Tag: VMworld

VMworld 2018 EU Announcements

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This year VMworld 2018 Europe is held in Barcelona Spain from 5 November until 8 November. This has been the location for some time now. Only the date shifted a couple months backward compared to last year (September > November). This page will be updated multiple time in the coming days. I will add additional information and announcements multiple times a day.

I was able to attend myself in person thanks to my employer ITQ. This year we traveled with 33 ITQ colleagues to VMworld 2018 Europe. In total 12000 people attended VMworld 2018 Europe in Barcelona.

VMworld 2018 EU Logo

VMworld 2018 EU – Product Announcements

On VMworld 2018 in Europe, the following products and/or services were announced.

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 3.5

In the opening keynote VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 3.5 has been released.

VMware Cloud Foundation is an automated release of the Software-Defined Datacenter with vSphere, NSX, and vSAN in the core. On top VMware is using there vRealize Suite for creating an entire Cloud Management Platform.

The VCF 3.5 release includes the following new features:

  • Clarity UI as for all VMware products.
  • More intuitive end-to-end UI driven workflows
  • Improved UI responsiveness and performance
  • Dashboard with widgets to more easily surface important SDDC information
  • Updated navigation and consistency between workflows
  • Extendable platform to ensure that we can incorporate new releases and functionality (ex. New workflow wizards, dashboard widgets)
  • Updated for vSphere 6.7 U1
  • NSX-T Workload domain
  • NFS Workload domain – use cases that requires NFS
  • Composable Infrastructure Support

Source: Announcing VMware Cloud Foundation 3.5

VMware Horizon 7 on VMC

Not my area of expertise (EUC) but VMware Horizon 7 will be available on VMware Cloud on AWS because of the overwhelming interest from the customers. The information can be found in the source below.

Source: What’s New with Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS

VMware Horizon 7.7

On the second day of VMworld 2018 in Europe, VMware Horizon 7.7 is announced. No information is yet available on the new features.

Source: What’s New with Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS

VMware App Volumes 2.15

On the second day of VMworld 2018 in Europe, VMware App Volumes 2.15 has been announced. No information is yet available on the new features.

Source: What’s New with Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS

vRealize Network Insight 4.0 (vRNI)

The new release of vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) is focussed on hybrid cloud visibility and analytics.

  • Support for application migration planning to public clouds
  • Support for Hybrid Cloud Troubleshooting
  • It provides NSX-T topology visualization and correlated troubleshooting for NSX-T events.
  • Users can also get P-P flow visibility through slow support in addition to Netflow and visibility into Cisco ACI underlay and Cisco ASA firewall

Source: vRealize Network Insight 4.0: Hybrid Cloud Visibility & Analytics

VMware vCloud Suite 2018 Platinum

On the first day, vCloud Suite 2018 Platinum was announced. It is a combination of vSphere Platinum and the vRealize Suite 2018 combined.

vSphere Platinum was announced in VMworld 2018 US and is available since last week. vSphere Platinum combines VMware vSphere with VMware AppDefense.

Source: Introducing VMware vCloud Suite 2018 Platinum!

VMware Cloud on AWS Region Expansion

On the first day of VMworld 2018 Europe, Pat Gelsinger announced a Region Expansion for VMware Cloud on AWS. There will be new regions in Europe and the US.

The new regions announced are the following:

  • Europe (Ireland)
  • US West (North California)
  • US East (Ohio)

Source: VMware Cloud on AWS expands across Europe and the U.S.

Amazon Relational Database Service (AWS RDS) 

In the VMworld 2018 Europe first day keynote, the following relational database services were announced:

  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • MariaDB
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Oracle

Source: Not yet available

VMware accuires Heptio

On the VMworld 2018 Europe keynote, Pat Gelsinger announced that VMware acquired Heptio as of today.

Heptio was founded by two creators of the Kubernetes project to support and advance the open Kubernetes ecosystem.

https://heptio.com/about/

Source: Breaking: VMware Announces Intent to Acquire Heptio to Drive Kubernetes Across Multiple Clouds

VMware Cloud PKS

On the VMworld 2018 Europe keynote, Pat Gelsinger announced VMware Cloud PKS. To run Kubernetes on their VMware Cloud on AWS.

