It’s already the week after and I am looking back at a very good VMworld last week in Barcelona. In the end I was at a podium for none less than four times and wanted to share the decks or videos with you when available. For the vExpert daily there is no deck (duh) and for the EUC Beer and tapas community event there is no video. I also had to remove most of the slides because the fling hasn’t been published yet, you can expect a blogpost when it’s been published because it’s going to be awesome!
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
[sta_anchor id=”vropsrestnotifyer” /]
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
[sta_anchor id=”vspheremobileclient” /]
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
[sta_anchor id=”vmcompoptimizer” /]
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
[sta_anchor id=”vsanperfmon” /]
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
[sta_anchor id=”vrbuildtools” /]
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
[sta_anchor id=”osot” /]
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
[sta_anchor id=”usbnicdriver” /]
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
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.
The vSAN performance monitor is delivered in a virtual appliance with three major components, i.e., a Telegraf collector, InfluxDB, and a Grafana frontend.
Telegraf: Telegraf is the agent that collects metrics from vSAN cluster and stores them in InfluxDB.
InfluxDB: InfluxDB is the database to store the metrics
Grafana: We use Grafana as the frontend to virtualize the metrics stored in the InfluxDB
Once deployed, users will need to do some simple configuration changes to point the collector to target vSAN cluster(s) and start the service. After that, the data will be collected periodically and can be visualized for meaningful insights.
Enterprise OpenShift as a Service on Cloud Automation Services
This Fling enables a cloud admin to download the package, integrate with Cloud Assembly and other Infrastructure services and be able to provide an “OpenShift Cluster as a Service” offering. This Fling automates the end to end deployment process. End users can simply request for and get an enterprise grade distributed instance of OpenShift Cluster. This Fling provides all the required packages to configure and deploy an enterprise production grade OpenShift cluster using VMware Cloud Assembly Services with minimal effort and in a repeatable, fully automated fashion.
The vSphere Mobile Client is under heavy development to make sure we have the best experience in managing our vSphere environments using our mobile phones.
Changelog
Version 1.4.0
New features
Cluster view
Improvements
Confirmation dialog on VM quick actions
New Bug Fixes
Task card layout improvements
Alarms and events truncation issue has been fixed
iOS crash report improvementsVersion 1.3.0
New features:
Hosts view
vCenter dashboard now includes items with most alerts
Improvements
Crash reporting for iOS
Event categories are now visible (alarm, error, warning)
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.
Changelog
Version 1.0.4
Added a -Property filter to the Get-View commands for hosts and VMs to reduce time and amount of returned data
Removed if statement in Get_Optimal_CPU function that included $hostCPUs as it was not yet being used
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
[sta_anchor id=”hhu” /]
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.
[sta_anchor id=”horizontoolbox” /]
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
[sta_anchor id=”hcibench” /]
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
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.
I already posted a short blog about this fling over here.
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.
Features
VM overview: Review the status of your VMs including state (powered on/off), resource usage and configuration information
VM management: Change the power state of a VM or restart it. Locating the virtual machine to operate on can be done through search.
Task monitoring: Subscribe to any running task and receive a notification on your mobile device upon task completion, even when your device is in-active or you have another application running on the foreground.
Performance charts: Monitor the resource usage of a VM in real time or a day, week, month or year back. Counters include CPU, Memory, Storage and Network.
NOTE: vSphere Mobile Client is currently available for Android and iOS devices and vCenter 6.0+ deployments. Check the “Requirements” tab for more details. Access to vSphere infrastructure may require a secure access method such as VPN on a mobile device.
This is a technical preview release and as such it only has a limited subset of the intended functionality. The team would be releasing updates with new features regularly, but our main task is to gather feedback so please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
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Workspace ONE UEM SCIM Adapter
Workspace ONE UEM SCIM Adapter provides SCIM user/group management capabilities to Workspace ONE UEM. The middleware translates the System for Cross-Domain Identity Management, SCIM, to a CRUD REST framework that Workspace ONE UEM can interpret. This capability allows Workspace ONE UEM to synchronize cloud-based identity resources (users/groups/entitlements) without the need for an LDAP endpoint (service to service model). Examples include Azure AD, Okta, and Sailpoint.
[sta_anchor id=”flowgate” /]
Flowgate
The Flowgate fling is all about linking IT & Facility systems with each other.
In enterprise data centers, IT infrastructure and facility are generally managed separately, which leads to information gaps. Collaboration between facility and IT infrastructure systems are limited or manual, and virtualization adds more complexity.
