Hello all,
I hope that everyone is doing well? I had a great time in the mountains and deserts of Nevada. Great area and also met some interesting people too. But back home now, and ready to start looking for work. I have been very lucky and a number of interesting and fascinating companies have reached out. So next week it will start - seriously looking for a job! I have less to share this week - but no VMware vSphere 6.0 Update 2 yet. Should be soon though.
One very sad thing for me in the vExpert program is I will not be able to talk about some of my upgrades any longer. The vExpert program provides license keys (very much appreciated) but for the bits I download NFR and that doesn’t always provide the update bits - for example for LI 3.3 I only got the .ova and not the .pak. We will have to see how this turns out.
Have a great week!
Michael
The future of the ESXi Embedded Host Client
This is very nice indeed. In vSphere 6.0 U2 we will have the Host Client as part of the actual GA bits. Yahoo! So thanks very much William, Kevin, Jehad, Etienne and the ESXi team. I install this Host Client in my lab on each host before I do anything else. I think it is most excellent that they will release it as GA, but continue to release it as a fling too. The fling will update more often then vSphere. I know people who will specifically not use it on production hardware as it is a fling. So this will be great for them, but also for those of us who don’t mind using it as a fling we can get something that is more frequently updated. Thanks again for this great and useful tool!
VSAN 6.2 (vSphere 6.0 Update 2) home lab on 6th Gen Intel NUC
William has an interesting article on the update of his home lab. He has changed from being standardized on a Mac Mini and bought an Intel NUC. Seems like a good choice as that gets him more memory and some nice extra’s like an HDMI port. BTW, for his list of materials, if you are Canadian and shop Amazon.ca like me, you only need to change the .com to a .ca and you get the Canadian price / part. Works good. I need to do some hardware updates, and I am not sure if I will do memory upgrades on my R710, go NUC like William, or pick something like this. With what the US / Canadian dollar is right now that helps to suggest the NUC or memory upgrades.
Hybrid vs All-flash VSAN, are we really getting close?
When I saw this, I was quite eager to read it, as I know the trend is occurring where all-flash is getting close to the hybrid costs, but I was not sure just how close yet. The comments are interesting too!
VSAN Deployments over L2 / L3 Networks
Rawlinson is talking in this article about a new networking TWP for VSAN and L2 / L3 networks. Pretty useful!
VSAN 6.2: Why going forward FTT=2 should be your new default
Most people, including me, use Failures to Tolerate (FTT) =1 due to the cost in disk for anything greater. So in VSAN 6.2 that can change (and with a change in disk cost too) and that is good indeed. See Duncan’s article for the details.
VSAN 6.2: Sparse Swap, what is it good for?
A nice article that talks about this significant feature - which I had not heard much about. Again interesting comments too. This is interesting and I think something that should impact most VSAN designs.
How to remotely run appliancsh & other shell commands on VCSA w/o requiring SSH
This is pretty handy info to know - I can see where it would be handy to know that you can do things on the VCSA without using SSH - which is off by default.
Log Insight 3.3 is available now!
I am quite excited about this release - I love the preview feature of agent configuration UI. There is a lot of new features which you can learn about in the release notes. Steve has some upgrade info in this article and info on the new features here. I think he will likely start a series on the new features soon. Here is a FAQ on the Log Insight for vCenter (free remember?). I would love to tell you my upgrade went smooth, but with the only access I have to bits and licenses is via vExpert I cannot share anything since I don’t have access to the upgrade bits - only the new install .ova. I suspect though, based on my past experience, the upgrade will be smooth indeed!
VMware Workspace ONE - Demo
If you have seen a bit about this new product it is pretty interesting. You can get a demo of it here. I think there is a lot of possibilities with this product.
RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines (RP$VMS) 4.3 is here and it is AWESOME!
Remember that VxRail includes this software for 10 or 15 VMs. But check out this new version as discussed in this article. See this article for more info on VxRail.
Cisco now has an HCI offering
Here is a pretty interesting write up on it. Here is Cisco’s announcement.
Solar Ratings Explained
I use GoalZero solar recharging gear. I quite like it, and it seems to work well, but I have not checked the numbers yet. When I do I will share what I have and how well it actually does by numbers. But, I liked this explanation of solar ratings.
How to install git on Centos 7
I heard - some time ago now - that someone wanted to install git on Centos but were not sure how. Too late to help them, but here is the info anyway.
How-To: Get the jump on Apple’s plans to fully secure your iPhone with two simple changes
Here is an article that can help you improve the security of your iPhone. I like the idea of using something better then a 6 digit passcode. I suggest using an alpha option, and as my digits as you can. I still use iCloud backups though.
The fourth-generation Apple TV doesn’t have an optical audio out, but it can use your TV’s inputs
If you have something like the Sonos Playbar - which is pretty cool, and the newer Apple TV you have a slight connection issue. Find out more and a workaround in this article.
Eikon Mini Fingerprint Reader for Win10
I have heard several people mention publicly they like this product. Pretty handy to be able to log in using your fingerprint - just ask any iPhone / iPad user who can do it. My first couple of PC laptops at VMware were ThinkPad / Lenovo that had built in fingerprint readers and that was very handy!
How to treat the 6 most common injuries in the Backcountry
I think this article is quite well done. Not sure how many of you spend any time in the backcountry but if you do this is particularly good info for you to know.
We just found out the real reason the FBI wants a backdoor in the iPhone
A nice write-up on this worrisome case with some good info.
Previously downloaded OS X Installers no longer work
I suspect a few Mac users - like me - have an OS X installer around to install again in a crisis. See this article for the issue.
Secret Apple Watch options: 14 Force Touch tips!
Most of these tips are reminders but not all. Check out the list.
Thanks for reading or skimming this far!
Michael
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