Day 2 of VMworld was interesting for me. I actually did my first (and only) breakout session in the afternoon about VSAN and was in the first row for the one and only Virtually Speaking Podcast. The day actually started with having control of the @VMware_NL twitter handle during the general session (lots of demos!!) and until noon. I also did another two Design Studio sessions and I can’t encourage enough people to do those because you’re helping out with creating our tools from the future. I was for 45 minutes at the VMworld Fest but there where huge lines at the food stands so I grabbed a but and went back to my hotel where I was asleep in no-time.
Ever played football (or Soccer for the yanks) after a day at a conference? I did this yesterday for the second year in a row but at least we waited with most of the beer until after doing the active bit. Before that my morning was filled with a couple of sessions at the Design Studio’s. The afternoon was more interesting with a a workshop on operationalizing NSX-T. Or well to be more exact that was the description but it ended up being 4 hours of death by powerpoint. But hey it gave me more time for networking with friends at the vCommunity area after bailing out.
The toolkit helps you in performing High Performance Computing
High Performance Computing (HPC) is the use of parallel-processing techniques to solve complex computational problems. HPC systems have the ability to deliver sustained performance through the concurrent use of distributed computing resources,and they are typically used for solving advanced scientific and engineering problems, such as computational fluid dynamics, bioinformatics, molecular dynamics, weather modeling and deep learning with neural networks.
Due to their extreme demand on performance, HPC workloads often have much more intensive resource requirements than those workloads found in the typical enterprise. For example, HPC commonly leverages hardware accelerators, such as GPU and FPGA for compute as well as RDMA interconnects, which require special vSphere configurations.
This toolkit is intended to facilitate managing the lifecycle of these special configurations by leveraging vSphere APIs. It also includes features that help vSphere administrators perform some common vSphere tasks that are related to creating such high-performing environments, such as VM cloning, setting Latency Sensitivity, and sizing vCPUs, memory, etc.
Feature Highlights:
Configure PCIe devices in DirectPath I/O mode, such as GPGPU, FPGA and RDMA interconnects
Easy creation and destruction of virtual HPC clusters using cluster configuration files
Perform common vSphere tasks, such as cloning VMs, configuring vCPUs, memory, reservations, shares, Latency Sensitivity, Distributed Virtual Switch/Standard Virtual Switch, network adapters and network configurations
Update flings
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vRealize Operations REST Notifications Helper
vRealize Operations REST Notifications Helper helps vRealize Operations Manager users improve and customize the REST notifications of alerts. It collects the most useful information about an alert, creates a new payload by user configuration, and sends it to third parties.
Changelog
Version 1.3.0
Added a configuration for preferred HTTP request type
Added severity mapping configuration
Enabled blacklisting with resourceName property
Arranged the endpoint configuration structure for different behavior based on alert trigger states
Added symptoms as a single string (like recommendations)
Minor fixes
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vSphere Mobile Client
vSphere Mobile Client enables administrators to monitor and manage vSphere infrastructure directly from any mobile device. Whether you want to check on the current or historical resource consumption; you want to get notifications on long running tasks; or you want to check the currently running tasks – the vSphere Mobile Client is there to help.
Changelog
Version 1.6.0
Hosts can now be rebooted from the UI
Recent tasks can now be viewed in tasks view (running/in-progress)
Redesigned cards: VM card, host card, cluster card, task card
Quick actions can now be easily accessed with a tap on the card
VM cards display a screenshot which can be enlarged by taping on it
A feedback portlet has been added to the dashboard, you can know provide feedback from within the app
Performance charts are now available for hosts
Navigation menu items are now larger to faciliate taping on those
Supports mobile devices using Android version 4.4 (KitKat) or newer
Supports mobile devices using iOS version 10 or newer
No other mobile operating systems are currently supported
An existing VC (version 6.0 or newer) installation (VCSA or Windows).
Application is tested on the vCenter VCSA 6.5 GA release.
