Hello all,
I was home this week and that is always nice. Next week off to visit one of the first customers to buy Veeam Availability Orchestrator (VAO) and quite excited about that. I also need to learn more about vRealize Automation and that is going to be a bit tough I think.
I wrote an article about using Lab Groups inside VAO and that is very good to know since it is how you can pull assets into a test failover easily. I also have an Apple HomePod now and I love it so I wrote about using it. While it is not supported in Canada you only lose the ability to ask it about news. It works great at playing music. I also updated my iPad and iPhone with 11.3 and it went very smooth - and you can read more about it here.
Recently I applied the VCSA and ESXi patches in my lab for the Speculative related stuff. Not a big deal to do but you can use the info in this article to figure out what is needed, or even before and after inventory info. I love those scripts!
A friend of mine Ben, could use some help with research on how customers schedule upgrading. Will be a big help for him. If you could help out that would be great.
But I do have things to share and I hope something, or two, for everyone!
Michael
vSphere HTML5 Client update - v3.36
I see a lot of new stuff in this update to the HTML5 Client. I quite like the HTML 5 client and I look forward to the day when all the new stuff I learn about the HTML5 client is actually in the one that ships with vSphere.
SPBM, because not all applications are created equal
Isn’t that the truth? Remember how you had to design controllers and disks for that database server? Then how you had to design LUNs so that the database server would get the appropriate performance? Virtualization changed that a bit but it was still something to think about and design. Storage Policy Based Management is the answer and it works well. But, it is not used often enough and you can learn more about that in this article.
London VMUG - upgrade 5.5 to 6.5
Dean has a very nice upgrade deck here. A nice resource if you are thinking of doing that upgrade, and you should be if you are still on vSphere 5.x!
Required vCenter Permissions for Registering a VVOL VASA Provider
Cody has an interesting article on what the least required permissions are for registering a provider. I wondered about that myself.
What is the Latency Stat QAVG?
I have heard that question myself. I had no answer, and I am not a particularly good guy with ESXTop guy anyway. But wow, is Cody ever a great ESXtop guy and what an explanation he has.
vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 1.2 - Introducing Content Management and Integrated Marketplace
This is an article about a soon to be released new version of Lifecycle Manager and it sound like quite a big one. Sounds like a very big release and I wonder what the upgrade is like. I would love to check out this tool one day.
vCloud Director & Container Service Extension
In this article you can learn more about how you can deploy and manage Kubernetes cluster on top of vCD. Pretty cool info as matter of fact.
VMware vRealize Operations 6.7: Self Driving Operations for the Data Center
In this article you can learn more about a new release of vROps. And a big release it sounds. And I think it may be hard for customers to declare their intent to vROps so that it can do the self-driving. But we will see. I do some other things in this article that look very interesting indeed.
What’s New in vRealize Automation 7.4
No, it is not GA yet, but for some reason, like with vROps 6.7, they decided to tease us with what is coming out “soon” in vRA. See this article if you want to be teased. I hope it is a little easier to install and make work.
Three Tier App for vRealize Automation
You can find out more about a three tier app you can do with vRA so you can learn more about working with multi tier apps in vRA. An interesting read actually.
Getting started with VMware Pivotal Container Service (PKS) Part 1: Overview
William has a very good series going on getting PKS working. It started here, and it is pretty interesting.
App Volumes Backup Utility
This lab fling was recently updated with some changes - pre and post backup prep files.
Using Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows with a Microsoft Failover Cluster
This very short KB article will let you know what is supported with the Windows agents.
Backups for your cloud: Don’t force IT, get a “better hammer”
David has an article on the Veeam blog about how SovLabs will enable - easily - Veeam Backup & Replication to work with vRealize Automation. Which is a very powerful solution. BTW here is the white paper that shows off what is possible.
Instant VM Recovery considerations for modern data center - Part 1
Some good info on Instant VM Recovery and how you should think about how to design it in the different situations of customers.
Getting Started with Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SQL Server
You can learn about the functionality of Veeam around SQL in this article. It even has some scripts to help you play a little with SQL and Veeam and learn.
Why PowerShell is a Core Skill for Office 365 Administrators
I did not realize this but it does make sense. And I have heard others say how useful PowerShell is for Exchange for example, but for a tool like Office 365 I think it make particular sense that PowerShell is a key tool. Find out more in this article.
What’s new with Ravello Systems? RBD 2018 Edition
Matt has an article about what is going one with Ravello. A nice read!
Total Meltdown
This article talks about something worse then Meltdown that occurs in Windows 7 after you apply the Microsoft Meltdown patches. Scary stuff so I am happy I have no Win7 in the lab or at home! Very interesting article as it has some info on testing this that sounds amazing and how MSFT approved the article. Here is some additional reading from MS on this subject.
The 8 Most Important Changes in the Windows 10 Spring Creators Update
This is known as build 1803 and it will likely show up for some of us without prompting or asking. But learn more about it in this article. It does sound a little interesting.
The Management Formula Every Leader Should Know (in one easy chart)
This article is quite interesting - which is of course why I share it - and I think it has some good points. I think management style of long ago have changed and this article describes something I think works now particularly well. The eyes on, hands off, is strangely clear and understandable.
Wrong email in git? Git hook to the rescue!
I heard someone talking about this, and I was not sure about it, but then I saw this article. Now it is clear and sort of handy.
Datrium Audited as the Highest IOmark Bencmark in History - Mind-Blowing 10X!
I love a couple of things about this article in particular. First is that it is audited, and the second is everything was on - like the encryption. To often these sort of things have a very special tuned - whatever - to max the score out. The Datrium stuff is pretty darn cool.
The Power of Blockchain and Cryptohash
Clint has a very interesting article about the Datrium platform. I am quite impressed with Datrium and love learning about it.
AMD Set to Patch 13 Vulnerabilities Disclosed by CTS Lab
It is most surprising and disappointing that CTS Labs gave so little time to AMD before reporting what they found publicly but it is good that AMD is moving fast. It does confirm what many of us were thinking - that Intel likely was not going to be alone with the need to patch products.
CloudBerry Backup Follow-up: Backed Up and Restored
An interesting article about backup and restore that involves NAS and laptop, and cloud, and backup software. I love the part about how backup to the cloud was the same as all the other destinations - exactly what it should be.
Setting up an iPad for coding is my greatest feat as a complete user
This is quite a story about how a guy setup his iPad for coding. Amazing actually.
Squawking 7700 - In-flight Emergencies from a Pilot’s Perspective
If a pilot says Mayday Mayday Mayday over the radio that is sort of similar to squawking 7700, but I saw this article talking about it and thought it quite interesting.
How to update your HomePod to the latest software version
In this article you can learn how to update your HomePod to 11.3. The default setting is to update automatically but there was an update outstanding for me. Not sure the schedule the HomePod checks for updates on. I am not sure what is in the update but I hear only fixes and no new features.
Thanks for reading or skimming this far,
Michael
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