Source: Try VMware Cloud PKS (Formerly VKE) today and the first $150 is on us!

VMworld 2018 EU – Photo’s

I have created a gallery with some photo’s I have taken the last couple of days on VMworld 2018 Europe.

  • VMworld 2018 EU - Entrance Building
    VMworld 2018 EU – Entrance Building
  • VMworld 2018 EU - Entrance
    VMworld 2018 EU – Entrance
  • VMworld 2018 EU - Backpack
    VMworld 2018 EU – Backpack
  • VMworld 2018 EU - Opening Keynote
    VMworld 2018 EU – Opening Keynote
  • VMworld 2018 EU - Wade Holmes & Yves Sandford VMware Cloud Provider POD
    VMworld 2018 EU – Wade Holmes & Yves Sandford VMware Cloud Provider POD
  • VMworld 2018 EU - vExpert HOL Tour
    VMworld 2018 EU – vExpert HOL Tour
  • VMworld 2018 EU - HOL Testing
    VMworld 2018 EU – HOL Testing
  • VMware 2018 EU - vExpert Bag
    VMware 2018 EU – vExpert Bag
  • VMware 2018 EU - VMware Booth
    VMware 2018 EU – VMware Booth
  • VMworld 2018 EU - Pivotal Partners Europe
    VMworld 2018 EU – Pivotal Partners Europe
  • VMworld 2018 EU - Ruurd Keizer Sharing Experience about using VMware Pivotal Container Service (PKS)
    VMworld 2018 EU – Ruurd Keizer Sharing Experience about using VMware Pivotal Container Service (PKS)
  • VMworld 2018 EU - VxRail 4-Node Appliance
    VMworld 2018 EU – VxRail 4-Node Appliance
  • VMworld 2018 EU - FEST
    VMworld 2018 EU – FEST
  • VMworld 2018 EU - FEST Counterfeit Stones
    VMworld 2018 EU – FEST Counterfeit Stones

VMworld 2018 EU – Personal Highlights

To summarize my personal highlights that I encountered on VMworld 2018 Europe.

  • Meeting with the guys behind the VMware Validated Designs (VVD) and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) (Forbes Guthrie and Daniel Koeck).
  • The VMware Private Hands-On Lab (HOL) Tour provided for the VMware vExperts.
  • Connecting with the vCommunity.
  • Connecting with old colleagues and customers.
  • Connecting with the people that maintain and support the VMware Hands-On Labs (Cody de Arkland / Gavin Lees).
  • My colleague Ruurd Keizer that was called on stage to talk about his experience with PKS (Pivotal Container Service) and share that with other VMware Partners.

VMworld 2018 EU – Keynotes

Here are the recordings of the VMworld 2018 Europe Keynotes and live streams for the coming days:

VMworld 2018 EU – Blogs & Recordings

In this section, I have listed some interesting blogs and recordings from VMworld 2018 Europe. The people listed below are mostly people I work with or are vCommunity friends:

VMworld 2018 EU –  Session Recordings

Just like every year, William Lam from the website virtuallyGhetto creates a GIT repository with all the VMworld sessions. For each session, a recording and presentation is provided on his Git Repository. It will probably be a couple of days till weeks until all sessions become available:

VMworld 2018 US Announcements

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VMworld 2018 US - Featured Images

This blog post is dedicated to the VMworld 2018 US announcements. In the post, you will find the articles, links and highlights. VMworld 2018 US is an event that is organized by VMware. The US version is a five-day event that is held in Las Vegas. It takes place from 26 August to 30 August 2018. This page will be updated multiple times to coming days to add additional information and the latest announcements.

Please reply underneath this blog post if you have some additional information. This can also be additional links or blogs posts.

VMworld 2018 US – Product Announcements

In this chapter are all the product announcements. I can tell you there are a lot of announcements made at VMworld 2018.

vRealize Automation (vRA) 7.5

One the first day of VMworld 2018 US vRealize Automation 7.5 was announced.

