Newsletter: July 14, 2018

Hello all,

Another very busy week.  No time to work on finishing the upgrade to my lab so no articles on that. I spent the week with customers and learned some interesting Veeam things I did not know so you should see an article about that.  I am heading home - yes, writing this in an airport again, and I hope, really hope, to stay home for a couple of weeks.

But as always, I have things to share so lets get started.  It will not be as big this time as it was last time.

I should mention I am not sharing articles with no date, and most of them come from the VMware EUC team.  In fact, I notice they don’t even have the correct copyright date on them either.

Have a great week!

Michael

vCenter Server 6.7.0b now GA
I missed this the other day when it came out but it is a small update.  In the release notes you can see it is not a big update. It is a security update essentially and so worth doing sooner rather than later.

Workaround - VCSA 6.7 upgrade fails with CURL error: Couldn’t resolve Host name
Anthony shares an issue he had with his 6.7 upgrade and how he got around it.  I do wish he had my problem, and shared the workaround!

Data Placement Optimization in vSAN 6.7
I have not met Pete Koehler, but he does some very nice technical and deep articles on vSAN.  He does another on data placement improvements in 6.7.

USB Image Tool for Windows easily backups up and restores complete VMware ESXi hypervisor on USB
Paul has an interesting and useful article on doing backups of ESXi.

vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 1.3 now GA
This is interesting software which I have not had a chance to play with, but when I was a partner long ago I think it would have been very useful.  One guy do a script kind of thing, and 5 other guys do an install the same way.  Sort of cool!  It has an new version - 1.3 - and you can find the release notes full of info.

Troubleshooting Virtual Volumes Setup
Cody has an excellent article about troubleshooting VVol issues and it is very interesting.  And, I suspect it will be useful with other manufactures VVols as well.  Very nice job Cody!

Migrating virtual machines using PowerCLI
An interesting article with a very powerful script.  Nice info to have handy just in case. I know more and more migrations are possible with vMotion, or tools like Veeam’s VAO, but you never know when you need to do things a little more simple.

vSphere Upgrade Series Part 2: Upgrading vCenter Server
Nigel has another article in his upgrade series. Good info!

The Power of vRealize Log Insight
Melissa has a nice article on a product very near and dear to me.  Good info!

Extend and Automate vCloud Director using vRealize Orchestrator - Part 1
An interesting article that can help you extend the possibilities of automation in vCD. Great info from a very smart resource.

Bringing Clarity to Veeam’s vSphere client plug-in
Anthony has an article about the Veeam plug-in for vSphere Web Client, and the vSphere Client, and it is quite interesting.  I really like the plug-in, and have shown it to a number of customers and they are often surprised, and like it too.  So this new version is quite exciting.

Veeam Backup and Replication 9.5 U3a Upgrade
Vladan has the upgrade info for U3a and as you can see it is pretty simple!  Veeam works hard on the simple.

Build numbers and version of Veeam Agent for Windows ! Veeam Agent for Linux
I do like to be able to quickly check build numbers sometimes and this KB article can help you do that for the agents.

Using AutorunstoWinEventLog
I am a big fan of Autoruns, and have it in all my templates, but when I saw this article I found it quite different.  Using the ability of autoruns to pull out info, and put it into event logs.

Route - vs. Policy-Based VPN Tunnels
An interesting article that talks about two different methods of site-to-site VPN tunnels.  Good info to know. I did not know that route-based had so many advantages.

Apple releases updated MacBook Pro’s with updated processors, more RAM and more!
You can learn about these updated MBP and do they every sound good!  I do not expect to buy one as they are quite a bit more powerful then I need, and also, expensive!

Apple releases more updates - macOS 10.13.6, iOS 11.4.1, tvOS 11.4.1 and watchOS 4.3.2
In these releases one thing that strikes me as quite important is the iOS 11.4.1 USB Restricted Mode which will protect those of you who use any USB port you find to charge your iPhone.  You can learn more about all of these in this article or how to download the iOS update in this one. The macOS update includes Airplay 2 which is pretty handy for some I suspect.  BTW, you can learn a little bit more about the USB Restricted Mode in this Security Week article. Here is the Apple info on the update for macOS. Here is the security info for the updates.

Three Ways to Reset a Lost Admin Password in High Sierra
If you lose your admin password on High Sierra it can be a bit of a problem!  You can learn more about how to deal with that in this article.

Exclusive: Apple to deploy 1Password to all 123,00 employees
I have convinced a few people to use 1Password, as I think it an important and useful tool.  But I think it very cool that Apple is providing it to its employees.  Smart move actually.

Facebook and Google accused of using ‘dark patterns’ to manipulate users
This is very interesting stuff.  I have heard of this sort of thing before, in fact by a UX guy who was talking about how we had to be careful to not do this sort of thing!

Thanks for reading or skimming this far!

Michael

=== END ===