Newsletter: December 22, 2018

Hello all,

I was in the lab most the week and that was fun.  I hope everyone else had fun this week too!  Of course, getting ready for Christmas was a bit stressful but I will worry about the wrapping later this weekend.  I want to be done and ready to relax Monday.

Before we get to the business of this newsletter I would really like to wish everyone Happy Holidays, or Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.  I wish everyone a safe and prosperous 2019! I would like to add that I really appreciate everyone who reads my articles, and comments on them or reach out with questions and comments. Thank You!

I wrote an article about using PowerCLI to tag VMs.  What is important to know about that is that the old method does not scale, but the new method does.  So my article is about the new method and it does scale and it does work good. I hope it helps. I logged into my Runecast instance to do an update and found it was already updated so I added in my Horizon View server to its config.  So easy.  I did update my install article as well. I also updated my moving to a new iPad article, and I also updated my Linux tool article for downloading VMware files - what a very useful too VSM is.

BTW, I found an outstanding patch to my VCSA that brings it to 6.7.20100 however I can only say the update went smooth as they normally do. Wait, I cannot log in now.  I was able to start the VMware vSphere Client service and it stayed started - even after a restart - so I think all good now. I cannot seem to find a KB article that explains the update.

I do have things to share, so lets get started - so I can start and finish my Christmas wrapping.  Have visitors this year so lots of wrapping to do.

Have a great week, and enjoy the holiday!

Michael

VMware vCenter Server 6.7 Update 1 Release Notes recently updated
The release notes for 6.7 U1 has been recently updated. The bold points is what has been changed.

VMware Skyline Collector 2.0 now GA
Actually this was out 12/6/18 - I missed it.  I really like the idea of Skyline but it needs more than a basic support agreement so I have not been able to test it.  Since VMware did not upgrade Support Assistant for 6.7 this is the only option for proactive support. Here is the release notes. The bits are here.

Announcing VMware Cloud Foundation 3.5 General Availability
The Cloud Foundation has really come a long way.  And the dashboard looks pretty nice too. This update includes all the latest stuff - like 6.7 U1.

vSAN baseline recommendation is not generated for the ESXi 6.7 U1 release
I can confirm that this support article issue has been seen in the wild. Find out more about the issue and the workaround in the article.

Recorded webinar now available: A Farewell to LUNs - Discover how VVols forever changes storage in vSphere
Some good info in this webinar that that Pete and Eric have done.  And I think it should help more people adopt VVols.

vSAN Performance Diagnostics Now Shows “Specific Issues and Recommendations” for HCIBench
HCIBench is an interesting tool to use for performance understanding but in this article it gets pretty interesting. It is quite interesting how the vSAN diags can help out HCIBench.

Revisiting Thin Provisioning
An interesting article shared out by Stephen and definitely good info if you are doing Thin Provisioning or designing UI’s that incorporate Thin Provisioning.

This host has no isolation addresses defined as required by vSphere HA
Duncan shares a article on an ‘error’ and background info and what it means.

Creating an Optimized Windows Image for a VMware Horizon Virtual Desktop
I think I do a pretty good guide for a Window Template but in this article it goes into even more depth and detail.  It is very well done!

vRealize Network Insight 4.0 now GA
This new release has some interesting new functions - such as support for VMware on AWS so an exciting release.  Here is the release notes and bits.

New Release: PowerCLI 11.1.0
In this article you can learn about this new release of PowerCLI.  That team is sure busy! I like how they added more support for other OS’s like macOS.

New Release: PowerCLI Preview for VMware Cloud on AWS
You can learn more about this new release in this article.  VMware has been busy with PowerCLI lately!

More Than VDI … Lets make 2019 The Year of End-User Computing
I quite agree with Sean, it should not be the year of VDI but rather the year of EUC.  Desktops are part of that, but also apps too. And much more.  Nice job Sean.

VCDX - Remote Defense
This is quite interesting and a good idea, if you fail your VCDX panel, and need to do it again you can do it remotely.  Nice.

Peanut Brittle is the Best Thing Ever!
You may have heard very good things about Stephen’s peanut brittle - it is very popular and he sends it out at this time of year.  If you want to make some of your own - here is the recipe. It is quite the recipe!

Package Thief vs. Glitter Bomb Trap
In this video you can see how a guy gets back at people that are stealing his courier delivered packages from his door step.  Pretty cool actually.

Modern upgrade opportunities powered by Veeam DataLabs
Rick has done a nice whitepaper on the use of SureBackup jobs.  These are very useful tools to do a very good test of your backups.  Few customers do them, but really most every customer should. It is a very nice way to test upgrades but bear in mind it is even better to do test upgrades in a test failover using Veeam Availability Orchestrator.

What is Veeam Cloud Connect and how to set it up?
You can find an article to help you understand and setup your connection to a Cloud Connect provider which is a very easy way to get your backups offsite!

Looking for the Perfect Dashboard: InfluxDB, Telegraf, and Grafana - Part XIII - Veeam Backup for Office 365
Jorge has a nice article about a very nice dashboard you can have with VBO that costs nothing but your time to make.  Very nice dashboard actually!

HyTrust KeyControl Quick Install Guide
Vic has an excellent resource if you want to get the KeyControl KMS working.  It is very handy to use with vSphere Encryption or vSAN encryption. I have used this KMS and quite like it!

Disable Dark Mode for Outlook in OSX?!
I like how when Duncan has trouble doing something, and figures it out, that he puts it on his blog.  Very good for the rest of us. In this case it is how to disable dark mode for Outlook.  Hopefully in the future MS does a nicer job of dark mode support for Outlook.

How to set up eSIM on the Apple iPhone XR and XS
I know a number of people that love having two SIM’s in their phone.  It was a little common when I was working in Asia.  I like how Apple is supporting this now, although it is a little different in that they are support one SIM and one eSIM.  But it works and that is what counts. If you need help setting up your eSIM this article can help.

How to publish your ebooks
I heard some people talking about this recently and so I looked into it.  It is not that hard, but there are a few steps, and things to know.  Here is an article that will get you started.

New iPad Pro: Power and Productivity, at a Price
This review has been passed around a lot.  It has some good info, but the author of it thinks he is the normal user so shares a lot of problems that don’t apply. I use my 11 inch iPad Pro for a lot of things and I can go whole days using it. The VMware View client for iOS works great when I need to do demo’s or lab work.

Thanks for reading or skimming this far! Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

Michael

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