Hosts can now be rebooted from the UI
Recent tasks can now be viewed in tasks view (running/in-progress)
Redesigned cards: VM card, host card, cluster card, task card
Quick actions can now be easily accessed with a tap on the card
VM cards display a screenshot which can be enlarged by taping on it
A feedback portlet has been added to the dashboard, you can know provide feedback from within the app
Performance charts are now available for hosts
Navigation menu items are now larger to faciliate taping on those
[sta_anchor id=”wsonemigtool” /]
Workspace One UEM Workload Migration Tool
The Workspace One UEM Workload Migration Tool allows a seamless migration of Applications and Device configurations between different Workspace One UEM environments. With the push of a button, workloads move from UAT to Production, instead of having to manually enter the information or upload files manually. Therefore, decreasing the time to move data between Dev/UAT environments to Production.
Changelog
Version 2.0.1
Fixed Baseline Migration issue
Fixed Profile Errors not displaying in the UI
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Virtual Machine Compute Optimizer
The Virtual Machine Compute Optimizer (VMCO) is a Powershell script that uses the PowerCLI module to capture information about the hosts and VMS running in your vSphere environment, and reports back on whether the VMs are configured optimally based on the Host CPU and memory. It will flag a VM as “YES” if it is optimized and “NO” if it is not. For non-optimized VMs, a recommendation is made that will keep the same number of vCPUs currently configured, with the optimal number of virtual cores and sockets.
Changelog
Version 2.0.1
Corrected Get-OptimalvCPU.ps1 where sometimes cluster information would show as System.Object[].
Version 2.0.0
Priority of the findings are captured
Details on the findings are included
Cluster information is captured to determine if Host HW is not consistent across the cluster
Report if a VM spanning pNUMA nodes actually has the pNUMA exposed to the guest OS
Report if advanced settings have been changed on the VM or host level to expose pNUMA to the guest OS
Reports if the number of vCPUs for a VM exceeds the physical cores of the host (using hyperthreads as vCPUs)
Ability to use the stand alone “Get-OptimalvCPU” function for more flexibility
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vSAN Performance Monitor
The vSAN performance monitor is a monitoring and visualization tool based on vSAN Performance metrics. It will collect vSAN Performance and other metrics periodically from the clusters configured. The data collected is visualized in a more efficient and user-friendly way. The vSAN performance monitor comes with preconfigured dashboards which will help customers evaluate the performance of vSAN clusters, identify and diagnose problems, and understand current and future bottlenecks. The dashboards are heavily inspired by vSAN Observer.
Changelog
Version 1.2
Fixed issues with the fling while CA certificates
Minor tweaks to the data collection agent
Removed anonymous statistics collection by influxdb
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vRealize Build Tools
vRealize Build Tools provides tools to development and release teams implementing solutions based on vRealize Automation (vRA) and vRealize Orchestrator (vRO). The solution targets Virtual Infrastructure Administrators and Solution Developers working in parallel on multiple vRealize-based projects who want to use standard DevOps practices.
Changelog
Version 1.7.1
Further enhanced the TypeScript projects support (still experimental)
The Kubernetes eXtensible Desktop Client (KXDC) is a simple and multi-platform desktop client for Kubernetes (K8S). In the same way the kubectl command requires only a valid kubeconfig file to run commands against a K8S cluster, KXDC requires you just to configure one or more valid kubeconfig files to interact with one or more K8S clusters.
Main features:
Support for multiple kubeconfig files.
UI-driven interaction with the most frequently used K8S entities.
One-click terminal with the proper KUBECONFIG env variable set.
Generation of custom kubeconfig files for a given namespace.
Highlight sustainability and security-related data.
Updated flings
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App Volumes Entitlement Sync
The App Volumes Entitlement Sync fling will read, sync and compare entitlements between various App Volumes instances.
