Hello all,
I hope everyone stayed safe, and healthy this week. The hype around Covid-19 is getting worse. My employer has cancelled almost all travel, for likely three months. So I just became a full time documentation junkie which really sucks. The staying home part is nice though.
On the Covid-19 thing make sure to wash your hands well and lots, but also to not touch your face. Makes a big difference. Washing your hands with soap and water is better than using that other alcohol based stuff. BTW, here is a Covid-19 info page from a security company I like and used to use the medical services of when I was overseas.
I had a thank you article to VMware on becoming a vExpert again, and another article about deploying SAP Hanna on Azure which was done by a guest author. BTW here is another article on vExpert by a friend of mine.
But I do have things to share, so I should get started!
Have a great week!
Michael
Initial Placement of a vSphere Native Pod
Another great article by Frank. I am very excited by Project Pacific as I think that will really change the market and enable customers a lot.
How is Virtual Memory Translated to Physical Memory?
A very educational article that teaches you some very important virtualization basics.
Announcing End of Availability for vSphere Platinum, vCloud Suite Platinum, and Cloud Foundation Platinum
This article talks about about the end of Platinum but important to understand that the products inside it are not going away. So AppDefense and the plug-in are still available. Plus the customers who bought will get Enterprise Plus out of this. The article explains things nicely.
Skyline Resolves Production Incidents Faster with Alert-Based health dashboards
I am a very big fan of Skyline and I wish I could have it in my lab. But I can’t so I wish that many customers do since it can really help. So it was interesting to see this article how they are trying to make sure to resolve issues with Skyline fast and carefully.
Installing vRealize build tools - part 1
This article was interesting for me as I did not know there were tools that could be downloaded and used as part of the new vRO. And this is good as the latest vRO is missing some functionality.
Using PowerCLI to replicate templates to multiple clusters
David has an interesting article about how to sync templates between storage. Quite handy for some customers I think. David recently joined Pure and already I am seeing some great stuff from him.
[HorizonAPI] Pulling Entitlement Information using the API
An interesting article showing off more on how to use the Horizon API. I started playing with ControlUp in my lab and Wouter was a big help. He has joined them in a PSO role so I suspect we will start to see some interesting articles from him on ControlUp.
Automating Desktop Pool creation using powerCLI - VMware Horizon 7.x
I know people - partners - that like to use automation for doing customer stuff so it is always done the same way. So long as that makes sense of course. And Horizon is one that people are starting to look at. So here is an article that will help with automating the rollout of Horizon View.
vROps 8.0 Troubleshooting Workbench and Blue Medora
A very good article as I think many are intimidated by the new vROps. Very cool example in the article and I like how deep it goes!
vROps 8.0 Microsoft Azure Management Pack
I did not know about this management pack and I have not got a way to try it out but it looks useful - if you are a vROps user and an Azure customer. See more about it in this article.
VCAP Design Study Notes
This article has some good info that would help you get your VCAP. It is not magic however, and lots of study and practice would still be very useful.
StorageMinute: vVols vs. Traditional Datastore
In this very short video you learn why vVols are good for mixed file systems. Which also helps performance.
HA Kubernetes Cluster on AWS with Cluster API v1alpha2
Scott has an excellent article on K8’s and HA which is important.
Quick Post - Executing PowerShell through Guest Customizations with Terraform
Anthony can help you in this article with doing PowerShell in Terraform via Guest Customization. Handy when you don’t have a Windows domain to do it for you.
As Built Report updated
This very useful tool (I wrote about it in this article) has been updated and you can find the change log here. A very nice tool!
New Release - DSC Resources for VMware 2.1
Kyle has an article about the updated DSC resources which is pretty cool stuff. More functionality has been added and some god examples too.
vSAN - Tracking storage policies in vROps
Interesting article about getting storage policy use into vROps. I could see this being useful at times. While this is for vSAN I suspect it might work for any storage using storage policies but I am not positive.
