Virtual Updates 2021-02-08

Win a seat on SpaceX Dragon All Civilian flight!
Want to go to space, but missed out on being an astronaut? Me too.
SpaceX has partnered with others to support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The mission is funded by Jared Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4.
How to get a ticket in this lottery? Full details at Inspiration4.
Where I learned about it.

VMware announces Conference Dates for 2021
Not just VMworld, but also
CloudLIVE: May 12-13, 2021
VMware Carbon Black Connect: June 3, 2021 
SpringOne: September 1-2, 2021 
VMworld: October 5-7, 2021
VMworld China: November 2021
VMworld Japan: November 2021
For details on each of the above….check out the VMware News post.

VMware PowerCLI 12.2 is released
More focus on Powershell core (for Mac & linux support).
A few new modules in here too.
Update-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI
VMware Blog post is here.
Release Notes are here.

vSAN 7 update 1 – Stipe Width Storage Policy Improvements
Pete Koehler wrote up a VMware Blog post on some of the changes to vSAN capabilities with the latest Update 1 release.
Lots of things to consider if you are using vSAN, as it has the potential to improve performance.

VMware – hot vs cold migrations, & what networks are used for what
Lengthy summary title, but that’s what it is.
Did use the Management, Provisioning, or vMotion networks (and VMkernels) to migrate a VM workload.
This VMware Tech Zone post covers it all in just enough detail to keep it a short read.

VMware vCenter 7.0.1 Update D released
This came up on my vCenter 7.0.1 Update C as a critical patch.
Release Notes are here, which is NOT informative at all.

VMware ESXi 7.0.1 Update D released
Just a few bug fixes, and security updates…
Release Notes are here.

vSphere 7 Security Hardening Guide
I like that this guide keeps getting shorter, but it really does need to get integrated into the default install / upgrade.
Available on the VMware Tech Zone.

VMware vRealize Operations Manager 8.3 released
Quite a few new features for both on prep AND cloud.
Just be aware, you need to upgrade your VMware Hardware Version to 11
(huh huh, 11) before the upgrade or vROPs 8.3 has issues.
VMware Blog post is here.
Release Notes are here.

VMware vRealize Log Insight 8.3 released
Just a few new features around FIPs and automation.
VMware Blog post is here.
Release Notes are here.

VMware vRealize Automation 8.3 released
There is a long list of items / features that got updates in this release.
A lot….
Handles NSX-V to NSX-T Migrations too.
Tenant Migration from 7.x to 8.3 walkthrough is here.
VMware Blog post is here.
Release Notes are here.

VMware Cloud Foundation 4.2 announced
Looks like this is a release to incorporate all the above mentioned updates, and then some.
VMware Blog post is here.

VMware on AWS – outbound network costs
we all know that egress traffic from AWS costs you money.
Here is how good post on how much it costs with VMConAWS consumption.

VMware Cloud Migration Tools whitepaper
Written by Emad Younis & William Lam, this short 20 page white paper covers quite a bit (but at a high level).
The best part is the cover VMware Cloud offerings on AWS, Azure, DellEMC, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud.
It then goes into the migration options for each of those offerings, including whether or not hot or cold migration can be included.

Deleted VM from vCenter? Get a list of them if needed
Another William Lam post….
Highlighting that you must have configured Tasks & Events to be retained by vCenter for X number of days (which has been enabled by default for quite some time now)….
A custom script can poll that information for you in PowerCLI

Dell OpenManage Integration for vCenter
If you run Dell hardware and have VMware vCenter running, and have not yet integrated their OpenManage plugin for vSphere…you are missing out.
This post covers the whole process, from where to download it, how to get it configured with vCenter, update firmware, and integrates with the new Lifecycle Manager Image Based Management in vSphere 7.
…only downside? it is not free.

VMware Flings of Note
Desktop Container Tools – new! If you run VMware Fusion, this lets you work with vctl container engine via the GUI and Touch Bar.
Demo Appliance for TKG (Tanzu Kubernetes Grid) – an update early January with TKG 1.2.1 support.
VMware OS Optimization Tool -an update in mid January.

Comparing Nutanix & VMware vSAN/VxRail
Josh Odgers just update his collection on his comparison of the two products.
I like to read this set of posts, as it helps me understand how both VMware & Nutanix handle resiliency, scaling, & performance, across both vendors offerings.

Nutanix Files 3.8 is out!
Awesome….been waiting for 2 of these features….
LCM now handles files.
Smart DR allows for replicating shares via Prism Central.
Release notes are here (login required).

Google Anthos now runs on Nutanix HCI
if you use Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)’s Anthos,
It runs on any Nutanix HCI deployment (AHV though) whether on-prem or in one of the public cloud providers you use for Nutanix Clusters.
Check out this announcement here.

Continuing Education – a list of resources that come with references
A Cloud Guru
CodeClouds
HashiCorp Learn
KubeAcademy
Nutanix University
PluralSight
Udemy
vBrownBag
VMware Customer Connect Learning (old VMware Learning Zone)
VMware Hands On Labs