Changelog
Version 2.2
Ignore Extra AppStacks on Primary or Secondary Server – these would cause compare to crash
Export Primary or Secondary Server Entitlements to XML
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vSphere HTML5 Web Client
Do you want to have the latest version of the html5 client? Than you need the vSphere HTML5 Web Client fling!
Changelog
Fling 4.3.0 – Build 14483008 New Features
Ability to customize the header color per vCenter to differentiate vCenter servers. Go to Administration -> System Configuration and select the vCenter for which you want to change the header color. If you have more than one vCenter server in linked mode, you can change the color for each of the vCenter servers
Bug fixes
Upload OVF files to Content Library
Release Notes
vSphere Perspective Management has been removed
[sta_anchor id=”dodstig” /]
DoD Security Technical Implementation Guide(STIG) ESXi VIB
Updated sshd_config file. Removed protocol 2 setting as it is deprecated. Added “FipsMode yes” setting. Updated Ciphers and MACs for newer version of OpenSSH
Removed /etc/issue and /etc/pam.d/passwd files from VIB as those settings can be set via advanced settings now
Note – This VIB is based on draft STIG content! It is recommended to use this over the previous 6.5-7 STIG VIB
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VMware OS Optimization Tool
The VMware OS Optimization Tool or OSOT in short is one of the best tools around to optimize your VDI image before publishing a desktop or rds host.
Changelog
September, 2019, b1110
New Common Options button – Allows you to quickly choose and set preferences to control common functionality. These would normally involve configuring multiple individual settings but can now be done with a single selection through this new interface
Split Windows 10 into two templates to better handle the differences between the versions; one for 1507-1803 and one for 1809-1909
Improved and new optimizations for Windows 10, especially for 1809 to 1909.
Updated and changed template settings for newer Windows 10 versions to cope with changes in the OS, registry keys and functionality:
Move items from mandatory user and current user to default user
Add 34 new items for group policies related to OneDrive, Microsoft Edge, privacy, Windows Update, Notification, Diagnostics
Add 6 items in group of Disable Services
Add 1 item in group of Disable Scheduled Tasks
Add 1 item in group of Apply HKEY_USERS\temp Settings to Registry
Add 2 items in group of Apply HKLM Settings
Removing Windows built-in apps is now simplified. Removes all built-in apps except the Windows Store.
Numerous bug and error fixes:
Reset view after saving customized template
Unavailable links in reference tab
Windows Store is unavailable after optimizing
Start menu may delay after optimizing
VMware Tools stops running after optimizing
Analysis Summary Graph is cropped
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vSphere Mobile Client
Personally I think a phone screen is too small but this was one of the most asked questions the last few years: when can we manage vSphere from our phones? Well now you can with the vSphere Mobile Client fling.
Changelog
Version 1.5.0
New features
Direct connections to the ESXi hosts are now supported
Host can now be put in maintenance mode
Improvements
Going back from the details pages would not refresh the VM list
Improvements to how we indicate the user is in focused mode
Cluster card now shows issues, DRS, HA and number of vMotion events
Host card now shows issues, number of VMs, uptime and connection status
Bug Fixes
Removing a bookmark when in focused mode removes the item from the list too
Added support for script detection with Win32 applications
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USB Network Native Driver for ESXi
For the USB Network Native Driver for ESXi fling we need to thank WIlliam Lam I guess. For me it at least seems like he is the driving factor behind this fling.
Changelog
September 27, 2019 – v1.2
Added support for Aquantia Multi-Gig (1G/2.5G/5G) USB network adapter (see Requirements page for more details)
Added support for Auto Speed/Connection detection for RTL8153/RTL8152 chipsets
While watching the VMworld US 2019 video of Sean Massey presenting about getting started with the Horizon API’s I decided to check if the API explorer has been updated. To my surprise it was and it is good to see that several queries have been added besides the method’s that I previously found.
The new queries that I found are:
DesktopAssignmentView
Description:
Desktop id + Desktop assignment data which will include desktop pool information, operation system, global entitlement.
DesktopHealthInfo
Description:
Desktop health Information. This data will be populated only for the desktops which support application remoting.
