Virtual Updates 2019-08-19

VMworld 2019 US starts next week
VMworld is back in San Francisco.
My first of many VMworld events (this year makes my 13th showing) was in San Francisco.
Looking forward to catching up with my peers, validating that WEI is doing right by our customers, and getting a glimpse of whatever else I can find to make our day to day lives in IT easier….and with the Update 3 announcements this past week, I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s next.
OneRepublic is the band for the Wednesday VMworld Party.
Don’t forget to download the VMworld 2019 app on your mobile!

vSphere 6.0 End of Support
This is coming on March 12, 2020.
That is only 7 months away folks!
Here is a link to the latest (Aug 1 2019) Product Lifecycle Matrix.

VMware HCX – what’s the big deal?
VMworld is coming, and I plan on attending quite a few sessions on this topic.
So what is HCX, and why do we care?
It is essentially a way to get connectivity between on-prem and cloud environments that are using vSphere.
It allows you to move VMs between the on-prem and cloud (bidirectional).
A short synopsis is written up here that really keeps it simple.

vSphere 6.7 Update 3
Dynamic DNS support (for Windows DNS).
AMD EPYC Gen2 support.
Multi GPU support for VMs.
Short post here announced it, but one of the inclusions now is CNS (Cloud Native Storage) which was not something I saw till later…this post about it, and excited to be at VMworld next week to learn more.
…and anyone with vSphere Standard licensing or better is entitled to CNA.

VMware vSAN 6.7 update 3 & new Enterprise Plus Edition
This got announced last week, and I’m surprised it wasn’t held back for VMworld.
The Enterprise Plus license of vSAN entitles you to vROPs Advanced, but I’m not sure if that would cover the hosts as well….have to dig into this.
The biggest addition I see is the Cloud Native Apps (persistent storage too).
A 30-minute YouTube video explores the new features.
A 6 minute YouTube video focuses only on CNA.

VMware Octant
So this will map the objects running in Kubernetes clusters.
Here is short blog post about it, that has the links to GitHub for Octanct.

VMware IDM (Identity Manager) is now Workspace ONE Access
More renaming of products….arrrrgggghh.
Even so, it might be appropriately named now.
This VMware Blog post from Brian Madden covers it.

VMware acquires Veriflow
Another acquisition….
Caught this announcement of it, and read a bit.
Another extension of the VMware Networking Business Unit, with Veriflow focussed on Network Monitoring, across public & private clouds.
This will apparently be extending vRNI (vRealize Network Insight) in the future.

A Beer Drinker’s Guide to SAML
The title of this alone says to share….
With all the VMware Workspace ONE going on with our customers, SAML has been heard over and over again.
What I love in this post, is how everyone should be able to understand what it is and what it does for you.
(Great Job Greg Seador!)

VMware Flings
Enterprise OpenShift as a Service on Cloud Automation Services
This Fling enables a cloud admin to download the package, integrate with Cloud Assembly and other Infrastructure services and be able to provide an “OpenShift Cluster as a Service” offering.

Nutanix AOS 5.10.6 and 5.11 released
Why the two releases?
5.10.6 follows the LTS release train.
5.11 is the STS release.
Regardless of which path you choose to stay on (or change to), don’t forget to upgrade Prism Central first.
Release notes for 5.10.6 are here.
Release notes for 5.11 are here.

Nutanix Prism Central 5.10.6 and 5.11 released
Remember, Prism Central can be upgraded regardless of your LTS or STS preference….(and don’t forget to upgrade Prism Central first).
Release notes are here.

Nutanix Calm 2.7.0 & 2.7.1 released
Why 2 releases?
Calm 2.7.0 is for AOS / Prism Central 5.10.6
Calm 2.7.1 is for AOS / Prism Central 5.11
Release notes for 2.7.0 are here.
Release notes for 2.7.1 are here.

Nutanix Files Analytics 2.0 released
This looks really cool.
A short port is what I saw, and am looking forward to giving this a spin.

Upcoming Conferences
VMworld 2019 US – San Francisco, CA 8/26-8/29
Microsoft Ignite – Orlando, FL 10/4-10/8
VMworld 2019 EMEA – Barcelona, Spain 11/4-11/7
AWS re:Invent – Las Vegas, NV 11/25-11/28
VeeamOn – Las Vegas, NV 5/4 – 5/6 (2020)