The key highlights are:

  • Easy to Operate
    • Modernized vRealize Automation/vRealize Orchestrator(vRO) UI
    • Closed Loop Optimization with vRealize Operations
    • Enterprise-ready ServiceNow plugin
    • NSX-T On-premises Support
  • Built to Support Developers
    • Configuration Management with Ansible Tower
    • Kubernetes Cluster Management with VMware Pivotal Container Services (PKS)
  • Helps Embrace Multi-Cloud
    • AWS Enhancements
    • Azure Enhancements
    • Google Cloud Enhancements

Links:

vRealize Operations Manager (vROPS) 7.0

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US vRealize Operations Manager 7.0 was announced.

The key highlight are:

  • Enhanced User Interface
  • Automating Performance Based on Business and Operational Intent
  • Automated Host Based Placement, Driven by Business Intent
  • Capacity Analytics Enhanced with Exponential Decay and Calendar Awareness
  • Plan Capacity across Private Cloud and VMware Cloud on AWS
  • Simplified Dashboard Creation and Sharing
  • vRealize Operations AWS Management Pack Update
  • Other Miscellaneous Enhancements
    • Workload Right-sizing to avoid performance bottlenecks and reclaim over-allocated resources
    • Built-in vSphere config & compliance: PCI, HIPAA, DISA, FISMA, ISO, CIS
    • Ability to extend to the entire data center and cloud with updated management packs for Storage, vRO, Kubernetes, Federation etc.
    • vSAN performance, capacity, and troubleshooting including support for stretched clusters and through vRealize Operations plug-in in vCenter
    • Wavefront integration for application operations

Links:

vRealize Log Insight (vRLI) 4.7

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US vRealize Log Insight 4.7 was announced.

The key highlights are:

  • Security Improvements
    • Detailed verification of certificate when adding it to vRLI both from UI and REST API
    • Ability to retrieve current certificate details both from UI and REST API
    • LIAGENT_SSL_CA_PATH environment variable
  • Usability Enhancements
    • vCenter Integration now relies on user-provided hostname instead of trying to resolve it
    • Ability to choose the content packs, the fields of which should be dynamically extracted in the query result in Interactive Analytics
    • Improvements in the REST API
    • UI/UX improvements and bug fixes

Links:

vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) 3.9

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US vRealize Network Insight 3.9 was announced.

The key highlights are:

  • Plan micro-segmentation and get visibility for NSX Data Center, including NSX-T
  • Enhanced security for service access with Multi-factor Authentication
  • Custom dashboard support for Cisco ASA firewall and enhancements to Checkpoint Firewall support
  • Many customers are now using VMware Network Insight as a service, and customers based in Europe now also have the option of using the VMware Network Insight service hosted out of London, UK.

Links:

vCloud Director (vCD) 9.5

Just a couple of days before VMworld 2018 US vCloud Director 9.5 was announced:

The key highlights are:

  • Cross-site networking improvements powered by deeper integration with NSX
  • Initial integration with NSX-T
  • Full transition to an HTML5 UI for the cloud consumer
  • Improvements to role-based access control
  • Natively integrated data protection capabilities, powered by Dell-EMC Avamar
  • vCD virtual appliance deployment model

Links:

vSphere Platinum

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US, a new vSphere edition was announced. The product is called vSphere Platinum and it has a tight integration with VMware AppDefense.

The key highlights are:

