Plain Virtualization

If you happen to be learning how hyper-converge works and in this case, how VMware vSAN works, this is the post for you. Thanks to my team member, Kok Cheng Aw who shared this link . It is located under the TechZone section, Learn and Evaluate . If you choose under vSAN Demonstrations , you will locate the Infographic which is a bunch of animation that illustrate every single scenario on how vSAN works, how failure scenario happens, etc. This is really cool. In the past, we were to use heavy powerpoint animation to view such things (provided someone creates it). Now if all the information in TechZone and the Infographic at hand, you are now equip to take The VMware Specialist - vSAN certification. Wish I have that in the past, that makes life way easier to study and understand the technology. Hope this helps.

This is my first time doing the client setup. Let's dive right in. Refer to the this installation guide for client setup. Please note that I am documenting based on Ubuntu 18.04. If you are using RHEL or CentOS, your commands may differ. Also some commands are different from the installation guide and these are the catchas I am showing here. Overview for vSphere Bitfusion Client Download the vSphere Bitfusion Client where version is similar to the vSphere Bitfusion Server Check that the vSphere Bitfusion Plugin is workin in the vSphere Client VMware Tool is installed and you are able to see the four power functions in the VM edit setting Make sure vmnic is on VMNET3 power on the VM Install the .deb package, your client will need to be connected to internet as you will need to install some software dependencies before installing the agent Query the package to find out the dependencies > sudo dpkp-deb -I bitfusionxxxx.deb install all the listed dependencies > sudo apt -y ins...

Recently, I was asked to setup vSphere Bitfusion on a set of VxRAIL servers. This was running on vSphere 7.0. Hit into some issues and manage to resolve it. I followed the video demo from this blog but realize there are some things different from the official installation guide . You can also refer to the summary for the system requirement for the vSphere Bitfusion Server. This article is to bring you to all the resources you will need and not hit into such problems that I did. Before we start, the requirement for vSphere Bitfusion is to have vSphere Enterprise Plus licensing and vSphere Bitfusion Add-on per CPU/Processor licenses. Here is a video of the installation. Overview for vSphere Bitfusion Server Download the vSphere Bitfusion binary from VMware Prepare your host to make sure the GPU are added in PCI Passthrough as stated here Import vSphere Bitfusion OVA and deploy into vCenter with the follow information: vCenter login credential If not using DHCP: IP address, subnet mask...

Recently the most talk about security measurement against the two discovered vulnerabilities has raised a lot of talks. This all started and revealed by  Google Project Zero . I have also recently shared advice from VMware support and KBs to our Singapore VMUG users during our event yesterday. Below is a summary of questions and the approach you should be doing for patching your VMware environment. Details on Spectre and Meltdown https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/01/what-are-spectre-and-meltdown-and-why-should-you-care/ https://blog.barkly.com/meltdown-spectre-patches-list-windows-update-help Technical explanation:   http://frankdenneman.nl/2018/01/05/explainer-spectre-meltdown-graham-sutherland/ Side Notes ESXi is only affected by Spectre and all patches for ESXi 5.5. and above has been released. Removed due to retracting of code instructed by Intel. Check update below. ESXi is NOT affected by Meltdown as it does not have untrusted user ac...

I used to perform upgrade easily for vCenter on Windows.  That been said, with the introduction of vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), it has also been easy as well using the admin portal via https:// :port 5480 with the .pak file. Wasn't was I aware after doing some research to find out VCSA in version 6.0 does not have admin portal to do the upgrade.  Instead I need to upload the update file from  here  (you got to login to your account). I followed this  guide  from this user. Apparently after upgrade form baseline 6.0, the admin portal for the appliance is been returned.  Glad that is an one time experience. Why was the admin 5480 been left out in the first place?

Windows 2016 is announced and there are many great features included especially containers support.  One of the major improvement is reducing the number of management console as well which is greatly appreciated. There are also some changes to the licenses. Remember the licensing cost in Windows 2012R2 Datacenter edition  was increased compared to Windows 2012?  Windows 2016 has also some changes not in price but in the way it is licensed stated here .  Refer to Question 7 of the FAQ . Below is the table to see the pricing since Windows 2012 to Windows 2016. Datacenter Standard Windows 2012 $4,809 $882 Windows 2012 R2 $6,155 $882 Windows 2016 $6,155 $882 Taking Datacenter Edition, it seems that from Window 2012 to Windows 2012R2 was the only price increased and Microsoft has kept the cost the same for Windows 2016.  However, there are some changes not known unle...