Plain Virtualization

It the time of the year to apply and renew your vExpert for another year for your effort contribution back to the VMware community over the last 6-12months.  The vExpert 2025 application is now open starting from 6th Dec 2024 and will closed on 10th January 2025. So hurry start your application and fill up all your contribution. You do not have to do it once through, you can always save it in draft and add on and submit before the closing date. If you have doubt reach out or look for your vExpert Pro nearest to you to to advise you accordingly. This year has been a very different year for VMware. However, the vExpert program was valued and carry on. The perks this year been a vExpert will be very different from the investment from Broadcom.  Head over and sign up now. Good luck! Update 13 Dec 2024 Check out the vExpert application announcement here .

As mentioned in this article , VMware has release vSphere Enterprise Plus edition offering and I think this is a great add-on having it got removed after end of perpetual offering. Though the Standard and Essential is good enough but there are many cases where vSphere Enterprise Plus is needed yet only made available in VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) or VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) which customer have to purchase just to use the vSphere Edition in it. Further on, the vSAN entitlement for VVF is also increased from 100GiB to 250GiB. This definitely make the usage of vSAN much more appealing in VVF. As I have create a calculator previously here , I have updated to include the 250GiB per core in VVF. I have not added any for vSphere Enterprise Plus since it can be used with the existing vSphere Standard since there is not special limitation for the new offering. Just to note the previous KB preferred to on the license entitlement for vSAN is however, not updated at the time of writing....

If you have read in my previous article , back in Aug 2024, that a number of Aria Operations Management packs will be retired from general support on 1st Oct 2024. Without the build in management packs provided, what can you do next? Aria Operations does come with a Management Pack Building which many are not aware. I like to share from this article  that I came across that illustrate how easy to just pull the wanted metric that you need to build your own dashboard. If those existing dashboard from management pack that is end of life, you can then see what metrics are been pulled and customize your own to keep moving forward. Alternatively, you can seek any system integrator to help build such dashboard easily if you have no such engineer in house to help.

Broadcom has release an update to address the below two vulnerabilities. This affect vCenter Server 7.x and 8.x. VMware vCenter Server heap-overflow vulnerability (CVE-2024-38812) This carries a CVSSv3 score of 9.8 VMware vCenter privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2024-38813) This carries a CVSSv3 score of 7.5. Both are addressed with resolution with a new binary update for vCenter Server 7U3s and vCenter Server 8U3b. This will affect any VCF 4.x and 5.x which contains either vCenter Server 7.x or 8.x. It is always recommended to get this updated as soon as possible with such rare critical severity. Check out this article for more information.

Today marks my last working day in this great company, VMware. Starting as a sales engineer coming from a delivery background in 27 Dec 2011 to managing a country team of 15 solution architects was a magnificent milestone. A good 12 years, 7 months, 28 days race. There are so many people to thank, and words alone can't fully express my appreciation. I am deeply grateful to everyone I've crossed paths with, both within and outside the company. You've all played a part in shaping who I am today, and for that, I am truly thankful. Some may see me as a representative of VMware in Singapore, perhaps due to my long tenure or my visibility within the community. While that's a bit of a joke, the truth is, technology has been the driving force that kept me passionate during my time at VMware. Without it, I might have lost that spark long ago. What truly made my journey memorable were the incredible people I met along the way—from sales to engineering, partners to customers. They...

Coming 1st Oct 2024, the Aria Operations Management Packs will be end of general support (EoGS). Here is the KB . The affected management packs are as follow: vRealize Operations Management Pack for VMware Integrated OpenStack vRealize Operations Federation Management Pack VMware vRealize Operations Management Pack for CloudHealth VMware Aria Operations Management Pack for Flowgate VMware Aria Operations Management Pack for Aria Hub VMware vRealize Operations Management Pack for VMware Smart Assurance Aria Operations Management Pack for Aria Operations for Apps Aria Operations Management Pack for VMware Tanzu Application Service Aria Operations Management Pack for Microsoft Hyper-V Aria Operations Management Pack for NetApp FAS/AFF Aria Operations Management Pack for Microsoft SCOM Aria Operations Management Pack for Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops Aria Operations Management Pack for Dell EMC OpenManage Enterprise Aria Operations Management Pack for HPE OneView Aria Operations Manag...