Newsletter: November 30, 2019

Hello all,

I hope that this finds everyone doing well?  Things good here. Several people have asked me to do some AppDefense / vSphere Platinum writing as they are curious about it, and so am I.  I am working on getting a 90 day NFR license to do that and we will see how it goes.

I had some oddness with my Runecast lately that was easy to fix, and I wrote an article about it as I suspect it may impact others.  Great software Runecast is!

BTW, I updated my Supermicro mini towers from BIOS 2.0 and IPMI 3.64 to 2.0c and 3.84.  This is for the 5028D-TN4T hardware.  The updates were done manual and all worked good. Manual as I lost my installed SUM tool and the current version doesn’t seem to support Windows.  Other than loading the update file, and saying start, I did not select or deselect anything.

Don’t forget that vExpert 2020 Applications are now open.  Find out more info here.

I would like to wish the very best Thanksgiving wishes to my US friends and co-workers!

I have lots to share this week - wait, isn’t that true all the time?  I guess no need to say that - right!

Have a great week,

Michael

VMware Security Advisories in vSphere Health
In this article you can learn a little more about vSphere Health and how in 6.7 U1 and higher it can help you with knowing if there is outstanding security vulnerabilities or not. I think that this is most excellent and very useful!

Data Retriever is not initialized yet. Please wait….
I have installed vROps v8 twice.  Both times after config I end up with the message above and I don’t get to use vROps 8 at all.  Anyone know how to solve this?  As I said I have deleted and installed again but with same issue. I sure wish I could talk with support.

How to easily update any VMware ESXi Hypervisor to the latest using ESXCLI
Paul has an excellent article to help you do a command line update of your ESXi host if you only have one or two hosts.  If you have more than one or two you should be using VMware Update Manager to update and remember to ALWAYs update vCenter first.

VMware vSAN Operations Guidance
This new doc is pretty good. It is operations so that means day 2 kind of thing.  Actually it is more day 1.5 - day 2. But lots of good info like TRIM/UNMAP and encryption. If you use vSAN, or install it for customers, this doc will me most useful!

Audit VM configuration changes using the vCenter Event Broker
This article will help you enable VM configuration changes to be caught and uploaded to Slack.  This will let you know when changes occur, but also have a record of the changes. This fling is pretty cool!

Cloud Migration Series: part 3 - The HCX Interconnect and Multi-Site Service Mesh
This part 3 article is pretty interesting and continues the conversation around migration to the cloud.

Providing Secure Access to VMware Horizon 7 with the VMware Unified Access Gateway
Some useful info for you in this article if you have not used the UAG before OR if you think Horizon View traffic is most secure with VPN that you better read this carefully!

VMware Horizon Scripting
In this article you can learn about some scripting possibilities for Horizon that are pretty useful. I know many people that really prefer to do everything via scripting if possible. This article will help you with that!

Horizon Reach: True Insights into an entire Cloud Pod Architecture
You can learn more about a very useful fling in that it allows you to monitor a number of View pods in one screen!  Very handy!

SRM 8.2 failure to retrieve pairs from extension server …..
This article has the problem, and the solution for an issue with SRM when it does not work between the prod and DR sites.  Missing port info actually is the issue. I believe the the ports info will be updated soon.

vCloud Director Object Storage Extension Reference Design
This article will introduce you to a reference that I think many vCD SP will find quite useful!

Setting up a vSphere lab with CoreDNS in Docker
This article has a great way to get a very small footprint DNS in your lab. If you have limited resources in your lab this can be quite useful.

All VMworld 2019 sessions now available
You can find all of the sessions, including most with PDF too, via this link.

NET::ERR_CERT_REVOKED driving you nuts after upgrading to OSX Catalina?
Duncan has an issue after upgrading to Catalina and a fix for it and you can learn more in this article. I am happy I did not have this issue!

Unveiling the VMware Cloud Native Master Services Competency
This article talks about a new certification you can work for at VMware. It is related to Kubernetes and VMware PKS.

NSX-T 2.5 Custom Monitoring Dashboard
This article will explain and help on how to do a custom dashboard in NX-T based on widgets. Looks cool.

Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 364 v4 - Upgrade and New Features
Rick has an article on this new version, including a video on the upgrade which is pretty handy. Here is another article that talks about new features.

Released: Veeam Powered Network 2.1 - Upgrade in under a minute
Anthony talks about the new version of Veeam PN which is a pretty useful tool in this article.

VMs stored on vVols may experience a significant stun during snapshot removal process
If you are doing backups of vVols hosted VMs using Veeam you may see a significant stun, this KB article will help mitigate it.

The Best of Tech Field Day
Stephen has an excellent playlist of the best TFD sessions. There are 36 and pretty interesting stuff!

99 percent of all misconfigurations in the public cloud go unreported
This article is about a report that came out with some surprising information about the public cloud. This is quite worrisome information and I hope those public clouds step up their game.

Google is killing Google Cloud Print
I wonder how many people are impacted by this?  I wonder if Google knows? But here is more on another demise of an interesting feature from Google. I never used this service, and I don’t know anyone who did but it does sound handy and interesting.

HPE issues firmware fix to stop SSD Failure
This is good news for customers. It means that you should not lose data after 32,768 hours of operation on your SSD. What an interesting hour BTW, to lose your data.

AWS Load Balancer Update - Lots of New Features for You!
This article shows off the new stuff but also shows the maturity of these solutions I think too.

Technical SEO Clickability Checklist
This is an interesting article on SEO.  It has some good suggestions.  But I must admit I do not use any of it.  Writing stuff that is useful and interesting takes enough time, I cannot take still more to do SEO. I probably should but ….. Nope.

From Quora: What is better? 512GB SSD, 1 TB HDD + 256GB SSD or 512GB SSD + 32 GB Optane?
This odd title leads into a very interesting and educational article. As always smart stuff from this author!

DJI Mavic Mini Review: The Perfect Drone for Beginners and Hobbyists
This review article is pretty interesting and good info if you are looking for a drone!

Nine Secrets I Never Knew about Airports Until I worked at LAX
Interesting info in this article about happenings at a very busy airport.

Thanks for reading or skimming this far,

Michael