Newsletter: July 21, 2018

Hello all,

A full week at home - yahoo!  Wait, not quite full, as when I got home last Friday my wife took me out to the mountains on a small holiday and hiking - it was amazing - the weather was good and it is very nice to hike in the mountains. This week was all working in the lab with a co-worker - the new BCDR PS guy for Veeam.  So lots of fun!

I am still working on my vSphere 6.7 upgrade, and I do have some further - and very enlightening - instructions from VMware support so as soon as I have time and that should be very soon I will work on things and release my article.  I am definitely looking forward to have vSphere 6.7 in the lab.

VMworld - I am told I will be at VMworld, so I hope to meet many of you.  For those of you not able to make it, I will be sharing from VMworld interesting things I learn.  My co-worker Anthony is doing his VMworld Golf thing again and I suspect it will be great fun so check it out.

I have some interesting stuff to share today.  Hope everyone finds something interesting.

Have a great week,

Michael

Upgrading VMware vSphere 5.5
You can learn a little more - maybe a lot - in this excellent presentation that Dean did for a VMUG on doing the upgrade away from 5.5.  BTW, Nigel has part 3 of his Upgrade series, this one covering off host upgrades.

vSphere 6.5 and limits, do they still apply to SvMotion?
Duncan has a nice article that is a good reminder of some internal changes that impacts us in the area of things like how SvMotion is impacted.  And if not a good reminder than nice learning!

Understanding vSAN Encryption - Booting when vCenter is Unavailable
Jase has an excellent article about when vCenter is not available to vSAN hosts when encryption is enabled. Great info and I am not surprised that people ask about this often.  So very good to have it handy!

How is SPBM different to Tag-Based Placement?
A very interesting article that many of us can learn from.  Curious about how SPBM and tag-based placement differ and you can get the full answer in this article.

Resource Pools, Folders & VMC now supported with Cross vCenter vMotion Utility Fling
William talks about a new improvement in the Cross vCenter vMotion fling.  I am quite impressed with it so the most recent changes are quite nice additions.

Top 20 vSphere Articles June 2018
This article references the KB articles that VMware support most often used to help solve customer issues.  Sometimes this sort of article makes me wonder a bit about customer environments but also, it is good to know if you are a partner as these are the sort of thing you might hear about from your customers.

A Closer Look at VVol Snapshot Policies on Pure Storage with vSphere 6.7
Cormac has a very nice look at Pure and VVols and you can learn quite a lot about the two.

Release Notes for VMware Horizon 7.5.1
This new update dropped recently but it is a very small update and mostly security related. And for Sean there is an important Instant Clone fix. I am not able to download it due to My VMware technical difficulties that I suspect will not last long.

What’s New in VMware Unified Access Gateway 3.3
In this article you can learn more about the 3.3 version of the UAG.  I have not started using the UAG in my lab yet but I suspect soon will be forced into it.

Understanding VMC Integration with AWS Service - Part 2 - VMware and RDS
Brian has an interesting article that helps you understand how powerful VMC is, as it allows you to connect with the power of what Amazon is.

Introduction to Elastic DRS
In this article Frank talks of a new capability in VMC that is MOST amazing. Imagine being able to scale your hardware as your workloads grow, and then shrink your hardware as your workload shrink.  And all automatically.  I think that is very cool indeed, and in fact handy for BCDR work.  And as always, great article Frank!

VMware Cloud adds Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
This is a nice thing to be added to VMC as it increases security without much impact on people.

VMware Cloud CTO: Launchng VMware on AWS has been a Heavy Lift
Kit is interviewed and talks about how hard, and what a big, job it was to create VMC. And no surprise either.

vRealize Log Insight for vCenter Server - End of Availability
In this article it lets you know that LI for vC is gone and your options.  This seems like a very odd thing for VMware to do.

Replace SSL certificates on VMware vRealize Log Insight and vRealize Operations
An article that will help you replace / update certs in Log Insight and vROps too. Very interesting and useful article!

VMware Tools 10.3 & vROps 6.7
A change has occurred in how memory consumed by VMs is calculated in vROps and so this article is good to know if you are using vROps in your environment.

Change your PowerShell Window title-bar to more easily see what you are running
Brian has an article to help you keep your many different PowerShell sessions identified.

Veeam - HPE 3Par 3.3.1 - Failed to check fingerprint
If you are a Veeam and 3Par customer you are very likely using Storage Integration and it just broke.  How to fix it, and more details, in this article.

Microsoft SQL Server processing with Update 3a
In this KB article you can learn a little more about the impact on SQL backup jobs that Update 3a can have.  More info and a workaround is in the article.

Understanding Veeam Availability Orchestrator terminology
Melissa helps you learn about the terminology that VAO uses and that can help you more quickly understand VAO and how powerful and useful it is. VAO is important software, and I am very happy to be one of its product managers, and if you do not have a DR plan - particularly one that is easy to test and confirm it works - you should definitely check out VAO.

Veeam backup repository on Centos 7
Luca has a good article about what is necessary in Centos 7 to be a good Veeam repo.  And I know that someone was wondering about this recently!

The State of DRAAS … A few thoughts
Anthony has a few thoughts, and words too, on an interesting service and situation.

July 15 - 2018 Cyrpto-Gram
In this newsletter there is some excellent points.  I love the unbreakable lock one that is so easy to abuse.  And shutting down an entire country’s Internet so students cannot cheat is sort of interesting too.

Score one for the IT Pro: Azure File Sync is now generally available!
This sounds like interesting technology - being able to sync files to Azure automatically.  Lots of possibilities with that!

July 10, 2018 - KB4338814 (OS Build 14393.2363
In this update you can learn about this update, but I have been told that it helps with an ReFS issue, however I do not see that in the article. If I learn more I will update you.

IT Architecture Matters, Even in the Cloud
It certainly does, learn more about it in this article.  Melissa is quite right.

Top 3 questions to identify if an integrated Data Protection Appliance really is an appliance or integrated
This article was quite surprising.  It has some good points and I was a bit surprised about the product too.

My Mac mini, kernel_task, and dusty hardware: Bring back my mini’s zing
In this article you can learn the benefit of being able to work with the inside of your computer.  Especially important with the Mac mini as it is possible for dust to get into it.

How to produce good documentation - Part 1 - The foundation of any IT infrastructure
I came across part 1 of this again, and looked through all five parts.  Some really good ideas and suggestions on documentation in IT.  Even home labs need good documentation!

Home anti - malware for Macs
I use Trend at home for three Macs and I think it pretty darn good and I recommend it.  However, if you want free then Sophos is a good choice.  It covers off three machines and Mac / PC are covered.

How to set up AirPlay on your Sonos speakers
You can learn how to stream (via AirPlay 2) music from your iOS devices to Sonos in this article.  Sort of cool.  I used to be a big Sonos fan - had three zones at home, but I am now a Home Pod user.  It does more for me and yet still does nice music. Turns out we still have two zones and my wife would love this feature, however, it does not support the gear we have. Before you get excited make sure it supports your gear!

Thanks for reading or skimming this far,

Michael

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