Newsletter: July 15, 2017

Hello all,

I hope that everyone had an interesting and enjoyable week? I had a good week and had some good successes too which is nice.  I am heading back on the road for a week so that may impact my blog, but we will see.  I am quite looking forward to visiting R&D again though, and so that is most excellent.

I got an article done on Veeam.com that is quite useful if you are working on BCDR work.  It is quite unfortunate but it is a gated publication which normally I would not share with you.  But, it is a very useful and has good info.  So if you are dong BCDR work please check it out.  Let me know if you have comments or questions or would like to see other info around it.

I need a little bit of help.  I guess a small favor from my readers.  How do I uninstall PowerShell for Mac from my Mac?  Installed it accidentally in my downloads folder and want to redo the install.  But, I know it linked to things elsewhere so I wonder how to uninstall it nicely?  Would most appreciate any help.

But as you may expect, I do have some things to share - lets get started.

Have a great week,

Michael

VMware ESXi 6.0 Update 3a GA
This is in fact a huge release based on the number of fixes in it.  So definitely check out the release notes and decide if need it.  I see a lot of fixes in it over a wide range of areas.  I have not seen it yet in the VMware Software Download, but I suspect it is ready for VUM.

VMkernel Observations (VOBs)
Duncan has a really good article here about VMkernel Observations.  I had no idea you could copy and paste them into a custom alarm.  Most cool.  He even has some good suggestions on alarms you could use if you are a vSAN shop.

How to recover from isolated vCenter HA nodes
I think that vCenter HA is pretty darn useful, and worthwhile for many customers but here is an article that will help if you are using vCenter HA and have an issue that ends up with an isolated node.  Good info.

NestedESXi - Network Performance Improvements with LEARNSWITCH
Anthony has an interesting article for those of you doing nested ESXi.  Very interesting stuff and Anthony does a lot of nested stuff so he knows what he is doing. I have asked him to write an article for those starting out with nested ESXi and I know he is working on it.  Takes a bit of work but he is going to get it done - and I am quite excited to see it.

VMware Host Profiles and IPv6
One of my co-workers is having issues with host profiles - not sure what, but I would not be surprised if he hit this issue. Sounds interesting actually.  I really like host profiles and I like the change to them in v6.5.

New fling: DRS Lens
Duncan talks about a new fling from VMware in this article.  This one is new, but it does look familiar to me. Definitely worth checking out especially if you want to learn a little more about DRS.

Failed to enter Maintenance Mode in the current vSAN data migration mode
Chris has an interesting problem and solution and one that I think others might have when they go to upgrade their disks or maybe even other things too.  Good to know so thanks for sharing Chris.

Uniquely identifying VMs in vSphere Part 3: Enahanced Linked Mode & Cross vC-vMotion
William has an informative article about understanding more about vC component and object naming so that you can be more comfortable about provisioning systems or mult - vCenter environments. When you have more then one vCenter I always suggest and in fact it is in my vSphere Best Practices to change your vCenter ID to help make sure there is no collisions in naming between vC - which I agree is unlikely but it is possible.

SRM PowerCLI Cmdlets
Ben has released his SRM cmdlets and you can find them here.  This is most excellent as PowerCLI can enable automation and CLI options and it is good to have options in BCDR work.

Want to learn more about vRealize Operations dashboards?
There is a YouTube playlist all about the vR Ops 6.6 dashboards.  Nice stuff.

How to configure Auto-Scaling for Private Cloud
You can find an article that can help you enable auto-scaling in your private cloud.  It is unfortunate but to get most of the details you need to watch a video.  I really think you need to have written first, then video second.  Takes care of the most people and helps particularly with technically complex stuff.

Learning more about vRA 7.3 - using videos?
Here is an article with a collection of videos behind it to help people get going with vRA 7.3.  Pretty nice stuff.

vRA 7.3 High Availability Improvements
There are specific features in vRA 7.3 that have been enabled for auto failover that really help with HA.  Learn more in this article.

