VCDX181.com – @Cohesity DataPlatform Virtual Edition Hands On [vcdx181.com]
I got the opportunity to test the new Cohesity Platform Virtual Edition. I was the first guy in the world to install this product in my Home Lab and provide an online review. I am really honored for that. Thanks a lot Cohesity.
Instant Clones for RDSH in VMware Horizon 7.1 [www.ntpro.nl]
VMware Horizon 7.1 extends the use of Instant Clones to creating RDSH Farms. As a key component of the JMP (Just-in-Time Management Platform) this provides several key benefits, including simplified RDSH image management, faster delivery and maintenance. Learn about the benefits this brings, how it works and see a demo of Instant Clones for RDSH in action.
vRealize Operations Manager (vROps) Health-Check. [captainvops.com]
This post is not intended to be the traditional front-end health check on the appliance, and instead will focus on the back-end, specifically the Cassandra database on the data nodes. I decided to write this post due to the various issues I have encountered managing two large production deployments, with the largest containing 9 data nodes, and 3 remote collectors collecting and processing metrics north of 3,829,804.
New Layout for VMworld Europe 2017 [isjw.uk]
VMworld Europe returns to the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona again this year, but even though it’s in the same place the organisers have taken advantage of the massive venue to move a few things around. I’d heard comments at last years event, echoed on the VMW Community Podcast recently, that a few areas didn’t get the expected footfall and it looks like the changes have been made to help that. Note- I’m basing this blog post on the plans on the VMworld website, which are obviously subject to change.
EUC Toolbox: O Sweet data of mine… Mining data with Lakeside Software’s SysTrack [pascalswereld.nl]
I have already covered the importance of insights for EUC environments in some of my blog post. TL;dr of those is: if not having some kind of insight your screwed. As I find this a very important part of EUC and EUC projects, and see that insights are often lacking when I enter the ring…. I would like to repeat myself: try to focus on the insights a bit more, pretty please.
Choosing the Correct Printing Options with VMware Horizon 7 [blogs.vmware.com/euc]
Printing is a key requirement for both virtual desktops (VDI/RDSH) and RDSH-published applications. VMware Horizon 7 supports both local printer redirection and native network printers. Both choices serve very different purposes, and in this blog we will discuss typical use cases for both solutions. In addition, we will show how to use VMware User Environment Manager, part of Horizon 7 Enterprise Edition, to more easily manage network printer mapping and deliver “follow-me printing.”
University finds Proactive Security and PCI Compliance through NSX [blogs.vmware.com/networkvirtualization]
The University of Pittsburgh is one of the oldest institutions in the country, dating to 1787 when it was founded as the Pittsburgh Academy. The University has produced the pioneers of the MRI and the television, winners of Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, Super Bowl and NBA champions, and best-selling authors.
VMware Validated Design for Software-Defined Data Center 4.0 Release Notes [pubs.vmware.com]
Last updated: 6 APR 2017
The VMware NSX Platform – Healthcare Series – Part 4.3: Micro-segmentation Practical – vRealize Network Insight [vwilmo.wordpress.com]
In the last post, we showed the methodology to building out Micro-segmentation rules for the OpenMRS EMR application in the test environment. This was a straightforward process using the VMware NSX Distributed Firewall and vRealize Log Insight. The process became even simpler when we leveraged the new NSX 6.3 feature – Application Rule Manager. More importantly it gives us a starting point for applications to provide a Zero-Trust security posture.
DRS Cluster Resource Management with Reservation and Shares [blogs.vmware.com/performance]
Resource management in vSphere is very robust and sophisticated. It provides settings like reservation, limits and shares (a.k.a. RLS), which can be applied on virtual machines (VMs) and resource pools. These settings can be used as knobs to isolate resources, prioritize them, or to guarantee availability of resources to VMs in a cluster. Our customers have often asked about how these settings impact availability of resources for a VM.
vSphere 6.5 Security Configuration Guide (Hardening Guide) Release Candidate [blogs.vmware.com/vsphere]
Security Configuration Guide? What’s that you ask? That’s what now used to be called the vSphere Hardening Guide. Well, I didn’t come up with that name, folks who created it many, many years ago called it that. But like everything else in this world, change comes and change is good.
