Central Ohio VMware Users Group – December 2018 Meeting

byArron King 12.05.2018 VMUG

Join the Central Ohio VMware User Group for our final meeting of the year!

Meeting Agenda:

  • 8:30 AM: Peer Networking with Morning Refreshments
  • 9:00 AM: Pure Data Freedom – Kyle Keller and Matt Montes,
  • 9:45 AM: Break
  • 10:00 AM: The Trials and Tribulations of Using Virtual Volumes (VVOLs) – Brian Parks
  • 10:30 AM: PowerShell Workshop (be prepared to code!) – Kurt Bohman
  • 11:30 AM: Wrap-Up & Giveaways

Bring your own device!

For the PowerShell Workshop part of the meeting, the plan is for everyone to actually code. So please bring your laptop with Windows PowerShell or PowerShell Core installed. It would also be ideal if you had the free Microsoft Visual Studio Code installed.

Visit the Central Ohio VMware User Group Community page to get more information and register for the event!

Update Manager Issue – 401 OK when remediating host

byArron King 11.30.2018 Update Manager

I was going to install patches in my vSphere 6.7 environment today using Update Manager, and ran into an issue in the HTML5 client  as I clicked on the Updates tab for a host.   I received a red warning box with the following error message:

Response with Status: 401 OK for URL

 

I tried logging out and back into the VCSA as well as an appliance restart but the problem remained.  After some more digging, I found this is a known issue on the Firefox browser and how it caches pages in vSphere 6.7.    VMware is looking into it.   For the moment, the workaround is to disable caching in Firefox (or use a different browser).

To disable caching in Firefox
  1. In the Firefox address bar type:  about:config
  2. Search for browser.cache.disk.enable
  3. Double-click true and it will toggle to false.
  4. restart Firefox

 

You can read more details on this issue by visiting the VMware Knowledge Base:  KB59696

 

 

Summer 2019 STEM programs with Ohio Supercomputer Center and OARnet

byArron King 11.19.2018 Education

The Ohio Supercomputer Center and OARnet are sponsoring 2 STEM programs for the summer of 2019 that you may be interested in if you have technology-minded Ohio-based students in grades 6-7 or High School (sophomore-senior).

Young Women’s Summer Institute

This is a week-long residential program for young women who will be in the 6th or 7th grade during the 2018-2019 school year in an Ohio school.   It is designed to encourage girls’ interest in math, science, and engineering.  They will work on practical and interesting scientific problems using the latest computer technology.

 

Program Details

  • Dates – July 14-20, 2019
  • Location – Ohio Supercomputer Center, 1224 Kinnear Road, Columbus, Ohio
  • Applications – Accepted beginning January 1, 2019.  Applications must be received by April 5, 2019.

To apply or learn more, visit osc.edu/ywsi.  You can also call (614.688.8300) or email ([email protected])

 

 

Summer Institute

The Summer Institute is a two-week residential program that offers Ohio High School students entering their sophomore, junior, or senior year project-based hands-on learning. Attendees will work in small peer teams and use supercomputers to solve practical and complex science and engineering problems.

 

Program Details

  • Dates – June 16-18, 2019
  • Location- Ohio Supercomputer Center, 1224 Kinnear Road, Columbus, Ohio
  • Applications – Accepted beginning January 1, 2019.  Applications must be received by April 5, 2019.

To apply or learn more, visit osc.edu/si.   You can also call (614.688.8300) or email ([email protected])

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

vToolBelt – October 2018

byArron King 10.22.2018 vToolBelt

Hello!  Time has flown and it’s time for another vToolBelt!      I am adding a new feature called Product Watch.  This will call out any VMware Products that are headed into End of General Support within the next 6 months.  The other big topic is the release of vSphere 6.7 Update 1.  Read on for details!

Product Watch

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

AirWatch Console
9.1 – 10/26/18
9.2 – 3/21/19		 Identity Manager
2.9 – 10/26/18
3.0, 3.1 – 3/21/19
Fusion 10 – 3/26/18 App Volumes 2.12 – 12/6/18
vRealize Automation
7.0, 7.1, 7.2 – 12/17/18		 vRealize Business for Cloud
7.3 – 3/15/19
7.4, 7.5 – 4/12/19
vRealize Network Insight
3.7, 3.8 – 2/22/19
3.9 – 3/20/19		 vROPs for Horizon
6.4 – 12/8/18
6.5 – 3/21/19
vRealize Orchestrator
7.0, 7.1, 7.2 – 12/17/18		 vSphere Data Protection 5.5, 5.8 – 11/14/18
Workstation 14 – 3/26/19

Continue reading “vToolBelt – October 2018”

vToolbelt – September 2018

byArron King 09.30.2018 vToolBelt

Upcoming Events


VMware Evolve Columbus (10/16) – Join VMware at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus and catch up on the latest from VMworld – and learn from customers and experts on how to assess your current environment and refine your strategy.  There are tracks for IT Pros as well as IT Leaders.  You can learn more and register here.

