Hello all,
Another very busy week in the lab. Getting vRealize Automation going in my lab so I can get a technical white paper (TWP) started on integrating Veeam Backup & Replication with a vRA portal. Very cool stuff. I have not worked with vRA for a long time. The changes are amazing but also pretty darn nice! The tool has gotten much more powerful, and in some areas much easier, but there is still work to do to make it really accessible.
BTW, I did some small updates to my document your hosts article. Very handy tool!
Important Warning for Mac users: Do not install macOS 10.13.2. I have done it on two different Macs - on MBP with Touchbar, and one older MBA. On both Macs I have issues. On the MBA I sometimes cannot enter the password or the UI locks and needs a power off. On the MBP I sometimes lose both Wifi and physical networking. Unplug the physical, pause, and plug it back in fixes it. Or a cold restart fixes the issue. There is no schedule or pattern of operation on the MBA but it seems to be once per, or twice per, day on the MBP. Apple said to reinstall. While not that painful on a Mac, I was upset by that. I thought they may have asked for logs or something to figure it out. They said - as a result of that - they would escalate it. The senior guy I got, in the Enterprise group no less, gave me some things to try to generate logs. But I could tell they were things to see if what I was saying made sense. So I am going to redo the macOS install on the MBA and see if that helps and do twice per day restarts to avoid the issue on the MBP. Last time I googled there was no other users having this issue. But if I have two Macs impacted I think others may end up with this set of problems. But I hope not.
Lots to share this week - as always, and I hope something for everywhere.
Have a great week!
Michael
How to enable vRealize Automation 7 Orchestrator Control Center service
I needed to apply an important patch for vRO (which was on my vRA appliance) but I was getting an 503 error when I tried to enter the vRealize Orchestrator Control Center. I found and used this article to start vRO and after that actually log in and install the patch.
Good resource for working with vRealize Automation
I have some great vRA help from a friend of mine, but when I don’t want to bother her, I use this list of articles. They are pretty useful and the first few that I actually used apply to 7.3 even though they were written for 7.0.
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2 GA
In the early days of virtualization (x86 that is) I used a tool called P2V Assistant that helped do the physical to virtual but we moved fairly quickly to VMware Converter which I liked even more. I not only used it for the typical migration but also for DR type migrations too. I am very happy that VMware is continuing to support and grow this very important tool. There are still physical hosts to convert, but there is actually more DR related migrations outstanding - I think. Here is the release notes, and the bits.
VM with more than 64 GB memory fails to Storage vMotion to vSAN cluster
I hope that not many people have VMs that have 64 GB of RAM. Not really the best of ideas but on occasion it is important and useful but not always! Find out about the issue and some workaround info in this article.
VVols: A Whole New World For SQL Server Virtualization
An article about the value of VVols for SQL servers. But I love the line ” …you maintain the performance of an RDM with the agility of a VMDK”. That is pretty cool - I do not like - at all - RDMs, and VVols are pretty useful.
vCenter Appliance root Partition 100% full due to Audit.log files not being rotated
Several people have had this issue in the wild so it is good to be aware of the article. I think, except for the smallest customers, most people will run into this issue.
App Volumes Backup Utility
Last week I shared out a utility that can help with backing up App Volumes and now there is an update for it that means it works with vSphere 6.5 Update 1.
vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 1.1 - Simplify Your Day Two Operations
There is a new version of this new tool. This tool can be used to deploy vRealize products - both install and upgrades. I think most customers will not need this tool, but partners, and the bigger customers will really appreciate it. Find the bits and release notes.
What is VMware Workspace ONE, really?
I have had people ask me about this, and I have listened to people explain it. So I smiled when I saw this article talking about what ONE is.
Veeam PN is now Live!
Veeam PN is a VPN tool, and a pretty nice one. Been out in the wild as beta for a while. It is GA now and Veeam is pushing it as a restore tool to Azure - see more on that here. However, since Veeam PN is free, and works well, I think there will be even more use of it to enable home lab access. You can find more about that in this great article from Anthony. Very cool tool!
Fixing Veeam “Can’t Delete Replica When It is Being Processed” Errors
You can learn more about this issue and the solution in this article. I have seen this error before myself, and I suspect others may see it too!
Discover News - Infosight comes to 3Par and gets AI
I think that Infosight is pretty darn cool, and I am not surprised that HP acquired a company to get it, and it looks pretty cool now and I think that 3Par users will be very happy with it - find out more in this article.
VMware Cloud on AWS DR as a Service first look
You can get an overview of the new VMWonAWS service - Site Recovery - in this article. Nice to see that SRM has been improved. Too bad it is only for VMWonAWS though. But hopefully one day the improvements will filter to the on-prem version of SRM.
Sysinternals Sysmon suspicious activity guide
An interesting article that shows off the power of sysmon and how you can use it for monitoring and security work.
Using Powershell to examine VM BIOS or Firmware setting
This interesting article talks about how you can use PowerShell to see VM BIOS or firmware. Interesting actually but not for vSphere shops. Could not make it work with VMware.
DCPromo Fails - the directory service is missing mandatory configuration information
In this article you can learn about a problem that occurs during dcpromo demoting that I may have seen before. Maybe this info can help you manage this issue if you run into it.
All About Data Protection Part 6 1/2 - thinking About Parity and Read-Modify-Write
Howard is one smart dude. I have only chatted with him a few times but I certainly enjoyed it. In this article he shares some of his knowledge around data protection and parity. In my professional services days long ago, parity was a pain that all too often impacted me, and I had to help customers. So it is cool to read about it and learn more, but without any pain.
Simple Natural Language Processing for iOS
This new VMware Labs fling is a little different. Natural Language Processing (NLP) for iOS devices. I am sharing this - not because I think any of you will use it - but because it is a little odd to see, and interesting too.
iMac Pro first impressions: Beauty of a beast
This is a seriously new and improved iMac and one that will be very useful for many I think. The performance is amazing and it will also make a good ESXi server too! Find out all the details of this new Mac in this article. If you are wondering, I will not be buying one. I don’t do the graphics or related things that need it, and I don’t want to use it as an ESXi host. Which it would do well at I believe. I still think something like a MBA, or a MBP, and external dock and monitors is the way for me to go.
Apple Maps brings indoor maps to 30 additional airports
I love this functionality - and am I glad it is in more airports that I actually visit! It is very handy to have the help in airports to find the lounge or the proper gate and where my favorite restaurant in airports are too.
15 Terminal commands that Every Mac user should know
In this article you can learn about some very handy commands like uptime, or last reboot, and how you can put a logon message. Handy stuff.
Interesting - plane crash but no videos!
Very recently there was another ATR 42 crash, this time in northern Canada. And also different this time was everyone survived. But what I found interesting is there is no videos. It crashed more or less near the airport and so everyone who saw it went to help out and rescue people. So no one stood around and took videos. Interesting - right?
Goodbye, net neutrality - Ajit Pai’s FCC votes to allow blocking and throttling
I am not so surprised this passed, considering how the government of the US has changed, but I am very disappointed. I think not much will change in the near term, but I believe longer term it will not be good for most users. I think bad times are ahead. I also think once the service providers in Canada and elsewhere see how much more money they can make when there is no consumer protection, we will start to see the lobbyists move to Canada to make the change here too.
Thanks for reading or skimming this far,
Michael
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