What’s New for Windows 10 Management with VMware AirWatch 9.1 [blogs.air-watch.com]
In case you missed our announcement last month, we are thrilled to expand VMware AirWatch unified endpoint management (UEM) with new innovations across all major operating system (OS) platforms, including Windows 10.
Automated NSX DFW validation with PowerNSX, Traceflow & NSX API [vxsan.com]
For a project i’m currently working on, we need to provide a full end-to-end validation of the NSX routing, distributed firewall rules and VXLAN functionality. As the amount and complexity of firewall rules are quite significant, i’ve written a script that allows you to run and retrieve data from NSX Traceflow in an automated fashion, which can be found at https://bitbucket.org/srobroek/pnsx-traceflow/. (Note: this is still very preliminary, needs some feature updates and hopefully will at some point be merged into PowerNSX).
VMware AirWatch 101: Per-App VPN [blogs.vmware.com/euc]
Per-App Virtual Private Network (VPN) functionality changes the game for securing remote mobile endpoints. VPN connections enable end users to access internal resources from anywhere and on any device. However, traditional VPN solution lack the intelligence to distinguish between personal and productive apps, allowing access to ALL the device’s apps. VMware AirWatch per-app VPN establishes connectivity at an application level, instead of on a per-device basis. When an authorized app launches, VMware Tunnel establishes a silent connection for seamless and secure access.
DRS Cluster Management with Reservation and Shares [www.ntpro.nl]
Reservation and shares are important resource management knobs in a vSphere DRS cluster. They can be set on cluster objects like VMs and resource pools to isolate resources, prioritize, and/or guarantee their availability.
HA disabled VMs not registered on other hosts after failure? [www.yellow-bricks.com]
A couple of weeks ago one of our SEs asked me about vSphere HA functionality that was introduced a while ago, which is the ability to have HA disabled VMs being registered on other healthy hosts in a cluster after a failure. Not only does this apply to “HA disabled VMs” but also to powered-off VMs. This functionality was introduced to make it easier to power-on a VM after a host failure which was powered off before the failure, or which was disabled for HA restarts. Without this functionality you would need to re-register the VM on a different host, which are various unneeded steps.
M.2 SSD as Boot Device for vSAN [blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks]
In this blog, I would like to provide some guidance for M.2 form factor SSD as a boot device in the vSAN environment.
Replacing vRealize Operations Manager Certificates [buildvirtual.net]
I had a project recently to deploy a three node highly available vROPs 6.4 solution. This included the master node, a master replica and a remote collector situated in a different datacenter. Due to security requirements it was necessary to replace the default self-signed certificates with a trusted certificate signed by an internal CA. I hadn’t had cause to do this before with vROPs, so thought I’d go through the process I followed here.
vSphere Data Protection End of Availability [blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks]
In response to customer feedback, we are helping consolidate backup and recovery solution, a major pain point for many today. Moving forward after vSphere 6.5, our focus will be on Storage APIs – Data Protection to further strengthen the vSphere backup partner ecosystem providing you with a choice of solution providers. As a result of that customer feedback and new direction, we are announcing the End Of Availability (EOA) for vSphere Data Protection. vSphere 6.5 is the last release to include vSphere Data Protection and future vSphere releases will no longer include this product.
What’s Next: Modernize Your IT with vSAN Innovations [blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks]
Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) is proving to be a necessary building block for the next generation data center. HCI granularly scales, works with your preferred hardware, and has clear business benefits. In fact, it’s becoming so popular that a recent IDC report* projected that the market for hyper-converged systems will jump from US $2.6 billion in 2016 to $6.4 billion by 2020.
