vRealize Network Insight – Gabbs' Random Thoughts

Virtual Updates 2020-11-30

VMware vExpert applications are open!!!
Already a vExpert? Looking to become one for the first time?
(if you are not confident and want some assistance, there ARE a group of vExperts with vExpert PRO willing to help you through the process.
All must go through the application process,
which is currently open until January 9, 2021.
vExpert Blog Post is here.

AWS re:Invent – Starts today for 3 weeks
AWS re:Invent is THIS week, online, and free.
Starting today, 2020-11-30, and running till 2020-12-18,
this event is now a 3-week long online event.
Pretty different schedule versus the one week in Vegas it has been.
Want to attend?
Register for AWS re:Invent here.

VMware Vulnerabilities – Critical
Affects ESXi, VM Workstation, & Fusion (so not vCenter?)
VMware Advisory Post 2020-0026 here.

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.

Virtual Updates 2020-04-13

This week is a bit light.
I spent so much time these past 2 weeks reading the vSphere 7 documentation, rebuilding the classroom to run vSphere 7 (and doing all the patching of the Windows OS), and updating process documentation, that I missed keeping up on this post.

vSphere 7 – Released
OK, so there are a lot of things on this one note.
I’ll have a collection once you click “read more” on this post.
I’ll link the release notes here, but the collective of posts and informative notes will be linked as a collection below.
I’ve read through the 3500 pages of documentation already.
Lots of good information in there.
I have prepped a vSphere 7 What’s New that I plan on delivering to folks who would like to hear it.

Remote Access, VPN, VDI, or EUC
Lot of conversations about this these past few weeks.
I am doing a session on this today.
Thought I’d share some really good posts around that.
Brian Madden post on VMware’s Blog Site on VDI or VPN, what that means, and the considerations you should take, depending on your partners.
VMware has a Steps to Enable a Remote Workforce with Workspace ONE
This post gives the 10,000 foot view of the process of standing up Workspace ONE.

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 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 Updates 2019-06-24

VMware Tools Vulnerability
So vulnerabilities are everywhere, but this one should be easy to resolve.
The recommendation is to get up to VMware Tools 10.3.10
With VMware Tools updates available separately from ESXi versions, this should be pretty easy to resolve.
If you use the option in the VM to auto-update tools, a reboot of the VM should bet that done for you.
Cool that this script gives you some PowerCLI scripts to help you parse your list of VMs and update VMware Tools with a no reboot option.
Linux VMs are NOT affected (and should be using Open-VM-Tools anyway).

VTUG (Virtualization Technology User Group) – The Last Event
I have been a member of this group for many years now, and it is sad to see this group having its last event.
I am biased, of course, as I have been involved for years….
Those of us in New England are lucky…between VTUG, VMUG, and other Virtualization User Groups in the area, we have had the opportunity to have at least 12-24 events a year where we can network with peers, and continue our learning while contributing to the community.
If you have the time, the final VTUG Summer Slam is July 18, 2019.
It would be great to see this event have the sendoff it deserves…..

AWS:reInforce in Boston, MA this week
Really interested in heading out to this.
Hopefully, I don’t get distracted away from the event….

Virtual Update 2019-04-29

VMware EMPOWER review
This was a great event.
Meeting my peers from around the world.
Validating that the company I work for, WEI, is focusing on the right things for our customers from the VMware point of view, as well as what my peers are doing.
The NDA insights received on many things, products and vision….
Working with the leadership at VMware during the event.
Working with the VMware Education team at the event.
I really wish that all customers could see what the partners do during this VMware EMPOWER event, and how much effort goes into it.
Yes, it is a “Partner-Only” version of VMworld, but what the partners get from this event benefits our customers so much. Our recommendations to our customers, our designs, implementations, and other choices we offer to customers is heavily influenced from these types of events.
Other than the networking with peers, the best benefit of this event for us partners, is that the REAL experts are right there for us to engage with.
I wish this was an event all partners could attend every 3 months……

Conferences Coming Up
This week is DellEMC World.
Next week is both Nutanix Next & RedHat Summit
Should be quite a bit of news from those events in the next two weeks….