  • Benefits for vSphere Admins
    • Gain visibility into the intent of each virtual machine, and a detailed inventory of application assets and context.
    • Understand how applications behave and be alerted to potential issues and deviations.
    • Shrink the attack surface and reduce the risk of security compromise.
      Establish a simple and powerful way to collaborate with security, compliance and application teams.
    • Get better visibility and protection with a simple, light-weight and scalable security solution, with no agents to manage, and minimal overhead.
    • Use what you already own, understand, and run in your data center – vSphere – with its unique visibility, automation and isolation qualities.
    • Play a larger and critical role in the security of your entire IT environment – Be the Security Hero!
  • Benefits for Security Teams
    • Better visibility and situational awareness of application behaviours, and virtual machine purpose.
    • Faster detection, analysis, and time to response – quickly understand attacks and make fast decisions using application context and scope.
    • Enhance existing security tools and support compliance efforts through contextual visibility and alerts into application communications and deviations.
    • Lower false positives – integrated behavioural analytics and machine learning offer a more precise method to identify and respond to threats.
    • Big data correlation for better identification and context using cloud SaaS model.
    • Security as an agile business enabler – support DevOps environment through continuous learning and protection.
    • Easily Coordinate with vSphere Admins and Application teams for better security while respecting existing workflows & maintaining separation of duties.
  • Secure Applications
    • VMware AppDefense – Protects the integrity of applications running on vSphere, using machine learning to monitor against threats and automate responses. AppDefense locks down the guest operating system for all applications, the VMware application stack and third-party applications.  To accomplish this, AppDefense gathers inventory data on virtual machines and applications from vCenter Server, development tools, and automation frameworks and applies machine learning to discover the intended state and establish the known good behaviours for the application and machine.  Any deviations from this state are detected and prevented, securing the integrity of the applications, infrastructure, and guest operating system. AppDefense provides detailed visibility for better change management and compliance reporting and also provides a rich set of automated or orchestrated incident response mechanisms to address attacks. Moreover, it leverages machine learning for a simple and automated way to conduct audits and reviews for applications.
  • Secure Data
    • FIPS 140-2 Validated VM Encryption, and cross-vCenter Encrypted vMotion – Secure against unauthorized data access both at rest and in motion, across the hybrid cloud.
      Secure Infrastructure
    • Secure Boot for ESXi – Allows only VMware and Partner signed code to run in your hypervisor.
      Secure Boot for Virtual Machines – Helps prevent images from being tampered with and prevents the loading of unauthorized components.
    • Support for TPM 2.0 for ESXi – Enables hypervisor integrity by validating the Secure Boot for ESXi process and enables remote host attestation.
    • Virtual TPM 2.0 – Provides the necessary support for guest operating system security features while retaining operational features such as vMotion and disaster recovery.
    • Support for Microsoft Virtualization Based Security – Supports Windows 10 and Windows 2016 security features, like Credential Guard, on vSphere.
  • Secure Access
    • Audit Quality Logging – Enables authorized administration and control by providing high fidelity visibility in vSphere operations.

Links:

vSphere 6.7 Update 1

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US vSphere 6.7 Update 1 was announced.

The key highlights are:

  • Fully Featured HTML5-based vSphere Client
  • Enhanced support for NVIDIA Quadro vDWS powered VMs; and Support for Intel FPGA
  • New vCenter Server Convergence Tool
  • Enhancements for HCI and vSAN
  • Enhanced vSphere Content Library

Links:

vSAN 6.7 Update 1

On the first day of VMworld 2018 US vSAN 6.7 Update 1 was announced.

The key highlights are:

  • Simplified Operations
    • Cluster Quickstart
    • Driver & Firmware Updates using Update Manager
    • Decommissioning and Maintenance Mode Safeguards in vSAN 6.7 U1
    • More vRealize Operations Intelligence
    • Improved Capacity Reporting
  • Efficient Infrastructure
    • TRIM/UNMAP Support
    • Mixed MTU Support for 2 Node and Stretched Clusters
    • Updated Sizing Tools
  • Rapid Support Resolution
    • Improved Health Check Guidance
    • Enhanced Support Diagnostics

Links:

VMware Validated Design 4.3

Also, the VMware Validated Design (VVD) received some new features and changes to the documentation. Personally, the greatest value in this release is the Visio stencils that are available for everyone.

The key highlights are:

  • Official NSX-T Support
  • Documentation Updates
    • IT Automating IT Scenarios
    • Intelligent Operations Scenarios
    • Introduction to Security and Compliance
    • Operational Verification
    • Certificate Replacement for 2-pod
    • Certificate Replacement for 1-pod
  • Architecture and Design of VMware PKS for Workload Domains
  • Design and Deployment of VMware Skyline
  • Architecture and Design Guidance for NIST 800-53
  • VVD Diagrams and Stencils

Links:

VMworld 2018 US – Technical Previews & Projects

There were also a lot of announcements surrounding some new developments/projects.