GlobalEntitlementSummaryView
Description:
Summary information about Global Entitlements.
MachineSummaryView
Description:
This View includes summary data of all entities related to this Machine
So the DesktopAssignmentView seems to give a lot of similar data to what the DesktopSummaryData query already gives. They both give global entitlement data plus user assignment data. The big difference is that it gives way more detailed information about the desktop pool itself like vGPU settings. The names should have been DesktopInfo in my opinion.
Desktophealthinfo is created for the new Windows 10 App remoting and the monitoring for that. The globalentitlementsummaryview and machinesummaryview are linked to GlobalEntitlementInfo and MachineDetailsView from which they give a subset of data.
I hope to have a new blog post soon with more detailed information of what the new method’s and queries will bring but I wanted to update you with the fact that the api explorer has been updated as soon as possible.
So today PowerCLI 11.4 was released with the following updates:
Add support for Horizon View 7.9
Added new cmdlets to the Storage module
Updated Storage module cmdlets
Updated HCX module cmdlets
As usual we need to wait for API explorer to be updated before we get the exact changes to the api’s but I already grabbed s short list by comparing the methods. Later I will create a more elaborate blog post about the changes if I have an overview. What I do see are some new additions that might be added to the vCheck for Horizon.
Also: even though the updates are for Horizon 7.9 there’s a good chance that a lot of this also works for previous versions, the examples below where done with 7.8.
Datacenter
DesktopHealth
Gateway
GatewayHealth
MessageClient
Monitoring
PersistentDiskQueryService
Privilege
SecondaryCredentials
SessionStatistics
StorageAccelerator
UsageStatistics
Validator
VirtualCenterStatistics
Sadly it’s late so I can only show a couple of examples:
A couple of weeks ago I was informed that I would be awarded the EUC Champion for the second time. The EUC Champions program grew from 35 to 42 and you can find all of us over here: https://www.vmware.com/euc-champions/current-champions.html As you can see in that list my very good friend and vmug stage buddy Hans Kraaijeveld was also awarded the EUC Champion title as well into this EUC elite group of people.
So what are the EUC Champions?
What is the EUC Champions program?
EUC Champions is an experts-only program that provides a forum for the EUC community and VMware EUC product teams to share industry trends, new product information and ideas through in-person meetings, networking events, industry conferences and webinars.
This is the official statement but there is more. We also have access to dedicated EUC Champions Slack channels at the VMware slack with direct contact to some of the EUC product teams. Also the knowledge sharing between each other has been awesome in my opinion. Plus we get to test some flings that Andrew Morgan created that might or might not be released at https://labs.vmware.com/flings
Want to do things with big data? This Fling might be able to help you with that on VCF, It could do with a proper logo though.
This Fling provides a platform for Data Scientists to quickly setup a virtualized cloud infrastructure to conduct data science experiments:
Virtualized environment based on VMware cloud and Kubernetes
Currently support CPU only (but will support GPU in future)
Based on Open Source Kubeflow, Horovod
Provides a set of example Notebooks and libraries for common data science tasks, including:
Data collection and cleaning (extract data from various sources, and describe the data semantics using metadata)
Data cleansing and transformation (clean up collected data and transform them from its raw form to a structured form more suitable for analytic processing)
Model training (develop predictive and optimization machine learning models)
Model serving (deploy model into a run time environment where online request will be served)
The Virtual Machine Computer Optimizer (VMCO) is a Powershell script that uses the PowerCLI module to capture information about the hosts and VMS running in your vSphere environment, and reports back on whether the VMs are configured optimally based on the Host CPU and memory. It will flag a VM as “YES” if it is optimized and “NO” if it is not. For non-optimized VMs, a recommendation is made that will keep the same number of vCPUs currently configured, with the optimal number of virtual cores and sockets.
Note that the VMCO will not analyze whether your VMs are configured with the correct number of vCPUs based on the VM’s workload. A more in-depth analysis tool such as VMware vRealize Operations Manager can make right-sizing determinations based on workload and actual performance.
