Newsletter: October 16, 2020

Hello all,

I hope everyone had a good week?  And were safe too I hope. Things are OK here, and we are staying home and safe too.

I did a non-technology article on my daypack survival kit as someone asked about that. This is a technology blog but I will depart sometimes when it makes sense.

I think I have figured out the new editor and so things should work better for me, and you this time!

BTW, I have upgraded my Big Sur beta to beta 10 and I have lost count of the crashes.  Which I had zero previous to beta 10.  So I suggest you hold off upgrading to beta 10 and if you don’t I hope you have a better time them me.

I heard people this week complaining that when they moved to a new iPad they were missing health info and passwords.  This is normal if you do the simple upgrade.  But if you don’t want to lose anything, you should do it like I do - check out this article. This is also true for moving to a new iPhone - check out this article.

Have a great week - and safe too as I do see spikes everywhere in COVID-19,

Michael

Integrated Management and Support: Skyline + vRealize Operations Cloud
This article talks about this release and the increased functionality, and how Skyline and vROps are connected.

Announcing VMware Skyline Support for VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1
I realize that VCF is quite popular in certain circles and is becoming popular elsewhere too, but I did not realize that Skyline was not supported.  So it is very good it is supported now as per this article.

VMware Cloud Foundation where to start !
This article talks about what, but also has links to more and the HOL too.

VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1 | vCenter, ESXi, vSAN | Information
This article is pure information and all in one place on 70 U1. Quite handy actually.

VMware vSphere Clustering Services (vCLS) considerations, questions and answers
Duncan has an article that will help you learn more about vCLS. Everyone should read this and understand it as it impacts all vSphere 7 users.

vSAN - A Secure Fortress for your Data
Jeff has an interesting article about some new features in vSAN.  Secure Fortress is quite right when it has data at rest encryption as well as data in transit encryption. i also like how you can do secure wipe of the disks when you remove them.  I have had to do that long ago and it was very manual. I think that a lot of business should be exploiting these new security features.  Medical, Military, Intelligence, banking, Oil & Gas are some of them.

Introducing VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VCDR)
Cormac takes us through this new functionality that VMware has thanks to the purchase of Datrium and it sounds like a very cool DR functionality.

Now Available: vRealize Network Insight 6.0!
This article will detail for you all the new functionality of this big release.  I have not used vRNI yet but hope to in my new lab.

Silent Install VMware Tools
This article will help you to install VMware Tools. But do it in the way that works better for more customers. Good info.

Installing VMware Tools on Raspberry Pi OS for ESXi-Arm
William has an article that helps you with getting the tools working. Tools are important to have installed for a variety of reasons.

ESXi on Raspberry Pi - Quick way to update EEPROM
Interesting article on updating EEROM for your Pi servers.

Visually Identify Raspberry Pi in a Cluster
This article will help you do exactly that! If you have a cluster of Pi it is likely hard to tell them apart.

ESXi for 64-bit ARM processors - My Playground Project
Michael helps you get going with ESXi on Pi in this article.

How to copy the Raspberry Pi UEFI files and boot ESXiARM using just USB device?
William talks in this article about different ways to boot ESXi-ARM.

How to run Raspberry Pi as a VM on ESXi-ARM
William shows you how to have a Raspberry Pi VM in this article.

vSAN Witness using Raspberry Pi 4 & ESXi-ARM Fling
William talks about doing exactly what the article title says! A nice use case.

Configure a VM’s vmware.log file to send messages to vRealize Log Insight
This article shows you how.  I have done this before and it is amazing how much gets forwarded on.  That log file is very busy.

OVFTool 4.4.1 - Upload OVF/OVA from URL using upcoming ‘pull’ mechanism
William talks of this new functionality in this article.  It sounds pretty cool actually.

NSX-T Federation - Part 1: Introduction & Architecture
If you are starting out with NSX-T this article may help with your NSX-T adventure.

VMware Certification, Starting with VCA-DBT
Melissa nicely breaks down the VCA cert with VMware in this article. This cert is a good place to start if you want to be a VMware person who works in VMware products.

