac Hogan chimes in here.

VMware Tanzu
Above and beyond Project Pacific, Tanzu is another major announcement this year from VMworld.
Tanzu Mission Control is for managing ALL your Kubernetes (whatever cloud they happen to be running on).
VMware Blog post here.
Another VMware Blog post here.
A 1.5 minute YouTube video of Ray’s take on Tanzu and what it does.

Virtual Update 2019-04-01

VMware EMPOWER is coming
There are 3 events (listed at the bottom of this post) scheduled for this year.
I am lucky enough to have been named a VMware EMPOWER Ambassador.
There will only be 10 x Ambassadors for each EMPOWER event.
What does this meant???
Anyone (who is a partner) can reach out to me, and chat about this event.
Unsure of whether or not to attend? Not sure if there is value? What would be the best use of my time?
Reach out to me on Twitter @MarkGabbs and we can chat.
Plus, Ambassadors can help you get $100 off registration!

PuTTY has been updated to 0.71
This tool by Simon Tatham has been a standard for many IT pros.
Lots of bug fixes are wrapped up into this release.
I also noted that there is now a PuTTY for Windows on ARM available.
A link to the download page.

VMworld – Dates for Registration, Content Catalog, and more
Any seasoned VMworld Alumni will tell you how important it is to plan your trip to VMworld, and get on the Schedule Builder as soon as possible to lock in the sessions you want to attend.
Came across a post for all the dates related to VMworld.
Early Bird Registration – May 7
Content Catalog – June 8
US Session Builder – July 16
EU Session Builder – September 25
Since this was not a VMware official site, I’d take it with a grain of salt, but the dates look good when compared to previous years timelines.