vRealize Automation – Gabbs' Random Thoughts

Virtual Updates 2020-03-16

VMware GA Announcements…
There are so many good announcements, but they are broken up into quite a few sections.
If all you want is the news release summarizing everything….here you go.

Project Pacific – now becoming vSphere 7
Want to see the replay of the 3/10 announcements….
Here it is.
Frank Denneman did an amazing post this week on how Kubernetes workloads will be placed on a VMware Cluster, how DRS works with this, and how the workflow of the workload being deployed.
A great read.
A different post on The Medium goes into the technical overview.
Reading both of these articles will set you up for a much better understanding of what bringing Project Pacific to vSphere is about.
And remember…VMs can be defined too with Project Pacific…
I prefer this mind-map found on VMware’s site, which has all the new features laid out, and links to videos about those features.

VMware Tanzu
Tanzu was announced at VMworld as the Multi-Cloud Multi-Cluster Kubernetes management and deployment tool.
There is a couple of VMware HOL on this….
HOL-2032-01-CNA – VMware Tanzu Mission Control
HOL-2032-91-CNA – VMware Tanzu Mission Control Simulation
Recommend you give it a go…2 hours well invested.
A few videos I cam across that cover some of its uses….
IAM (Identity & Access Management) Control with Tanzu Mission Control
Container Registry Management with Tanzu Mission Control
Integrating AWS accounts with Tanzu Mission Control
You can see where Tanzu is going…..

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 2019-10-28

VMworld 2019 – Barcelona
Can’t wait to hear all the news from this next week!
With all the vRealize Suite 8 components released this past week…
I expect we can hear more about vSphere’s next release…

VMware Snapshot problems – Again!
I first came across this from a post on The Register.
Windows 2019 on vSphere 6.5 & 6.7 has quiesce issues….
This reminds me of the CBT bug from vSphere 6.0.
This VMware KB does not inspire me with confidence (recommends turning off App Quiesce OR to convert from GPT disks to MBR disks)…
I hope I’m just reading old news….

Sudo Flaw! – patch your distributions!
Found an article calling this out on thehackernews.com.
It summarizes how to use sudo without proper authorization or passwords.
It shows how to exploit it.
It states that all sudo versions prior to 1.8.28 are affected
(1.8.28 was released 10/14/2019)

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 2019-04-15

VMware EMPOWER is coming
Well, VMware Empower in Atlanta is this week.
I’m sure I’ll get a peek into some NDA futures, as well as information that I can share when I update this in two weeks…..

VMware software updates!
vCenter gets to 6.7 U2
ESXi gets to 6.7 u2
vROPs gets to 7.5
vRLI gets to 4.8
vRA gets to 7.6
vRO gets to 7.6
vRB gets to 7.6
vRLCM gets to 2.1
Updates to the vSphere ROBO edition
Details below

VMware VCP-NV 2019 (Network Virtualization)
The new cert is out, and for those of you who hold an existing VCP-NV, most of you will be able to update your cert to the current rev by attending an on-demand training videos (or you can take the test).
Follow the link, and check your upgrade path.

New Intel Chips / DIMMs / 100-GbE NICs
I don’t focus on hardware much, but I saw this and it sparked some interest.
This article caught my eye.
New Intel CPUs with 56 cores each (112 if you count HT).
Optane Persistent DIMMs up to 512-GB each.
…and a 100-GbE NIC….with a heatsink? (not seen that on a NIC before).

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.