Hello all,
I have had a very long week. Did some visits in Dallas and area, plus around Cincinnati too visiting customers and partners. It is great to get out with customers and talk with them about our great software. I have a week in Pittsburgh and area to continue that. I also got to visit with a lot of people and even some old friends at the Cincinnati VMUG - a very nice write-up on it is here (thanks Gabe for putting me in the article!).
I am working on some great stuff that will turn out a few very useful articles - like working with View Persona, and I am excited to finish that and share it. Also, I wrote recently about why I like my Apple TV, and about an odd View black screen issue I had.
BTW, you may have been told - if you are a Mac user, that one of your apps is damaged. Tweetbot and 1Password have shared that with me. All that is necessary to fix this issue is to delete the app and re - download it from the App store. Your config and data will not be lost, and you problem will be fixed. More info in this.
But I have lots to share and so lets get to it!
Have a great week,
Michael
How to convert & migrate VCSA with embedded to an external PSC
This should be helpful for many. If you, like I did, upgraded your 5.5 vC to 6.0 you ended up with an embedded PSC and yet I think as a best practice in most cases you should have an external PSC to provide the best future flexibility. So I am glad now with Update 1 you can change to that, and this article will help you to make the change.
Running vCenter Server Appliance in Fusion
Duncan has the scoop on installing (and updating too) the VCSA in Fusion. Handy!
Lessons learned from migrating a VDS
An interesting article about an issue with a VDS that developed as part of a migration between a vC and VCSA. I recently said I really like VDS when they work, and I don’t when they have issues. So true.
VSAN is now up to 30% Cheaper!
While this is a flashy title, it does have a point, and the article is pretty darn good. And I agree too.
VMworld EU 2015 Buzz: A Group Discussion that made me worry about the future of vCenter
Justin shared this article with me. This is an important article that highlights some real issues. I do hope that VMware has read the article and are smiling because they are thinking of the future of vCenter. But it doesn’t seem so.
5 reasons why ESXi embedded Host Client is awesome
Here is the article where there is the five reasons. I would add that I love the partition editing, the easy updating, and the VM console support also. It really is awesome!
After updating VCSA to 5.5 U3 historical performance information is not collected
This is very frustrating. After you are at 5.5 U3, and you upgraded to it, and are using the VCSA - which you should be as I am - you will not have performance information collected and displayed. To solve this upgrade to 5.5 U3a. See the info here.
Updating to VMware Tools 10
A very good article by Brian - and an important read too. I started long ago using a separate location for VMware Tools since we were using Auto Deploy in my past job. Was very nice. Now it turns out that is good to help other things too! But definitely check out Brian’s article as it has lots of good info.
PowerCLI - Quick Stats Not Up To Date Problem
In past 6.x and 5.5.x you might see a yellow message about Quick Stats not up-to-date and while it can be fixed by updating, you can fix it manually too. But you can also fix it with PowerCLI. See how here.
Log Insight: Fixing Disconnected Nodes
Steve has an interesting article about dealing with disconnected LI nodes. While I don’t think this will happen often it is important to make sure that you deal with it correctly. So if you have a LI cluster check out the article.
5 Reasons why a Log Insight Content Pack Widget Returns no results
Another very good article by Steve. I think anyone who uses LI might need this article at one time or another!
vR Ops 6.1 - Installation, configuration, and licensing tips
A nice collection of tips on vR Ops 6.1.
Troubleshooting with vR Ops part 2: Summary and Symptoms
This is a nice introduction to troubleshooting on using vR Ops and in particular it looks at Summary and Symptoms. There are other articles on the subject you can find through the article itself. Everyone who uses vR Ops can learn more. So if you are a new user this is a good set of articles for you.
vRealize Production Test Tool Configuration
I did not realize there was a tool that could test vRealize Operations or vRealize Automation to see if they were healthy. Very cool. Find out more here.
Automating the silent installation of SRM 6.0 / 6.1 w/Embedded vPostgres DB
William helps make your automated and silent install of SRM work now that 6.0 and later of SRM broke his scripts.
AirWatch 8.2 now GA
AirWatch is amazing software. I have only visited or chatted with one or two people that use it. But they love it. And in 8.2 it allows you to manage Windows 10 and OS X along with phones! Very powerful but see this for the full info on this release.
VSAN + Dell PERC: Important Driver and Firmware Updates
The author - Anthony Spiteri - has a good reminder about making sure your gear is updated and ready for VSAN. This is part of him building out management clusters - which will use VSAN for storage. This is a very good idea. Several actually - first having management clusters, but also having storage for the management cluster that is separate from everything else. And lastly, using VSAN. A management cluster on separate storage like this is very powerful indeed and provides maximum flexibility. BTW, I think making sure of firmware is always a good thing to do - not just for VSAN support.
How to manually clean up deleted space - on a local datastore
This long article will show you how to do some interesting stuff. The author has a thinly provisioned VM on a local datastore where the VM guest has deleted a lot of files, and he needs to shrink the VM disk footprint to match the inside of the VM. So pretty interesting.
Neat way of installing or updating any VIB using the Embedded Host Client
A very nice trick. I do really like the HTML5 built Host Client. I hope that it is a good example of what is to come for ESXi and the vSphere Web Client. Cool article William!
VCP6-DCV resources
You can find some good resources to help with your VCP6-DCV exam right here.
Scaling efficiently instead of up or out
This is an interesting article. It is about the history of writing code and how scaling up or out has changed throughout coding history and how that can encourage poor code, and how important efficient code is.
Veeam Backup & Replication v9: the new Per-VM backup chains
A very good description of a new feature in the next version. I am quite looking forward to it! This is going to be an interesting release.
1Password for Teams
I have used 1Password on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac for a long time. On my Apple Watch for a short time. And I think it is one of the best password management tools. And now they have support for teams. And very nicely done too! Check this out.
How to connect a 4K Monitor to a 2012 Retina MacBook Pro
Stephen helps make this work well, and it is not easy. So good job he figured it out!
A nice 10 GB switch - Cisco SG500XG-8F8T
I use a few of these and I like them. They are part of the Cisco Small Business line which I use firewalls and a variety of different switches from and quite like them all. They don’t have the normal Cisco UI but something I find much easier. This switch is also on the DataGravity HCL. They are anywhere from 3500 to 4200 US$ but that is way better then some of the other choices out there.
Where did ISIS come from?
Someone asked me about this a while back and I have been thinking about it. And then I found this article which I believe is mostly right. Here is another look at ISIS.
Reading: Hyena Road
I recently read Hyena Road, a Canadian military story of a sniper team in Afghanistan. A pretty good story but different then most as it is Canadian. Solders, weapons, even tactics and so a little different. But interesting and very believable. If you like Military fiction that is realistic you will like this book - I certainly did.
Thanks for reading, or skimming this far!
Michael
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