How to add an AD Directory to VIDM
This is something many of us will need to learn since it is going to be necessary in the future with Log Insight - optional now - and I suspect it will become necessary for other VMware software as this idea makes sense to me. So if you need to know how to attach VIDM to AD you can find that info here.  You may recall you saw here how to connect / configure VIDM, and connect it to LI.

What is the vRealize family of products?
You can find that out in this new brochure on the subject.  Thanks Trevor for getting this done.

Configure a Server Core installation of Windows Server 2016 with Sconfig.cmd
An interesting article about configuring Server core using the server config tool.  If you don’t know the tool, and might do Server Core you should see what the article is about.

Announcing Windows Server Insider Preview Build 16237
A while back I shared this article about how Windows Server was going to have more frequent releases.  Here is the preview of one of those more frequent releases.

Disable Items Restore options in Veeam Self-Service Backup Portal
Luca has an article that will be quite helpful for SP and enterprises that want to limit the functionality of item restores so I suspect it may be quite handy.  Not supported but seems to work pretty good.

Veeam Vault #7: Nutanix support, Backup for Office 365 1.5 beta, VeeamOn Forums APAC, plus Vanguard roundup
Anthony has a collection of Veeam related content in this article.

Pizza as a service
A good article that explains on-premises, IaaS, SaaS and PaaS using a Pizza meal as the metaphor.  Pretty well done.

1Password and Local Vaults
A bit of a panic happened recently when it seemed like 1Password was going to force people to use cloud subscription and that local vaults would be discontinued.  This concerned me as I believe 1Password is the best password management solution out there - and a lot of security people in fact agree with me. I do not want to put my credentials into the cloud. But it turns out that this was a bit of a silly worry - I saw this article first, which calmed things down a bit, but then I saw this one by the boss 1Password dude. So all good, I get to keep my local vaults and they will politely try and convince me to do subscription but will not force.  So that is cool.  But, they are doing this smart - by adding in some cool features - like Travel Mode to the cloud and subscription. So what I have told many people is still good - get 1Password, and use a different and new long complex password for every service or site you belong too.  This includes things like your bank, but also the vCenter in your home lab.

Innovation: Navigation from LEO
I am a very big user of GPS.  I have been hiking with GPS for a long time. My first was a Magellan that was a British Military castoff from the first Gulf war.  I have used them to get unlost when my wife and I have gotten off-trail in the desert and spent a day following water and interesting rock formations, and when things get dark in the back-country it has been very good to have a GPS! We used a car one exploring in South Africa and Namibia when we really had no idea where we were going and there was no one to ask - and directions that made no sense - turn towards hils at seventh termite mound - the one that is leaning.  And even in cities, I often like to walk and use my Apple Maps and iPhone GPS to make sure I am not late.  However, with all that, I do understand the shortcomings and I know that I still need to know how to use map and compass since sometimes the GPS doesn’t work.  So it was very interesting to see this article that would in fact - if it all works out, make GPS even much more reliable and accurate.

Composable Infra, SDI, RSA… WTH is all this stuff - and what’s the direction?
Chad has a very interesting - and long - article about the future of the of a variety of things.  And he makes some very good points too.  I quite agree with a bunch of them.

Tesla wins bid to build world’s largest lithium-ion battery for South Australia
This is really quite amazing. A 100 MW lithium-ion battery.  I think it makes perfect sense and hope we see more of this tech in the world.

12 Tools and Apps that make working from Home Easier
An article for people that work from home or coffee shops.  Sort of fits a few of us right? Some interesting stuff in their list.

19 things to do in Hong Kong
I have visited Hong Kong a number of times but have done nothing useful.  Just passed through.  But if I have time, and visit again, I will do some of the things on this list.  Thanks for sharing Clarissa!

Exploring the Core Motivation of Writing a book
I suspect that Frank has burst the bubble for a great many people on what it takes to write a book.  I knew it was hard work but it is so much more than that.  Hard work, and a lot of discipline and sacrifice too. You can read all about it in this article.  It is most impressive what he has done.  But Frank has always impressed me!

Thanks for reading or skimming this far,

Michael

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