Update flings
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Horizon Session Recording
The Horizon Session Recording fling gives the Horizon admin a tool to record sessions for troubleshooting reasons for example.
Changelog
Version 1.2.2
Added support for horizon 7.8 and above
Added support for recording based on group memberships
Many bug fixes in agent
Bug fixes in server
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Horizon Helpdesk Utility
Like I said I already blogged about the changes in the Horizon Helpdesk Utility but here’s the changelog, just to be complete.
Changelog
Version 1.4.0.1
No longer requires a helpdesk license! Yay!
Added the ability to interact with vCenter machines
Added the ability to open vCenter VM consoles
Added the ability to perform bulk machine actions
Added the ability to perform refresh / recompose tasks directly from helpdesk.
Fixed performance issues with multiple windows open (see single instance).
Fixed a crash when logon durations could not be accessed.
Added polling to allow logon durations to be received if notavailable when the session page is requested.
Fixed a crash in the ending of processes.
Fixed a metric ton of bugs with delegated administration.
Fixed a memory leak in the tray icon menu, of all places.
Removed the logon page graphic as it was to much of a pain to change it’s colour when changing themes
Fixed some layout issues when changing themes.
Removed empty sites from the viewon the change pod tray menu.
Added preliminary support for Horizon 7.9.
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Horizon Toolbox
The Horizon Toolbox is another usefull utility for the Horizon admin that doesn’t have access to the enterprise add-ons.
Changelog
July 12, 2019, 7.8.1
Added support for Horizon View 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 7.8
Fixed some issues
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HCIBench
We have seen this one quite a lot already, if you need to benchmark your HCI than the HCIBench might be your tool. Good chance though that it’s better optimized for VSAN than others.
Changelog
Version 2.2.1
Fixed docker volume moving issue
MD5 checksum of HCIBench_2.2.1.ova: 1a39c9df7d1485bc06332ae0b9d92ca7
Version 2.2
Moved docker volume to sdb to avoid blowing up OS disk
Added Fio spreadsheet generator
Added DRS warning checkup
Enhanced Grafana to keep all the historical data
Added DNS exception handler
Fixed RAM and PCPU reporting issue
Fixed Vdbench spreadsheet not reporting issue
MD5 checksum of HCIBench_2.2.ova: bb2a77dcf2ecc23b1ec2c30aee9945ec
[sta_anchor id=”desktopwatermark” /]
Desktop Watermark
I personally haven’t really used the Desktop Watermark fling yet but I guess it could be useful for others.
Changelog
v1.0 – Build 20190724-signed
Added a new attribute %DATETIME% to show hour and minute info on screen.
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vSphere Mobile Client
The vSphere Mobile Client fling is still a work in progress but functionality keeps being added. Very useful for most VI admins.
Changelog
Version 1.2.0
New features:
Focused inventory (bookmark a VM and then enter focused mode by clicking the bullseye button in the header)
vCenter dashboard now has host and virtual machine aggregates
Swiping the VM card displays a screenshot, clicking on it displays an even larger image
One of the things that annoy me about the Horizon admin interface is the fact that if you give a session the logoff command that this only works if the user is active aka when the desktop is not locked. With the api’s though (and Andrew implemented this in the helpdesk fling) it is possible to force a logoff. Let’s look at the available method’s first.
So we have a logoff and logoffForced. But there are also the logoffsessions and LofoffSessionsForced, I guess those let you logoff multiple sessions. this is what the extensiondata says about them.
