Virtual Updates 2020-05-11

Best Post from VMware on vSphere 7 with Kubernetes
This comes right from Kit Kolbert, VMware’s VP & CTO of the Cloud Platform Business Unit.
There have been slightly varying messages heard by my clients, and this will be the default page I send them to.
This VMware Blog post explains how Kubernetes IS built into vSphere 7, but that to leverage its full capabilities, you need NSX, and how to get there today with VMware Cloud Foundation.

Azure VMware Solutions
Run VMware infrastructure in Azure?
Looks like its coming, as it is now in Preview….
Microsoft is flexing its muscles here with Windows & SQL Server licensing benefits (can’t fault them for that one).
My big concern here though….is support.
How is Microsoft Azure support going to compete with VMware support (not that VMware support has any advocates out there)?
Here is a Microsoft blog post on this.

VMware Official (not-official) Visio Stencils updated!
Why oh why has VMware NEVER released proper Visio stencils?
I’ve been questions VMware staff for years on this one.
Good thing the community has you covered.
Graham Barker has you covered.
His latest post has the updated VMware Visio stencils based on SDDC (which are used in VVD (VMware Validated Design) documents.

RVTools 4.0.4 Released
The tool we all use to capture the existing vSphere state.
Now with support for vSphere 7 too!
Don’t forget to donate to RobWare if you never have….

VMware Cloud Architecture Toolkit 5.0
Want a copy of this?
This site requires some user info, then the PDF is yours.
Text right from the sight…The VMware Cloud Provider Platform delivers a way for cloud service providers to easily build a multi-tenant public cloud software-defined data center-based architecture, a VMware hybrid cloud-enabled solution, with capabilities to meet the unique needs of their customers.

VMware AppVolumes 4 – a Walkthrough
New to the VMware Horizon EUC stack?…
Seasoned AppVolumes 2.x experience, and moving to 4.x?…
Or just new to the AppVolumes?
This is a pretty concise walkthrough of how to build Packages (what we used to call AppStacks), AND how to version them.
No walkthrough on setting up AppVolumes 4 here, but that is pretty easy to install Windows App with intuitive setup.
(Thanks Karl!)

Developers & Tanzu
VMware is still somewhat new to the Kubernetes / Container space.
They have a lot of trust to build with a large community.
They now have the Tanzu Developer Center up and running.
I’ll be curious to see the feedback from the community on this.

VMware Flings of Note
vSphere Replication Capacity Planning – if you use vSphere Replication, this will help you understand the network bandwidth being consumed.
VMware Folding@Home – an Appliance that joins the VMware Folding@Home team, to contribute compute power to Covid-19 research.
VMware OS Optimization Tool – automated OS tuning for use in Horizon View, this got updated 4/9/2020

DellEMC PowerStore X released!
Ah, new storage solutions from DellEMC.
This one has a focus on vVols for presentation.
Snapshots from a VM perspective (expected, given its vVols).
Also has FC & iSCSI Block presentation (for VMFS) if you need it.
Take an Interactive Demo of the product here.
Funny thing I noticed….It looks like there is a CVM (Controller VM) on each node….need to explore that a bit more….deviates from VMware vSAN as an SDDC approach, and looks more like a Nutanix solution……

Nutanix CPU Consumption
Josh Odgers at it again….
This time, comparing CPU usage agains vSAN (& VxRail)….
Still, gives a good understanding of how Nutanix consumes CPU.

Nutanix Network Traffic?
Josh Odgers ….again….
Doing a Nutanix X-Ray analysis of Big Data Imports.
Of course, comparing to vSAN, but I read this, and it showed me the power of using X-Ray to perform consistent testing, and even build my own tests if I don’t trust the default tests that ship with X-Ray.

Nutanix AOS 5.17 being released
Lots of focus on replication, Leap features, and how it presents your clusters Fault Domains.
Find the release notes here.
Remember to be logged in to read the release notes…

Nutanix Move 3.5.0 released
A bit of polish on the GUI, and now supports the following moves….
AWS EC2 to ESXi on Nutanix
ESXi to ESXi on Nutanix (to migrate from old 3-tier to Nutanix)
AWS EC2 to AHV
ESXi to AHV
Hyper-V to AHV
AHV to AWS EC2 (this one kinda surprises me)
Find the release notes here.
Remember to be logged in to read the release notes…

Upcoming Conferences
VMware Empower (partner only) – Virtual! 5/27
Dell Technologies World 2020 – Virtual! TBD
Cisco Live! – Virtual! 6/2 – 6/3
VeeamOn – Virtual! 6/17-6/18
HPE Discover – Virtual! TBD
Nutanix .NEXT – irtual! 6/29 – 7/2
Microsoft Inspire – Virtual! TBD
VMworld 2020 – Virtual! 9/28-9/31