Virtual Updates 2020-09-21

Nutanix .NEXT – content still available!
Nutanix .NEXT is done, and nicely summarize here.
Want access to all the content?
No problem….all the content is still available to continue learning!

VMworld is coming up!
Don’t forget….free to attend, just get registered.
(Yes, there is a premier pass for $299 for access to things like INSTRUCTOR led Hands on Labs.
September 29 & 30 (for USA).

vSphere 7 Update 1 announced
Lots of new features….
Bob Plankers does a 10 minute what’s new YouTube here.
VMware Blog post is here.
Remember vSphere with Kubernetes?
Well, it’s vSphere with Tanzu is now the naming structure.
You’ll also be able to deploy without the full VCF Stack.
Kit Colbert has an announcement here for vSphere with Tanzu.
New licensing around vSphere with Tanzu explained here.

vSAN 7 Update 1 announced
Coming when vSphere 7 Update 1 is released.
Duncan Epping shares the What’s New here.
Lots of new features!

VCF 4.1 releasd
An incremental release, sure.
Now has support for vSphere 7 Update 1, and all those new features.
Can handle VMware Clusters at remote sites.
VMware Blog post is here.

VMware Bitfusion 2.0.2 released
For those running AI / ML workloads, this release has quite a few fixes.
Release Notes are here.

NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi Networks) explained
Why did VMware acquire Avi Networks?
Well the new product name kind of covers it.
This write up, about using it for Load Balancing with Auto Scaling in private or multi-cloud consumption, is well done.
A bit of a longer read, but shows how it can be used, using Horizon as the example.

Using vctl in VMware Fusion
vctl is a command line utility for the Nautilus Container Engine which is now part of VMware Fusion. In English? It lets you work on containers (without actually having containers on your desktop, as they run via Fusion).
Cormac Hogan shows how to use the vctl utility.

Using Kind in VMware Fusion
Builiding upon the vctl command, Cormac Hogan walks a user through
VMware Fusion 12, Using Kind to build Kubernetes clusters in containers on your desktop machine.
Same works for Workstation 16.

VDI Calculator Updated – by Andre Leibovici
Recently updated to use an HTML5 web page (no more JAVA).
This VDI Calculator is accepted by many as a solid sizer.
I’ve run some basic input tests, and agree with its results.
Just remember….it doesn’t add the +1 to your design.
It gives you the raw numbers needed to run your workload, only.

Nutanix .NEXT – content still available!
Nutanix .NEXT is done, and nicely summarize here.
Want access to all the content?
No problem….all the content is still available to continue learning!

Nutanix AOS – now with Blockstore
What’s Blockstore?
One of the additional to AOS 5.18, is Blockstore and SPDK.
In short….upgrading to AOS 5.18 will improve the performance of your existing Nutanix Clusters.
Nutanix Blog post is here for a short 2 minute read.

Nutanix Calm as a Service
Don’t have Nutanix in your environment, but like Calm’s capability’s in automation & lifecycle management across public & private clouds?
Early access is now available to Xi Calm
(Xi is Nutanix’s cloud offering for their products)
Nutanix Blog post is here.

Upcoming Conferences
VMworld 2020 – Virtual! 9/28-9/31