Hello all,
I spent the week at the HQ, and it was pretty good. Really nice, and smart, people abound in that office. But I am heading home, and will be home for almost a week before I head out to VMworld in Spain. Looking forward to that. But, as you might expect, I have things to share so lets get started.
I did an article recently on making vVols work on NetApp HCI gear. I am surprised that there is a feeling among some people that they don’t need or don’t like vVols. I am working on an article on why I think vVols are something special and very nice to use. Also, I got one of the new Series 5 Apple Watches so I updated my article on moving to a new Apple watch as part of making it work.
I helped someone with an issue in that they were booting with SD and so I helped them redirect logs and core dump. I did this under vSphere Update 3 so I updated as necessary my articles (logs moved, and core dump moved).
Have a great week,
Michael
VMware vCenter Server 6.7 Update 3a now GA
This update (release notes) seems to have a number of fixes including security that are important. BTW, this update brings the vCSA to 6.7.0.4100. I think that this is due to this security advisory. My update was quick and easy.
VMware vCenter Server 6.5 Update 3d now GA
This update also seems to be a security update. Here are the release notes. It looks like there is a security fix that is the same in both of these updates. Which makes it pretty important.
VMworld 2019 Barcelona - all parties, gatherings, events, and activities
You can find a nice list of things going on at VMworld 2019 EMEA.
vmx.reboot.PowerCycle Makes CPU Vulnerability Remediation Easy
This article by Bob is most excellent addition in PowerCLI. The ability to say the next power cycle is actually a power off, and power on. Very handy!
Considerations for vSphere Component Backup and Restore: Part 2
David has an interesting article about restore, and rollback, which is good to know.
vSphere Mobile Client
I have been using this mobile vSphere Client and while it is simple, and not too many features, it is a very good start and I like it.
VMware LifeCycle Manager - Migration Error “SSH is not enabled or invalid”
You can learn about this issues that may hit you during your upgrade to the version 8 and the way to deal with it in this nice article Dean has.
How to debug NSX-T API Automation with PowerCLI?
William has an interesting article that can help you with NSX-T debugging.
PowerCLI 11.5.0 now GA
I am so impressed with how frequent the PowerCLI updates are, and I love how easy they are (update-module). I like how you can now get create dates for vSphere 6.7 created VMs. Here is a very nice blog on what’s new.
VMware Tanzu projects: Octant - Kubernetes runtime overview
A nice breakdown - done differently than I have seen elsewhere on the cool new project named Tanzu.
Announcing an Update to Creating an Optimized Windows Image for a VMware Horizon Virtual Desktop
If you build Windows templates for View, this is good news for you, more Windows OS supported for example. I do like this tool.
Tracking VM Powered Off Duration with vRealize Operations
This is useful info in that I have seen times when I had to figure out how long a VM was off. I think that this is a nice idea and useful addition for vRealize Operations.
Upgrade to vRealize Operations Manager 8.0 fails due to the admin or root account password
This KB article talks of an issue (and the solution) that has been seen in the wild.
vRealize Operations Management Pack for Container Monitoring
Interesting that there is a MP for containers that vROps can use to improve the monitoring. Nice.
NTP
All you might want to know, and some you don’t, can be found via this article. NTP is critical infrastructure and we all need it.
How to recover deleted emails in Office 365
In this article you can learn about some quite useful info on how powerful Veeam is at pulling things back to life.
How to add the Veeam Knowledge Base to Feedly and Outlook
This article will show you how to add the Veeam KB to your RSS reader which is pretty handy if you work with Veeam.
Veeam Backup to B2 Using Tiger Bridge
Here is an article that shares how to use B2 from Backblaze as a destination for your backups. Very nice stuff!
Calling all Veeam Backup & Replication Users .. Are you using the right or best transport mode?
Michael has a good point in his article, default works great with Veeam and you will get good backups and restores but you can make different decisions and you get faster backups so a much shorter backup window. I use in my home lab DirectNFS and it makes things much faster.
NetApp HCI Reference Architecture with Veeam Backup and Replication 9.5 Update 4
This very nice technical reference can help you understand NetApp HCI and Veeam which is a very nice combination. I do in fact use Veeam to backup my work lab. I should mention that the suggestions in the guide that talks about tweaking your backup QoS can be scripted.
Do you use GitHub? Ever Thought about Backup….
Michael talks about how to backup your GitHub info. A good idea actually!
Clean Up Data Spills Quickly with NetApp Secure Purge
Interesting functionality! Secure purge on SSD is pretty important and useful.
How long does gas last?
Someone told me recently that it lasts for ever. I knew from my Army days it had a life that was not for ever. So when I remembered that conversation today I looked it up. Depending on the type of gas it may last 3 - 6 months. The short number is for ethanol which does not last long due to the high rate it oxidizes. And yes, gas can be stabilized with additives that make a difference. But here is an article with the full details.
Rubrik Delivers Next-Gen Data Management with NetApp Across Hybrid Mult-Cloud
This article is more of a press release but it is interesting about some new functionality in Rubrik that NetApp brings to the relationship.
New Microsoft NTLM Flaws May Allow Full Domain Compromise
In this article you can learn more about an important new flaw in Microsoft. It seems like a serious one.
MakePass: Create your own Apple Wallet Passes on the Mac
I was caught quite by surprise by this article as I did not know you could do this. The process sounds a little odd, and maybe wonky too. But I do like the Apple Wallet and this sounds interesting.
How to check iPad and Mac Sidecar requirements
I remember it took me a bit to make this work in the beta but it is much easier now with iOS 13 and macOS Catalina out. I find this very useful so if you want to give it a try, here is some info that might help.
How to add a volume to APFS container and why you would want too.
This article is good education on APFS - the file system of the Mac and how it allows things that we are not used to, or might have been hard in the past.
Should you upgrade your Mac to macOS Catalina
This article talks about the things you should think about before upgrading - like will your Mac support it for example. You should worry about that, and if you have 32 bit apps that you need, but if you can, I think you should upgrade. I did, and am very happy with it. I like the changes in iTunes, and Find My, and the feature - Sidecar - that allows me to use my iPad as another screen. But I did not have any 32 bit apps to worry about, and my hardware was supported.
How to use Time Machine on your Mac
I have run into a few people lately who are sort of using Time Machine but could use a little bit more info on the subject. Here is an article that can help people with Time Machine.
Thanks for reading or skimming this far,
Michael