TAM Lab 045 - vRA 8 Deployment Workshop
This video from VMware TAMs (technical account manager) is pretty good and it can help with the vRA 8 deployment.
Active Directory Authentication for Kubernetes Clusters
A nice article if you want to use your AD creds with K8’s which is a good idea in fact and better security too.
VMware Community Homelabs
William keeps updating as people submit their home lab info. You can see it all here. Interesting stuff. I am always open to questions or comments about my home lab.
VMware Cloud on AWS: Windows provisioning using Terraform
Interesting article on this subject. It looks like it might be good to get you started.
[10] Top issues tracker
If you want to know what the top issues are with v10 of Veeam Backup & Replication you can follow them in this forum post. I can say v10 is working great in my lab and at work, but also the issues seem to be not major ones so all is good.
Veeam Datalabs - Resources
Datalabs in Veeam are pretty useful but are not used as often as they should be. Michael has an article with lots of resources to learn more. I love SureBackup jobs and always use them!
The case of failed to decompress LZ4 block: incorrect decompression result or length error
The problem is an interesting one and it is good the solution is part of the article too!
Exchange Online Total Size and Items Count
Hal has an article that will help you do exactly what the title says! Nicely done Hal!
Standford group wants to use your computer to help researchers study the coronavirus
Years ago this was quite popular. I think it was called [email protected] but not sure. But it is back again to help with the study of a current disease. Which is a good idea and a lot of computers will make that much easier. See this article for more info.
How Netflix uses Druid for Real-Time Insights to Ensure a High-Quality Experience
A fascinating article on how Netflix makes sure that our view experience is good and not negatively impacted. Very cool.
Cyber Threats 2019: A Year in Retrospect
You can learn a little about the past year in this security report and how poor things went. And all the shenanigans in the world! It all means defense in depth everywhere, and really good firewalls, and trained users!
Ransomware protection is killer app for Datrium DRaaS
Interesting article about the DRaaS product from Datrium. I should add that many DR orchestration tools can restore not the latest but something from the past and that is very useful in ransomware work. I do like what I have heard and seen about Datriums DR product.
5 Years of Intel CPU’s and chipsets have a concerning flaw that’s unfixable
This article paints a poor picture but Intel is doing something about that issue - not fixing but mitigating so that is good. I should mention that Apple Macs are not impacted by this. Filevault uses no Intel code, and the Macs with T2 chips use only the T2 chip. So good news for Apple customers.
Reset Windows 10 password by disabling Windows Defender
This article is good info if you are a security guy or just interested in learning about hacks.
Three Reasons you might want a home security camera
This is a well done article on the subject. I use cameras for security and I pay a little extra for the video to be kept for a while outside my house.
Modern Mass Surveillance: Identify, Correlate, Discriminate
This is a very good article about surveillance. So many people are against facial recognition but they are missing the point. Heartbeat and gait can also be used to identify you! Camera’s have gotten so good they can read fingerprints and iris pattern from meters away. Plus our phones also can identify us pretty easy. The article does a good job of explaining how big of a deal this is and not just facial recognition.
Why VMware Supports Let’s Encrypt, a Free and Open Certificate Authority
I saw this article about VMware liking Let’s Encrypt and I was hopeful there was going to be some integration between them to make our VMware cert life much easier. But no. No mention of that. But maybe in the future.
13 Writing Rules
This article has some simple but appropriate writing guidelines. They fit pretty good even though I had not really known of them.
Retrospect Releases Backup 17 and Virtual 2020
You can see this info on this in this article. I used to use this software long ago when I worked for an Oil and Gas company. I liked it a lot and it did a really good job. Glad it is still around.
Far from home: A Travel Security Guide
This article has some quite good security suggestions and they are worth thinking about.
Tech Tip: Authenticating sudo with Touch ID on macOS
An interesting article that works good. On my mac when I do sudo stuff and in the past typed a password now I use a finger print. Nice.
Thanks for reading or skimming this far,
Michael
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