Hot Topics

• vSphere 6.5 and 6.7 will exit General Support on 10/15/22 and transition into TechnicalGuidance –  This phase of the support lifecycle is focused on providing workarounds for lower severity issues.  The full description of this phase including what support options are still available is described on the VMware Lifecycle Policy page.

Upcoming Events

Toledo VMUG –  What’s new with vSphere 8 and vSAN
Date: November 16th, 2022
Time: 11:30am Eastern

Join the Toledo VMUG on this virtual Lunch-n-Learn to review what is new in vSphere and vSAN for version 8!

Register

Cincinnati VMUG UserCON
December 8th 2022
8am – 4:30pm
In-person at the Sharonville Convention Center
The Cincinnati VMUG community welcomes you back to the Sharonville Convention Center to network and engage in face-to-face conversations with your peers at the Cincinnati VMUG UserCon. Learn about the latest in IT innovations to help you stay on the cutting edge of technology. Advance your knowledge, become a better IT professional and grow as a strategic leader for your organization.

Register at MY.VMUG.COM

Product Support Watch

The following products are nearing the End of General Support.  You can find the full list on the VMware Lifecycle Product Matrix.

vSphere – vCenter and ESXi

• 6.5 – 10/15/22
• 6.7 – 10/15/22

VMware Tools

• Tools 10.2.x – 12/14/22

vSAN

• 6.5, 6.6, 6.7 – 10/15/22

NSX 

• NSX-V (all versions) – General Support ended January 16, 2022 – Customers should migrate to NSX-T.  Support no longer available after 1/16/23.

Disaster Recovery

• Site Recovery Manager 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 – 4/1/23

Horizon View / Workspace ONE

• Dynamic Environment Manager 10/2009 – 10/15/22
• Dynamic Environment Manager 10/2103 – 3/23/23
• App Volumes 4 2009 – 10/15/22
  • App Volumes 4 2012 – 1/7/23
  • App Volumes 4 2013 – 3/23/23
• Identity Manager 3.3.5 – 11/20/22
• Workspace ONE UEM Console 2102 – 10/14/22
• Workspace ONE UEM Console 2105 – 1/15/23
• Workspace ONE UEM Console 2107 (SaaS only) – 2/8/23
• vRealize Operations Manager for Horizon 6.7 – 10/15/22

vRealize

• vRealize Automation – 8/2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 8.6, 8.6.1 – 10/31/22
• vRealize Automation – 8.6.2 – 1/18/23
• vRealize Automation – 8.7 – 3/22/23
•  vRealize Orchestrator – 8/2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 8.6 – 10/31/22
• vRealize Orchestrator – 8.6.1 – 11/19/22
• vRealize Orchestrator – 8.6.2 – 1/18/23
• vRealize Orchestrator – 8.7 – 3/22/23
• vRealize Lifecycle Manager 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5, 8.6 – 10/31/22
• vRealize Lifecycle Manager 8.7 – 3/22/23
• Log Insight 8.2, 8.3, 8.4 – 10/31/22
• Network Insight – 5.3, 6.0, 6.1 – 10/31/22
• vRealize Operations 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 – 10/31/22
• vRealize Operations for Horizon 6.7 – 10/15/22

Notes from the Field

If you are just new to with Carbon Black – here are a few links to help you get started:

• Carbon Black Workload Overview
• Preparing to enable Carbon Black in your vSphere Environment
• Installing Carbon Black in 15 minutes ?
• Carbon Black Best Practices ?

VMware Converter Beta program open – VMware Converter was removed earlier this year.  I am happy to share that a new beta program is open for anyone wanting to try out the new version.

vSphere 8 – new feature information is starting to appear in blog articles.  Here are a few you might find interesting…

• Is the vCenter Server Unique ID still important today?
• New Feature – Power off VM from Guest OS Reboot – new setting will notify ESXi to convert a guest OS reboot into a full power cycle of a VM
• vSphere 8 – What’s new in Core Storage
• vSphere Datasets – New VM Metadata Service – a new way to share data (key/value pairs) between vSphere Management and the underlying guest os in a VM.

Booting ESX hosts from SD-Cards

On 4/27/22, VMware published updated guidance on using SD Cards. The short version is “VMware will continue supporting USB/SD card as a boot device through the 8.0 product release, including the update releases. Both installs and upgrades will be supported on USB/SD cards. The change from the previous guidance is that SD/USB as a standalone device will now be supported on previously certified server platforms”.  KB 85685 has the full details.  Migrating away from SD cards is still recommended.

• A TAM Customer webinar in December 2021 covered this extensively. If you were unable to attend the webinar live, you can watch the recording.
• A VMware engineer has written a blog article on how to move from booting ESX from SD-Cards to using locally attached  SSDs.
• KB 83376 – discusses the issues that can arise when the SD card boot device has exhausted its write capability.  This KB also describes a work around VMware has developed to allow low endurance SD Cards to work with vSphere 7 Update 2 and later.  It involves a manual one-time config change which moves certain highly accessed files to a RAM Disk. vSphere 7.0 U3 automated this process.
• While this should help with vSphere 7.x, VMware guidance for future versions of vSphere is to move to higher performance/endurance boot devices in a future budget or your next hardware refresh plan.