Project list:

  • Project Concord – Project Concord uses Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus protocols to deliver a functioning distributed trust system: one that is both “safe” and “alive.” Concord is a generic state machine replication library that can handle malicious (Byzantine) replicas.
  • Project Dimension – Project Dimension will extend VMware Cloud to deliver SDDC infrastructure and hardware as-a-service to on-premises locations.
  • Project Magna – Project Magna will make possible a self-driving data center based on machine learning.
  • RDS on VMware – VMware demonstrated how Amazon Web Service’s RDS service will run on VMware in a private data center, thus offering developers a familiar RDS Functionality available on VMware in a private data center or at the Edge.
  • Virtualization on 64-bit ARM for Edge – VMware demonstrated ESXi on 64-bit ARM running on a windmill farm at the Edge.

Links:

VMworld 2018 US – ITQ Blogs 

Here is a list of ITQ blogs with additional VMworld 2018 US content:

VMworld 2018 US – Keynotes

There are already some recordings available of the keynotes. These can be found on YouTube with the following links:

VMworld 2018 US – Recordings

Just like every year, William Lam from the website virtuallyGhetto creates a GIT repository with all the VMworld sessions. For each session, a recording and presentation are provided. It will probably be a couple of days till weeks until all sessions become available.

VMworld 2017 Barcelona (my personal review)

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This week I travelled with my colleagues to VMworld 2017 in Barcelona Spain. This was my first VMworld but luckily my colleagues helped me out with putting a schedule together. The days were absolutely great and well-organized thanks to my employer ITQ (special thanks to Francisco Perez van der Oord and Paul Geerlings).

This blog post is about my first VMworld with my personal highlights.

 

VMware vSphere 6.5 Host Resources Deep Dive

VMware vSphere 6.5 Host Resources Deep Dive Signed

At the Rubrik stand, a thousand copies were given away of the best book in stores now (personal opinion) “VMware vSphere 6.5 Host Resources Deep Dive“. At a specific time, you had to wait in line to get a free copy of the book signed by Frank Denneman and Niels Hagoort. I was one of the lucky people who got a free copy with their signatures :).

VMworld 2017 Sessions

Delivering-Hybrid-Cloud-Architectures-for-Your-Customer-with-VMware-Cloud-on-AWS-Adam-Osterholt

At VMworld, I attended a lot of sessions but my personal top three were the following:

  • Delivering Hybrid Cloud Architectures for Your Customer with VMware Cloud on AWS – Adam Osterholt
  • Replicating VMware VVols: A technical deep dive into VVol array-based replication in vSphere 6.5 – Claudio Calisto, Nick Dyer
  • vCenter Performance Deep Dive – Ravi Soundararajan

I also attended a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) session with Tom Corn the Vice President of Security Products at VMware about AppDefense.

Server and Storage Hardware (Dell EMC / HPE)

HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen10On Tuesday I visited multiple hardware vendors about their new products.

  • At the HPE stand they showed the new HPE ProLiant gen 10 servers and their current storage portfolio 3PAR, Nimble. A beta version of the HPE ProLiant DL360 G10 was displayed and there was an iLO5 demo.
  • The Dell EMC stand was one of the largest on VMworld. They displayed all their main products and were displaying demos.

Final word

I could blog all day about the announcements and sessions but luckily all information is available for everyone. You can find the sessions on the vendor websites or on YouTube. The company I work for has created a dedicated page to display all the VMworld news items.

VMware vSphere 6.5 Announced

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At VMworld 2016 the next version of vSphere has been announced by Pat Gelsinger. The new version is called VMware vSphere 6.5 and introduces a lot of new features.

As I see it VMware has introduced some long-awaited features:

  • Native High Availability for the vCSA appliance
  • The vSphere Client is HTML5-based
  • VMFS allows for 512 devices and 2000 paths
  • vMotion supports traffic encryption
  • VMware Update Manager (VUM) integrated into the VCSA appliance

A couple of days after the announcement a lot of articles have been published on the internet. I have listed some of the most interesting that every VMware Engineer should read: