Virtual Updates 2022-12-12

Broadcom Open Letter to VMUG Community
4 page press release, 2 pages which are disclaimers.
Still, Broadcom pledges that the VMUG community created by VMware Users will be important to them after the acquisition finishes…
Direct link to the PDF is here.

Not sure about DPUs (SmartNICs)?
This short article is well written, and it keeps it simple.
What impact does a DPU have on your vSphere infrastructure?
Note the reduction in CPU utilization comments…
Remember, DPUs need vSphere 8….
Plus, there is an NVIDIA lab linked here.

ESXi 8.0 a Released
Looks like some bug fixes, a couple focused on vTPM.
Release Notes are here.

Designing, Configuring, & Managing the VMware Cloud
A new VCP? Yup.
This is a set of courses you can enroll in, to help take that VCP-VMC exam.
(which if you notice, if offered for free right now…)
…and I think you can just enroll for no cost….I’ll be playing with this this week.

A KB to keep track of KBs? Sure….
Maybe improve your search engine?
VMware KB tracker for vSphere 8 KB is here…

vSAN 8 – ESA Policies with Stripe Width
vSAN ESA (Express Storage Architecture) vs OSA (Original Storage Architecture)
ESA is similar to Nutanix, in where there are no longer Disk Groups.
OSA is still an option in vSphere 8, as ESA requires an all NVMe architecture.
So while Stipe Width was never a policy you should tune by default, it did have its uses cases, small in # they might have been.
Please read, as it calls out why you should not be configuring this option in ESA, and probably why you shouldn’t in OSA either….
VMware Blog post is here.

VMX 13-20 Hardware Features Compatibility
With vSphere 8 being released, time to review what your VM is capable of, depending on its VMX version (or compatibility).
Don’t forget, that to use new capabilities of VMs, you must upgrade their VMX.
…and the new NUMA settings are only in VMX-20.
This link in VMware Docs covers it.

VMware Tools 12.1.5 released
Couple of vulnerabilities fixed.
VMware Tools Release Notes are here.

A good look at VMware Aria
Aria?
Another new name for the vRealize products…
Check out this accurate blog post, describing how consumption of VMware Aria looks….
Includes a link to the free trail usage of aria….

Continuing Education – a list of resources that come with references
(of people who have used those sites & are happy with the results).
VMware Explore 2022 Europe – November 7 – November 11
HashiCorp Learn
Kode Kloud
KubeAcademy
Nutanix University
PluralSight / A Cloud Guru (PluralSight purchased A Cloud Guru)
Udemy
vBrownBag
VMware Customer Connect Learning (old VMware Learning Zone)
VMware Hands On Labs
VMware Explore 2022 (sessions)
VMware Explore VMTN Sessions (vBrownBag)
VCDX Mentoring Series