Hello everyone,
So this was my first week of retirement. It was nice. It is not the retirement I thought I would have. I need to say Thank You - from my heart, to the people that reached out to me over the past week. It was wonderful and I really appreciate it. It was also very helpful - thank you again.
This Sunday my wife and I are out on a short holiday - 10 days. So not sure if I will get a newsletter done or not.
But I do have some good stuff to share today. I hope everyone finds something interesting.
Many locations are seeing spikes in COVID-19 so I hope you are all staying safe and healthy. Remember masks and gloves when outside the house can be very helpful.
Have a great week,
Michael
Maximum supported vSAN / vSphere / VCF cluster
John has a very interesting article on an important issue. Should you design a cluster for it’s maximum size? No. You should design a cluster to solve an issue and provide some growth too. I quite enjoy talking with John and reading his articles - he is very smart indeed.
New whitepaper available on vSphere 7 DRS Load Balancing
Frank shares out this new TWP and it is pretty darn good. And DRS did change a lot in vSphere 7 so this is a good way to learn more about it.
vSphere 6.7 and Virtual TPM
This article has some good background info on TPM and how useful it is.
vSphere 7 - System Storage When Upgrading
Very interesting article about the updated vSphere 7 and boot storage. I had heard about a lot of people in labs and the issues they had with upgrades. I had no issues in storage but it turned out I had done things different. I used a 16 GB SanDisk USB (and two 32 GB ones) and I had redirected host logs to storage.
Encrypting Kubernetes Persistent Volumes on vSphere (video)
Cormac has an article - with a video on this. Interesting stuff.
Using the new installation method for deploying OpenShift 4.5 on VMware Cloud on AWS
William will help you with deploying OpenShift using a new method in this article.
How to deploy OpenShift 4.3 on VMware vSphere with Static IP addresses using Terraform
Dean has an interesting article about using Terraform to do OpenShift. Amazing.
Deploying VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid with Pure Storage vVols Part 1: Deploy TKG on vSphere
Cody has an interesting article to help you with Tanzu on Pure Storage storage and with vVols in use.
Everything Kubernetes with vRealize Operations
This article has a good collection of links to blogs and videos. I think it makes good sense to use vROps to help manage the whole infrastructure - vSphere and K8’s too. But I see that as a little complex so the help in articles and videos is nice.
How to easily kill a zombie datastore in your VMware vSphere Lab
Paul has an interesting article on this subject but it is the very last option. Normally what works for me, and has worked a bunch of times, is to make sure there is no VMs on the datastore. Remove them if there are. Then rescan storage. Then you should be able to remove the datastore. If this doesn’t work, you may need to do what Paul suggests. It is best to not edit the database in the vCSA if possible.
How to deal with Purple Screen of Death - PSOD
This article talks about a new technical white paper on the subject. It would be good for more people to know and understand more about PSOD. When I was at VMware, the most important thing I learned about PSOD was to take a picture of the PSOD screen as there was more info there than in the log files.
vSphere Continuous Beta
This is cool news from VMware. A continuous beta is a lot of fun - and yes, lots of work too. I wish I still had a lab and I would participate.
Configuration Backups of vRealize Network Insight
I like having configuration backups and so this article caught my attention that vRNI can do that now.
VMware Horizon and Zero Clients Enabling Rapid Remote Secure IT Working
This article talks about using Thin / Zero clients which I think is pretty handy. I used one at home for several years and quite liked it.
Run Horizon Workloads on VMware Cloud on Dell EMC
This article talks about using the Dell EMC cloud. Which is VMware underneath so it is not so big of a deal I think.
Release Notes for Veeam Backup & Replication 10a
Here is the release notes. Seems like a nice update.
High Performance Object Storage for Veeam Backup and Recovery
This article talks about an interesting situation. This is the software that was used at Veeam in QC to help with the dev and test of supporting object storage.
DC Scope for VMware vSphere - Improve Performance, Optimize, Troubleshoot, Monitor
This article talks about some new software that I have not seen or worked with, that can be used to troubleshoot and monitor vSphere. You can get a trial version of it, and if it makes things easier, and helps you to be proactive rather than reactive, it might be worth something.
Review: Anker PowerExpand Elite Thunderbolt 3 Dock
Scott has a nice review of what sounds like a pretty good doc for MB users. Seems to have the right number and type of connectors.
How to find Apple Watch after you’ve lost or misplaced it
This article is interesting and handy. I like how your iPhone can find so many different things.
Can the iPad Pro replace the MacBook for enterprise device?
This article (video) is about answering this question. I have the first iPad Pro 10″ and I used to carry it around VMware, Veeam, DataGravity, and it was all I needed. It had email and calendar, Evernote for note taking, and the VMware View Client to get into the lab - and a nice keyboard. So I was pretty impressed and it worked dandy. I used my Mac for when I needed to edit pictures I had taken. But I see in iPadOS 14 I can do a lot of photo editing in it really well.
Apple will have iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and watchOS 7 randomize MAC addresses in the name of privacy
I was very surprised to see this. I instantly had thoughts of frustration in company’s that were trying to support their end users devices. I like having this flexibility and power, but I also like it off by default and it appears it is.
Fantastical 3.1.2
This article talks about a new version of Fantastical. I am a big fan of Fantastical and used to use it on Mac, iPad and iPhone.
The Mac is moving to Apple Silicon - not ARM
This article explains why it is not right to say that Apple is moving to ARM. They are moving to their own silicon.
Protect your data with this powerful and affordable VPN
You can learn more about this recommended VPN in this article. When I had a lab to protect, I used my firewall’s VPN for emergency use, but I used a virtual desktop as I thought that better security and more simple too.
Future Face ID could map a user’s veins to foil ‘evil twin’ attack
I thought this article was pretty interesting and sort of curious how hard it would be to do.
Bringing COVID-19 exposure notification to the public health community
Interesting article that seems very helpful in the medical community.
What’s new in macOS 11 Big Sur beta 3? Battery icon change, new screenshot sound effect, more
I am writing this newsletter on a Mac running beta 3 of Big Sur. It is a smooth beta so far and working good. Beta 3 fixed two issues I had so pretty cool. You can see a little bit of the new stuff in beta 3 in this article.
I switched from LastPass to 1Password (and you should, too)
I have been a 1Password user for a long time, and think it would be good for LastPass users to switch to it. But here is an article about a LastPass user that switched to 1Password.
Thanks for reading or skimming this far,
Michael
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