Hi all,
Another very busy week and so glad it is the weekend! I hope everyone had a better week then I did! For example, I thought I would get an iDRAC working in my R710 fairly quickly. But it actually took 2 hours. I wrote about it here since I really want no one to go through the work and fuss I did!
I talked with a Veeam VAO customer who was not able to use vSphere tags to identify which VMs to protect so I wrote an article how you could use Veeam ONE Business Rules to select VMs to protect. I also checked out Admin Center so wrote about it too! I have been trying to do upgrades in my lab so I have less variety of Windows OS and I have kept track of it in this article.
Would you like to help VMware improve their products? I used to do that as part of my day job and they are a bunch of really excellent people. You should check out this site if you want to help. So if you like to bitch and complain about the UI, instead of doing that, why not help improve them!
I am a big fan of Anton Gostev’s weekly forum newsletter type thing. I watch for it each weekend. I recommend it, and if you want to receive it in your own mailbox you can see how to subscribe in this article.
This is the second or third newsletter to come to you with the help of my HomePod. So easy to shout over my shoulder at Siri what I want to hear and she just takes care of it. Here lexicon is amazingly varied for serving up music.
Have a great week!
Michael
Upgrade Considerations for VMware vSphere 6.7
Nigel has a nice article that covers off a little of the why upgrade, but also some info on the How too. He also has some good reminders too. I would like to see an article with the next release of vSphere that is all about the why and not about features but about customer problems that the new release solves. I think that this may be the first article by Nigel that I have seen since Nigel joined VMware - so good to be able to say very well done Nigel! Thanks.
A hidden vSphere 5.1 Gem - forwarding Virtual Machine Logs (vmware.log) to Syslog
This is something that worked long ago in 5.1 but then stopped working. But it is back in 6.7 and that is quite useful. This is about the vmware.log file and not the guest OS logs. You can see more about what this is, and how it works, in Williams part 1 and part 2.
vSAN 6.7, and vRealize Operations with vCenter
An interesting article that talks about the vRealize Operations inside vCenter. This is not like what it used to be - although I quite liked that functionality, but this is actual dashboards. Pretty cool in fact. BTW, here is another VMware blog on the specific info around the vROps plug-in for vCenter. I thought I heard somewhere that you could get the stuff seen in vCenter even if you did not have a license for vROps. Not just for 60 days but for forever. But I cannot confirm that at this time.
vCenter High Availability Deep Dive
David has several articles (part 1, part 2) about vCenter HA which I think is a very cool subject. I know that not enough people are using this feature. It is a nice way to get high availability. That is better than restoring or rebuilding!
vCenter 6.7 Embedded Linked Mode
This article has a nice break down on what linked mode is and was. Nicely described and you end up learning and realizing how nice the new 6.7 Embedded Linked mode and why too.
Getting started with VMware Pivotal Container Service (PKS) Part 8: Monitoring Tool Overview
William has an interesting article about monitoring PKS and of course at the end of it is the list of articles on the subject. If you want to build and learn PKS William has you covered very nicely!
Workaround for disallowed CPU (56xx Series) in My R710 vSphere 6.7 Upgrade
In this article you can learn what you need to know to upgrade a Dell R710 to vSphere 6.7. Definitely good news as a normal upgrade does not work. So very good info if you have an R710. I have a faint memory of their being a command line switch to disable the check during install. This is specifically to help people install on the R710’s in home labs and NOT for production due to the lack of support you will get from VMware!
New Release: VMware PowerCLI 10.1.0
Already, another PowerCLI release, nice! Find out more here. It is a very easy update, which I quite like. I heard some gossip, and have not been able to confirm it, but if you are using vSphere 6.7, and 10.1 of PowerCLI you can get the date of creation for a VM. Most excellent.
What’s New in vSphere 6.7 Host Client
You can see what is new in the Host Client of vSphere 6.7 in this video. Pretty odd video mind you, but it does show a bunch of words that describe new features in the host client. I wish I could find a blog that did the same.
What’s New in vSphere 6.7 Core Storage
You can find a menu of articles about 6.7 core storage that Cody Hosterman has done. Great learning actually. And I think the list will grow too.
New vSphere HTML5 Client now GA - build 8313530
Another new build is out for the HTML5 Client and you can see the change log to learn what is new. This is a small release but some nice things in it.
Reference Architecture: Building an on-premise Kubernetes solution with VMware PKS and NSX-T
Hany is one very smart guy and is very good at sharing it too, I love his diagrams. I once printed out one very large and put it up and it was so interesting to work through it. He has a new one about Kubernetes, and I love how he mentions that it is a real diagram. It always is but at times people have not realized that.
Native MAC Learning in vSphere 6.7 removes the need for Promiscuous mode for Nested ESXi
This is very good news and I am glad that William shared it - as I never would have known! This is a big deal and will be quite helpful for people that nest. I have been asking a co-worker for a while now to do an article about Nested ESXi. Not an advanced one but a simple one that helps someone get started. This new functionality in 6.7 makes it a little more simple!
