Virtual Updates 2020-08-24

vRealize / vCloud Suite – 50% off upgrades
Not yet running vROPs and vRealize Log Insight?
This might be a cost effective way to get them.
VMware Blog post is here.

VMware Workstation 16 & Fusion 12 announced
While not available just yet, these new versions now have…
… a free version!
Free for Personal use only, license required for Commercial use.
Paid for license? now you are licensed for 3 devices!
(you can mix & match Workstation and Fusion)
Lots of new features…like Kind support out of the box.
I’d expect we see these in September….
VMware Blog post is here.

VMware Horizon View 8 (or 2006)- released
Note the name change…. Horizon View 2006 (year month naming).
Regardless there have been quite a few updates to Horizon View.
Release notes are here.
VMware Blog post is here. (longer than most posts)
Great summary by Kevin Leclaire on the new Horizon 8 changes.
New admin console.
No more security servers.
No more Composer (Linked-Clones)….Instant Clones for all!

Horizon Validated Peripherals
Just found this myself this past week.
Never knew this existed…..
VMware’s Page of Validated Peripherals for Horizon View

VMware DEM (Dynamic Environment Manager) – license change
With Horizon 8 released, Personna Manager is deprecated.
DEM is now given to all Horizon License levels…..
Problem is then now have 2 tiers of DEM….standard and enterprise.
I see the call out that enterprise adds “Elevated Tasks”.
Still, nice to see this be available to all Horizon Users.
Release Notes are here.
Walkthrough by Jesper Alberts is here.

Modernizing VDI for a new Horizon View
With the latest release of Horizon, VMware Tech Zone has a nice posted document covering 2 main components of the solution….View & DEM.
How to build a test environment, and the considerations (and assumptions) about your Windows desktops.
A good look into what EUC experts thing about each time they architect.
Not a short read at all, gut good content.

VMware NSX-V 6.4.8 released
Mainly, release quickly to resolve issues with 6.4.7 which had a bug.
Release Notes are here.

VMware NSX-T 3.0 setup layer 3 connectivity
First time I have run across this author, and I’m impressed.
Great write up discussing how to connect 2 vSphere environments with NSX-T, the config he used, the nuances between overlay & VLAN, well….the documentation he wrote is great.
Gives people an understanding of why NSX-T takes time, as you have to figure all these requirements out for that use case.

VMware vROPs 8.2 – announced
Lots of little things, but some of the integrations with vRNI, and APM look interesting.
VMware Blog post is here.

VMware Flings of Note
UAG Deployment Utility – A GUI tool for Windows & macOS to deploy UAGs.
Demo Appliance for TKG (Tanzu Kubernetes Grid) – easy to deploy/test TKG

Nutanix Clusters on AWS – now available
Run a Nutanix Cluster in AWS?
Sure….no problem.
Lots of reasons this is an option for people.
Nutanix Blog post is here.

Public Cloud Challenges
A series of posts from Josh Odgers of Nutanix.
While he does compare against comptetitors, I read it for the “how Nutanix operates in the Public Cloud.”
So far, 9 posts in this series….
Part 1: Network Performance
Part 2: TCO/ROI & Storage Capacity
Part 3: TCO/ROI & Storage Capacity at Scale
Part 4: Data Efficiency Technologies & Resiliency Considerations
Part 5: Storage Device Failures & Resiliency implications
Part 6: Bare Metal Instance Failures
Part 7 – Storage I/O path and the Resiliency Implications
Part 8 – Scaling Storage and Operational Implications
Part 9 – Enhanced Capacity Uncompromising Performance

Getting Things Done – Time Management
An intersting post.
How to utilize the tools you have, to make life easier, reclaim some time, and really….this is all about Time Management (being efficient with your time is key, and is a hard skill to learn).
This post from Jeffrey Kusters is an example of using Outlook to help orchestrate some of the workflow in his life as CTO.

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