So for the singular method’s we need a single id and for the sessions we need an array of ids. At first I will use get-hvglobalsession (yes, this works against sessions in other pod’s in a cloud pod architecture as well!) to get the id’s to show how it works. I have 5 sessions running from my desktop
As you can see one of my users was a but slow in logging off (nested esxi with only a couple vcpu’s for that one) I have also created a script that asks for the user whom you want to logoff and which session you want to logoff in case they have multiple. It’s not the cleanest code that I have written but it works 🙂
$hvserver1=connect-hvserver servername -user user -domain domain -password passwords
$Services1= $hvServer1.ExtensionData
$username= Read-Host "Which user do you want to logoff? (no wildcards needed, part of the name is enough)"
$queryService = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryServiceService
$userdefn = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryDefinition
$userdefn.queryEntityType = 'ADUserOrGroupSummaryView'
$userfilter1= New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryFilterContains
$userfilter1.membername='base.name'
$userfilter1.value=$username
$userfilter2= New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryFilterEquals
$userfilter2.membername='base.group'
$userfilter2.value=$False
$userfilter=new-object vmware.hv.QueryFilterAnd
$userfilter.filters=@($userfilter1, $userfilter2)
$userdefn.filter=$userfilter
$users=($queryService.QueryService_Create($Services1, $userdefn)).results
$menu = @{}
for ($i=1;$i -le $users.count; $i++){
Write-Host "$i. $($users[$i-1].base.name)"
$menu.Add($i,($users[$i-1].id))
}
[int]$ans = read-host "Please select the correct user"
$user=$menu.Item($ans)
$GlobalSessionQueryService = new-object VMware.Hv.GlobalSessionQueryServiceService
$sessionfilterspec=new-object vmware.hv.GlobalSessionQueryServiceQuerySpec
$sessionfilterspec.user=$user
$sessions=($GlobalSessionQueryService.GlobalSessionQueryService_QueryWithSpec($services1, $sessionfilterspec)).results
$menu = @{}
for ($i=1;$i -le $sessions.count; $i++){
Write-Host "$i. $($sessions[$i-1].namesdata.basenames.MachineOrRDSServerName)"
$menu.Add($i,($sessions[$i-1].id))
}
[int]$ans = read-host "Please select the correct VDI Desktop"
$session=$menu.Item($ans)
$Services1.Session.Session_Logoffforced($session)
$queryService.QueryService_DeleteAll($services1)
This script forces the logoff for the sessions since I haven’t been able yet to find where the desktop status (locked or not) is visible.
Today a new version has been released of the VMware Horizon Helpdesk fling by Andrew Morgan. One big change is that the Helpdesk license isn’t required anymore so at least a part of the functionality is available to owners of advanced or standard Horizon licenses.
the entire changelog:
Version 1.4.0.1
No longer requires a helpdesk license! Yay!
Added the ability to interact with vCenter machines
Added the ability to open vCenter VM consoles
Added the ability to perform bulk machine actions
Added the ability to perform refresh / recompose tasks directly from helpdesk.
Fixed performance issues with multiple windows open (see single instance).
Fixed a crash when logon durations could not be accessed.
Added polling to allow logon durations to be received if notavailable when the session page is requested.
Fixed a crash in the ending of processes.
Fixed a metric ton of bugs with delegated administration.
Fixed a memory leak in the tray icon menu, of all places.
Removed the logon page graphic as it was to much of a pain to change it’s colour when changing themes
Fixed some layout issues when changing themes.
Removed empty sites from the viewon the change pod tray menu.
Added preliminary support for Horizon 7.9.
Let’s look into some of the new options (will do the options without the helpdesk license last)
Added the ability to interact with vCenter machines
From the pool view you’ll see an extra button for vCenter actions
And that will give these options
These all speak for themselves in functionality.
Added the ability to open vCenter VM consoles
Open VM console will give an popup that asks for vCenter credentials.
Hit logon and a vrmc client should start if it’s installed
Added the ability to perform bulk machine actions
The vCenter actions above can be done against multiple vm’s but also the various actions from View itself
Added the ability to perform refresh / recompose tasks directly from helpdesk.
No longer requires a helpdesk license! Yay!
when you use the std license the biggest difference is that you can’t view any specifics inside sessions since that’s all limited to the helpdesk license.
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