Maximizing VMware vRealize Operations On-Prem and in the Cloud
This Gorilla Guide can be found via this link. I downloaded it and it looks pretty good. It looks like it starts at the beginning and advances from there! I will test it out when I can get vROps in my lab and let you know.

Applying the DaaS 9.0.1 Update
Sean has all the details you need to prepare for and do the update to your DaaS environment in this article.

#177 - SmartNICs and Project Monterey
This article connects you with a podcast that can educate you on Project Monterey which sounds pretty cool.

Announcing the General Availability of VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.2
Here is the article on the new release, but I can add it seems like a big one!

Automated vSphere with Tanzu Lab Deployment Script
William has worked amazing hard on this script I suspect, but it is pretty cool and useful for so many people, so that is cool.  Check out the article on it.

New Release PowerCLI 12.1 - vLCM Enhancements
This article details some of the updates in 12.1 of PowerCLI and there is quite a few.  I like how we can do some vLCM stuff with it. Here is an article about the new PowerCLI and what it can do in VMWare Cloud on AWS.

Why Kubernetes is now ready for the enterprise
In this article you can see the thinking and the ideas of what the title is what it is. The author has some good points.  Both stateless AND stateful apps are supported now which was a big complaint of mine when they weren’t.

Deploying Puppet Enterprise agents with Hashicorp Terraform on Azure VMs
I thought this was an interesting article - using Terraform to install Puppet agents was sort of od but interesting.

Service Provider Console: How license usage reporting works and why it’s important
This article answers the implied question of the title.  Good info for Veeam SP’s but I suspect they already know.

How to Harden a backup repository on Windows
This article will help you harden your repo so that malware cannot impact it.  Or bad people either.

How to Transfer FSMO Roles and Time Server roles to new Domain Controller
This is quite useful info as I had to replace a DC once and it was more work than it should have been.

watchOS 7.0.2 Address Battery Life, ECG bugs
This article explains this release, but I can add that it took probably one or two days after the upgrade to see the longer battery life. I love how the upgrade happens while I sleep.

iPhone 12 vs. iPhone 12 Pro: Which should you buy?
I realized while watching the Apple event that these two phones look pretty much the same.  So it was good to find this article that explains they are not the same.

The iPhone 12: Here’s what you need to know
This article is very well done and full of useful info. It also has more details.

iPhone 12 Pro: Everything you need to know about Apple’s new high-end smartphone
This article covers off the Pro and has a good amount of detail on the iPhone 12 Pro.

iPhone 12 models with 5G mmWave are US only, new side cutout works as antenna
This is a good article to share as it may surprise people but for Canada I don’t think we have any or much 5G yet so no big deal.

iOS 14: How the compact call interface works on iPhone
I think that this is interesting as when my phone rings the whole screen is not impacted.  Learn more about this functionality in this article.

iOS 14 review: Evolving how you use your iPhone
This article is a substantial review of IOS 14 and so quite useful.

Here’s how HomePod mini compares to HomePod
This article goes into some detail on this.  I am going to start to replace my old SONOs gear with the HomePod and HomePod mini. Here is more info on the HomePod mini.

HomePod & HomePod mini cannot pair to each other, but home theater support coming soon
This article covers off some things to be aware of WRT the new HomePod mini.

How to setup and use Intercom on iPhone, Apple Watch, and HomePod
This article will show you how to do something we cannot do yet. But it is good functionality that I can use in the future.

Apple’s October 13 2020 Keynote: By the numbers
This article is quite interesting as it has all the numbers.  Size, weight, and much more.

How to cope with PowerPoint and Keynote limitations with videoconferencing software
In case you have seen or noticed issues this article might help.

Caller ID verification could be coming to the iPhone soon
This is a very big deal and I look forward to it a lot - imagine you see confirm who is actually calling you! Learn more about this cool functionality in this article.

Apple details new A14 chip and designing processors that range iPhone to Mac
An interesting article on Apples new processor and how they think about processors. I really like the idea of System on Chip (SOC) that they do a lot of.

Thanks for reading or skimming this far,

Michael

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