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.
Kubernetes Academy
With VMware’s focus on Kubernetes, this will be a HUGE benefit to all the VMware / vSphere Admins out there.
A set of online courses that get you comfortable (not become an expert) with Kubernetes if you have not already been involved.
I believe this is the first of VMware’s efforts to show some ‘love’ to the community. I can’t imagine all developers now magically ‘love’ VMware after the acquisitions, but if VMware can show support of the existing community, and help to empower others…..well, this could be the first step of VMware showing that they can contribute to the community and foster adoption / training / contributions, and maybe even get some ‘love’ back from the existing developer community.
(long road ahead VMware…..do what is right amongst the community)
Join here, and start YOUR journey.
Numa.af
A new site run by Frank Denneman to focus on NUMA.
Go here and watch the videos, read the posts.
ALL about how VM performance is tied to the VMs size, and the underlying hardware supporting that VM (as far as CPU / Memory & NUMA is concerned).
No better author of this site, so use this as the definitive word of NUMA.
VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 3 Released
Well, my first touch on this is issue free.
Upgraded my lab. Check.
Deployed net new. Check.
Updating the workshop environment to be able to handle the next class is my next preparatory step.
Release notes for vSphere 6.7 u3 are here.
Release notes for ESXi 6.7 u3 are here.
Cormac Hogan’s (really long) view on vSAN 6.7 u3.
VMware vSphere 7.0 – expecting it
Well, I didn’t hear explicitly that vSphere 7.0 is coming, but you can infer from all the announcements around Project Pacific that it will be coming.
When? No idea.
For now, I’ll take the new features in 6.7 U3 and ingest those new features.
Looking forward to the new DRS 2.0 (not sure if that’s its real name).
It will help me prep for 7.0, but in the meantime, all we can do is wait…..
VMware AppDefense
So AppDefense has been out for a year under the VMware name (wow…a year already) with vSphere Platinum.
I always find myself articulating the differences AND the complimentary functions between AppDefense & NSX as the products do very different things to protect and secure your apps.
I found a short 13 minute video that explains AppDefense beautifully.
I’d be surprised if this isn’t added to half our install base by next year…especially given the benefit at such a low cost.
VMware vROPs (vRealize Operations Manager) 8.0 announced
This will be coming later in 2019.
Native AWS & Azure integrations.
CloudHealth Management pack.
VMC on AWS Management Pack.
Bi-Directional vROPs – vRA support.
Improvements on the cutover from EndPoint agents to Telegraf.
Ability to run an HA vROPs across sites.
Better planning scenarios.
Better costing (bye bye vRealize Business)
…and…it’ll be offered as service via VMware Cloud.
VMware Blog post here.
VMware vRA (vRealize Automation) 8.0 announced
Another complete overhaul.
HTML 5.
GitHub integration.
VMware Blog post here.
VMware vRLCM 8.0 announced
Huge increment in version # to align with the vRealize Suite.
VMware Blog post is here.
Release Notes are here.
VMware vRNI (vRealize Network Insight) 4.2 released
New data sources (growing quickly!)
A 1-hour 15-minute YouTube video reviewing the new features is here.
Release Notes are here.
VMware vRNI (vRealize Network Insight) 5.0 announced
Extending vRNI to the branch office.
VeloCloud (SD-WAN) support.
VMware Blog post here.
VMware NSX-T 2.5 Released
To much to summarize here…..
VMware Blog post here.
VMware Workspace ONE – What’s New
Building upon Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub, Workspace ONE is built around a modern workforce.
This VMware blog post goes into modern management, multi-cloud VDI, and security.
These will be great features as the next releases are out.
VMware PowerCLI 11.4.0 Released
vSAN 6.7 u3, View 7.9, HCX, & storage cmdlets are the focus.
Just run Update-Module VMware.PowerCLI
VMware Blog post here.
The current Change Log is here.
VMware vCloud Director 10.0 released
Service providers rejoice!
Lots of new features.
Full HTML5 functionality.
NSX-T support.
VMware Blog post here.
Release Notes not yet available.
VMware Enterprise PKS 1.5 released
Seems that this gets updates quite frequently.
With 1.5 released on 8/20, it got a lot of attention at VMworld.
Release notes are here.
4 x ESXi server on 1 host – no nesting ESXi
This is cool.
I see the future uses of this.
Take 2 minutes to read Chris Wolf’s post and just image what this COULD do for you.
VMware Acquires Carbon Black
You can easily see the reason for this….
Integration into AppDefense, Integration into NSX….
Not sure which of these will happen, but my bet is you’ll see integration into both, with AppDefense the easiest and quickest integration.
VMware Press Release here.
Carbon Black President & CEO post here.
See the Security Keynote (next paragraph) to see how it’s integrating.
VMware Acquires Intrinsic
Another security focused acquisition, but his is around serverless.
This got quite a bit of attention in the Security Keynote.
Its a 1 hour video, but it worth your time.
VMware Acquires Pivotal Software
With Enterprise PKS and now Pivotal, and the integrations from Project Pacific, VMware has made it pretty clear that they are all about Kubernetes.
VMware Press Release here.
Upcoming Conferences
Boston VMUG – Boston, MA 9/25
Microsoft Ignite – Orlando, FL 10/4-10/8
VMworld 2019 EMEA – Barcelona, Spain 11/4-11/7
AWS re:Invent – Las Vegas, NV 12/2-12/6
VeeamOn – Las Vegas, NV 5/4 – 5/6 (2020)
VMworld 2020 – San Francisco, CA 8/30-9/3