VMworld 2018

  • VMworld Europe is in Barcelona from November 5-8, 2018

A few thoughts on Support

As you may know vSphere 5.5 ran into End of General Support (EOGS) on September 19th.  I’ve had a few questions asking if this means the product will stop working.   vSphere licenses are perpetual – there are no date checks or support contract validations that would make vSphere stop working.  After General Support, a product moves into a Technical Guidance phase.  You can read more on what that means.

Support Watch

The following is a list of a few key products that you should consider upgrading to stay in a supported version.  You can review the entire list in the VMware Product Lifecycle Matrix.

Product Date Support Ending
Airwatch Console 9.1 10/26/2018 General Support
App Volumes 2.10 11/24/2018 Technical Guidance
App Volumes 2.12 12/06/2018 General Support
Identity Manager 2.9 10/26/2018 General Support
vRealize Automation 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 12/17/2018 General Support
vRealize Orchestrator 7.0, 7.1,7.2 12/17/2018 General Support
vRealize Log Insight 4.0, 4.3, 4.5 11/15/2018 General Support

There are 2 proactive notifications you can sign up for that can help you stay up-to-date

  • Security Announcements – VMware publishes security advisories on their website.  You can also sign up to receive these via e-mail.
  • Product Updates – Did you know you can sign up to be notified when critical patches are released for VMware products?  This can be very important to avoid landmines in your environment.  Learn how to enable VMware Product Updates and sign up today!

Continue reading “vToolbelt – September 2018”

Get Notified about VMware Product Updates

byArron King 09.27.2018 VMware Portal
Important Update
With changes to VMware Customer Connect, the steps below for update notifications are no longer valid. There is a 3rd party RSS feed that can help with notifications. Check out the VMware Product Release Tracker (courtesy of www.virten.net)

How do you get informed when an important update is published for a VMware product?  For many it is probably some combination of reading blogs or watching Twitter.

Sure you can sign up for VMware Security Advisories (and you should – right NOW!).  This is a great way to get the latest on security updates and it is very important; but what about bug fixes for vSphere, vSAN, and all of the other products in the VMware portfolio?  How do you stay up-to-date on those? 

Why is this important you ask?  You install patches regularly.  What else do you need to do?

Recently, an issue was discovered with a product.  While it just affected a small number of customers and only occurred under specific set of circumstances – it is important to know that it exists so you can avoid walking into it.  Depending on your environment you might choose to patch early or if it does not affect you – wait until the next patch cycle.  All software has bugs – the important thing is to learn about them and adjust accordingly for your environment.

How do you keep on top of this for VMware products?

Subscribe to Notifications in the VMware Portal

Using your VMware Portal account, you can sign up for notifications on the products and technology you care about.

Login to my.vmware.com and click on your Name in the upper right-hand side and choose Profile.

On the Profile screen, click on the Subscriptions tab.

You can be fairly specific about what notifications you want.  Products are organized by category

Continue reading “Get Notified about VMware Product Updates”

Central Ohio VMware User Group – VMworld Recap meeting

byArron King 09.12.2018 VMUG

The Central Ohio VMware User Group (COVMUG) will be meeting on Tuesday, September 25.

Presenters at this meeting:

  • Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure for the Enterprise – Datrium
  • VMworld 2018 Recap – VMware

The meeting is at the Tree of Life Center in Columbus, Ohio.

You can register for the event at VMUG.COM.

 

VMworld 2018 US Recap

byArron King 09.10.2018 VMworld

VMworld 2018VMworld 2018 US is in the books!  I thought it might be useful to share a recap of the announcements and a link to view a replay of the sessions.

You can review the full list of VMworld 2018 US announcements at VMworld.com.   You can also listen to the Virtually Speaking podcast – Episode 89.  They just published a nice recap.  

A few highlights for you: 

  • vSphere 6.7 Update 1 and vSphere Platinum Edition: 
    • vSphere Platinum Edition – This is a new edition of vSphere, adding in AppDefense to go along with all current capabilities in the Enterprise Plus license. Also included in this edition is a vCenter plug-in that tightly integrates AppDefense and vCenter Services for ease of administration and enhanced visibility for vSphere administrators.
    • vSphere 6.7 Update 1
      • Fully featured HTML5 client
      • Upgrade path from vSphere 6.5 Update 2
      • Enhanced support for NVIDIA Quattro VMs
      • vCenter Server Convergence Tool
      • Enhanced content libraries

Continue reading “VMworld 2018 US Recap”

VMware Tools 10.3 Recall and Workaround

byArron King 09.10.2018 VMware Tools

VMware has published a KB article recommending that customers not install VMware Tools 10.3.  This release has been recalled and is no longer available.

In certain configurations, the VMXNET3 driver in VMware Tools 10.3 can result in guest network connectivity issues or Purple Diagnostic Screens.  The configuration set involved includes:

  • vSphere ESXi 6.5
  • VMs at Hardware Version 13
  • Guest OS of Windows 8 / Windows Server 20102 or higher
  • VMware Tools 10.3

If these configurations are found in your environment, VMware recommends uninstalling VMware Tools 10.3 and re-installing VMware Tools 10.2.5.

For the full details refer to KB 57796.