Hello all,
I trust everyone has had a good week? I have friends who were in Las Vegas this week and had a very different experience. I am glad that no one I know was hurt. I am going to talk less about those kind of events as I don’t want to contribute to the publicity they get. I spent the week in the lab and on a few different projects. And expenses too. Lots of those were done. Expensify is a wonderful service.
We have had a couple of interesting executive blog articles at Veeam lately, one about NetApp and how they will start selling Veeam, and one by our CEO on iPhones. These are not the sort of things I share normally but they were both interesting and well done.
VMware Horizon View 7.3 had some issues with it and we were all warned to not deploy it. It only took a few days for it to be replaced with 7.3.1 (release notes). If you did get 7.3 installed then update to 7.3.1 now, but if you didn’t install or update to 7.3 make sure to use 7.3.1 going forward.
Lets get started!
Michael
Key Manager Concepts and Topology basics for VM and vSAN Encryption
Mike has a very good article on some basic terms and very good things to think about. There is also a link to a very good video as well.
vSphere 6.5 - Automate VCSA backup
This is good info that Brian is sharing on how you can automate the backup of the VCSA. I would suggest for many customers I know to think about perhaps using your normal tools and process to backup the VCSA. This way it will also be stored where your normal backups are and so more easily found.
Understanding the impacts of Mixed-Version vCenter Server deployments
Adam has an interesting article about upgrades and the impact of mixed versions. Good info and recommendations.
Troubleshooting Tips for vSAN
In the Education space at VMworld they did some interesting troubleshooting sessions - here is one on vSAN. it covers off an overview and then troubleshooting and how to avoid issues.
Get-VMHostVersion and Get-VMHostLatestVersion PowerShell function
This very cool function - which can be installed via the PowerShell Gallery - that can be used to find - via PowerShell what the actual build and release of your hosts are. Pretty cool actually.
Deploying VMs via PowerCLI & CSV file
A nice article that has some good examples for deploying VMs and with variables too.
What is VMware Mirage?
I can agree with Vladan about how this very interesting product is not as well known as it should be. So very good to see he has a nice breakdown on what it is and what it can do. It is very interesting stuff!
Download New vRealize Automation Blueprints to speed Up Your Implementation
This is very cool stuff. You can download - instead of build yourself - new blueprints that you can import and use in your own environment.
What is VMware Identity Manager?
You can learn a little more about this tool, which is good since you will need to use it with Log Insight in the future, and way in the feature I would not be surprised if you needed it for Horizon View and vCenter too.
Kubernetes in the Enterprise: A VMware guide on how to design, deploy, and operate K8SaaS with NSX-T and vRA
Hany is a rockstar and he shows it again with this amazing start to a blog series on doing a self service Kubernetes in the Enterprise. Most amazing.
vCloud Director 9: Customize Tenant UI
This has been a long time coming, as it was asked for a very long time ago. But glad it is here now. So to learn how to customize the UI check out this article. BTW, here is an article by the same author on vCD 9 and what’s new. And here is an article by a co-worker of mine on v9 and how important it is.
Onboarding for VMware Cloud on AWS
In this article you can learn more about on-boarding for VMC. I think that it is a little more complex and a little more easy. You do not have to connect back to your on-prem if you don’t want too, and there is no discussion of cost and you definitely need that when you are thinking about on-boarding. BTW, here is a great video intro to VMC.
Veeam Backup for Office 365 v1.5 now GA
This is an important release in that it provides additional scalability as well as functionality. It can now also backup your on-prem Exchange as well as O365. It can scale to much bigger environments as well and has PowerShell and API support. Here is the release notes, and product info. BTW, here is sort of an intro article on this product.
Getting Started with Veeam SureBackup Jobs
I did a simple article on this subject to help people get started. But Rob has done a very good and deep article on getting started with SureBackup jobs and I much appreciate it as I know most Veeam customers do not use SureBackup Jobs and that is too bad! Very nice job Rob!
Veeam Architect - Repository Types
Tim has some good info around repository types in Veeam Backup & Replication. I am fond of using an ReFS partition on my backup server, then a backup copy job to another storage device - like a Synology (or a different storage array then what my backup VM is hosted on), and then a backup copy job to the cloud. ReFS means quicker jobs, and more efficient jobs, and I can handle losing the array with my backup VM on it, or the array with my second set of backups, or the cloud and still have what I need to work.