The public Shaming of Resource Pool-as-a-Folder user
Frank is doing some nice teasing of Anthony - and in good fun I should mention - but on a good subject. Resource Pools are a tool, and should be only used in vCD or when you have a technically accurate reason. It is just like storing your documents in the Recycle Bin. It will work, but in fact you are one click away from disaster. That analogy - which I think is right on - came from Ron Scott-Adams.
vCloud Director Federation with VMware Identity Manager
You can get help making VIDM work with vCD in this article. Like many, I wonder if one day VIDM will connect most or all of VMware products to AD. Would be handy to have that I think. That one connect to AD to could be load balanced or something like that, and all VMware products would subscribe to that connection.
Techzone on VMware.com
The techzone.vmware.com is a collection of Horizon and Workspace ONE resources. From the simple to the more complicated and even has learning paths. A nice resource if you are starting out with ONE or Horizon.
Veeam - Configure Veeam Locations to improve data sovereignty control and reporting
Veeam has some interesting functionality to help control your data and understand where it is or where it isn’t. You can learn about how to implement this in Jorge’s excellent article. You can also learn about the reporting that is available to help with this in another excellent article by Jorge. This is quite useful functionality, not just for GDPR but for companies that are trying to stay organized. Thanks Jorge for these article, much appreciated.
Enable cloud-delivered protection in Windows Defender AV
I saw this article and I liked the sound of it. It does make sense that the cloud could get updates quicker to clients. If the IT admin does not mind that is. It also sounded like it was not on by default. I check some of my machines and it was already on.
Jeff Bezos banned PowerPoint in Meetings - his replacement is brilliant
I had heard of this. Interesting idea. Then I saw this article. It has the backstory of why Jeff Bezos outlawed PowerPoint in Executive meetings. I did not realize it but I subscribe to this. I had a disagreement with someone once, and as a way to make my point, I did the next 10 briefings in the VMware Executive Center with no PowerPoint. Just a whiteboard and discussion. And I was marked very high indeed. Almost 5 out of 5. Sure surprised my co-worker.
Datacenter History: Through the Ages in Lego
Stephen has an article that talks about the Lego datacenter he built and it is quite impressive.
Gmail users, here’s how (and why) you should set up prompt-based 2FA
Gmail is pushing very hard for you to do 2FA and I think that this is a good idea for Google mail users. In fact, they are doing it in a way that lessens the impact. Learn more about this in this article.
Simplify and Secure your online logins with a Yubikey
I have heard good things about this nice security tool - Yubikey. Here is a review about it. I did not know previously that you had a companion app on your phone that could generate codes too.
Cisco UCS Platform Emulator Installation
I remember some co-workers who looked after the UCS gear we had. We had a lot of that gear and it was different that what we were used too. But the operations people had an emulator that they could play with to try things out. I thought that was pretty cool but I have not often heard about it. Until that is, I saw this article that talks about how to install it.
James Shaw Jr. is Being Hailed a Hero for stopping the Waffle House Shooter
This article has quite a surprising amount of information. What the guy did in stopping the bad guy is what is going to have to happen a lot more in today’s society. The important thing he did was think. Then when mag reloading happened he moved and hit the bad guy with - I think - a door. He should have hit him 3 or 4 times mind you. But the article mentions how often people have stopped bad guys and it is very interesting. The data comes from FBI research and I have heard it is accurate from people that have checked it so ignore those who try to discount it. We cannot be sheep, we must participate in our survival. The alternative is not good.
How to check which apps has access to your iPhone’s camera and microphone
I think many people - at least in the Apple Ecosystem - who worry about the the camera in their Mac are sort of silly (on non-Macs it is a darn good thing to do), they should in fact be more concerted about the microphone and camera in the iPhone. This article shows you how to tell which apps can access the camera and microphone that are built into your phone! This is good info and you should check every now and again.
How to get an unsupported HP print to work on macOS
I have seen this happen several times with HP, they decide to stop supporting an older printer and so it doesn’t work with macOS any longer. This article can help with this. Which is good as you don’t want to buy a new printer!
Apple Watch: It’s Not a Watch
Stephen has an interesting take on the Apple Watch. I understand what he is saying and I agree with some of it. But, I do like my Apple Watch!
iOS 11.3.1 Security update
This very small update has some security updates as well as an update for a issue around touch input on third party screens. You can find out more in this article as well as more on the security updates. I applied this on an old iPad, an iPad Pro 10.5 and an iPhone 8 with no issues. Important note, on the two devices that are mine and production usage (iPad Pro 10.5 and iPhone 8 ) I did iTunes based updates as I think that safest. The old iPad that sits beside the couch in front of the TV and is used to do IMDB lookups is not so important and I did an over the air (OTA) upgrade for it and it did work too.
macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 Security Update
You can learn more about this update in this article. This is a very small update, and the update of two Macs was much quicker than I expected.
Thanks for reading or skimming this far,
Michael
=== END ===