Veeam Agent for Windows: System Requirements & Architecture
Some good background info on the Veeam Agent for Windows, and isn’t it nice the footprint size?
Veeam Vault #9: Backup for Office 365 v1.5, Azure Stack, and Vanguard Roundup
Anthony has an article covering off a bunch of stuff, and including links to Veeam Vanguard articles which is always nice to see - and through this article even learn they have a new guy on the team.
Microsoft Windows Server Management Challenges - Project Honolulu
I have had a quick look at this software and it does look pretty good. So it was nice to see this article so that more of it can be showed off. Interesting stuff.
High Sierra validates Mac firmware weekly, alerts users to possible issues
This is good to hear and learn about, even though I do not expect to have someone hack my firmware. But I do like defense in depth and this helps to the depth. This is important because of the issue this article talks about!
iOS 11.0.2 fixes iPhone 8 Crackling
There is already an update to iOS 11 in the form of 11.0.2 that fixes a few things. If you have an iPhone 8 I think you may need to this update more. And I do have one but I don’t see the issues they talk about in this article. As there is security fixes in it I try and update as soon as I can.
watchOS 4.0.1 Aims to fix Apple Watch Series 3 Cellular issues
So if you have one of the new Apple Watches that support cell service you really need this update. In theory this update may fix some other issues around cellular usage on the Series 3 watch. I don’t have mine yet so I cannot confirm. If you are not using a Series 3 watch you don’t need this update. For a few more details see this article.
Apps not installing on your Apple Watch? Here’s the fix!
You can find out the problem and solution for a number of different problems that can impact the install of your apps on your watch in this article.
macOS High Sierra 10.13 Supplemental Update fixes Early Bugs
I have tried a few times to apply this update, and it won’t apply. And today I cannot even see it to try again. Learn more about this important update in this article. This is an important update so I am most surprised and disappointed I cannot install it - so I downloaded it manually here and installed it manually. BTW, it is already in the install bits you would get from the store. This fix includes the Cloud Keychain issue as well as the password visible in Disk Utility.
With a stolen iCloud Password, your Mac can be held hostage
This is no surprise, and my iCloud password reflects it, but this is the first article I have seen that describes it. iCloud is a wonderful service, and it does so many very good things for my wife and I, and it really even helps in my professional life, so when something has that penetration in your life, it could mean bad things if you don’t have a very good password! So have a strong pass phrase, but also make sure your iCloud account credentials are not used anywhere else. Every service should have a different set of credentials - wherever possible. Use something like 1Password to help track things but also to generate hard passwords.
How to use Instant Markup in iOS 11
This is very cool stuff - and quite handy! See how you can easily markup a screenshot before you send it on.
HomePod vs. Sonos ONE vs. Google Home Max: What’s the difference?
This article compares and talks about these different devices. I am a big fan of SONOS and have a bunch of it at home, but I am thinking strongly of HomePod. Not due to its superior sound, but due to the fact that it has Siri. I made the original decision in this space - for SONOS, due to the quality of its sound and how easy it was to implement. I am fascinated by the decision this time - I am selecting the assistant and it happens to bring amazing sound.
Coinhive and the Audacity of Blockchain
An interesting article about a very odd way - to me anyway - on generating cryto-currency.
Verizon Wireless Internal Credentials, infrastructure details exposed in Amazon S3 bucket
It seems like every day there is another security issue of epic or very large proportions but in this article is my first one or two based on poor or no security on S3 buckets.
Internet - wide security update put on hold due to fears 60 million people would be kicked offline
I had no idea there was some big security change going to happen, but wow, what an impact it could have had! See the story here.
Advice to VCDX candidates from a double VCDX
Some interesting info for those of you aspiring to VCDX. Some good info, in fact good for anyone in professional services, and not just those working towards VCDX.
The importance of perspective in crisis
An article from the strip when bad things happened and by an observant person. Some lessons in it too - like thinking about other people, and sharing fruit.
Thanks for reading or skimming this far!
Michael
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