The goal of Flowgate is to make facility awareness in IT management system and make IT operations management and automation better on high availability, cost saving and improved sustainability, with more information on power, cooling, environment (e.g. humidity, temperature) and security.
Built-in adapter for multiple DCIM and CMDB system integration:
Nlyte
PowerIQ
Infoblox
Labsdb
IBIS(TODO)
Pulse IoT Center (TODO)
Open for other facility system integration
Built-in adapter for multiple IT stack systems:
vCenter Server
vRealise Operation Manager
Open for other IT stack integration. More systems will coming soon.
UI based Integration process: One click integration.
Role based access control: API level access control support.
RESTFul API support: Provide unified facility information querying services. APIs for all operations and data query make it easy to integrate with other systems.
Updated flings
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USB Network Native Driver for ESXi
Are you building an awesome homelab but received some funky USB Network adapters? The USB Network Native Driver for ESXi might just have the correct drivers for you.
Changelog
June 17, 2019 – v1.1
Added support for 9 additional USB NIC devices including USB 2.0 RTL8152 & TPLINK (see Requirements page for complete list)
Added support for Jumbo Frames (up to 4K) for RTL8153 & AX88179
ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-24524132-offline_bundle-13958648.zip
ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-24599816-offline_bundle-13964320.zip
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HCIBench
HCIBench is one of two benchmarking utilities that received an update.
Changelog
Version 2.1
Switched UI to dark theme
Redesigned VMDK preparation methodology, which can complete much faster using RANDOM on deduped storage
Added VMDK preparation process update
Added Graphite port check into prevalidation
Added vCenter/Host password obfuscation
Added “Delete Guest VM” button
Fixed Grafana display issue
Fixed FIO blank results issue
Bug fixes
MD5 checksum of HCIBench_2.1.ova: d37e6f164ed962a6e7ccbe104ba9eaec
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IOBLazer
It looks like the IOBlazer fling was first released in 2014(!!!!) as a tool to benchmark all kinds of storage systems. Since I haven’t posted about it here yet let me give you the overview:
IOBlazer is a multi-platform storage stack micro-benchmark. IOBlazer runs on Linux, Windows and OSX and it is capable of generating a highly customizable workload. Parameters like IO size and pattern, burstiness (number of outstanding IOs), burst interarrival time, read vs. write mix, buffered vs. direct IO, etc., can be configured independently. IOBlazer is also capable of playing back VSCSI traces captured using vscsiStats. The performance metrics reported are throughput (in terms of both IOPS and bytes/s) and IO latency.
IOBlazer evolved from a minimalist MS SQL Server emulator which focused solely on the IO component of said workload. The original tool had limited capabilities as it was able to generate a very specific workload based on the MS SQL Server IO model (Asynchronous, Un-buffered, Gather/Scatter). IOBlazer has now a far more generic IO model, but two limitations still remain:
The alignment of memory accesses on 4 KB boundaries (i.e., a memory page)
The alignment of disk accesses on 512 B boundaries (i.e., a disk sector).
Both limitations are required by the gather/scatter and un-buffered IO models.
A very useful new feature is the capability to playback VSCSI traces captured on VMware ESX through the vscsiStats utility. This allows IOBlazer to generate a synthetic workload absolutely identical to the disk activity of a Virtual Machine, ensuring 100% experiment repeatability.
Changelog
Updates in IOBlazer 1.01:
Added configurable IO alignment
Increased the robustness of the trace file parser in the face of spurious lines
Increased the robustness of the build process by automatically detecting target OS and arch within the Makefile
In the Windows version, changed the raw access mode from volume to physical drive to avoid unnecessary mount/unmount operations at every test run.
[sta_anchor id=”daasmigtool” /]
Horizon DaaS Migration Tool
The Horizon DaaS Migration Tool is for the Horizon DaaS providers to migrate their customers to the latest version of Horizon DaaS.
Changelog
Version 2.1.0
Fix for the bug on “Requested Capacity” at the pool/assignment summary page showing inappropriate values.
Intelligently handling import of new VMs skipping previously imported VMs.
Every once in a while there’s a fling that looks too good to only be mentioned in my monthly updates. The vSphere mobile Client is one of those in my opinion. For years and years I have seen questions about apps to manage vSphere from your mobile device and there indeed have been a couple in the past. With the amount of available API’s some VMware engineers now have decided on creating a fling for it. Currently it’s only available for Android devices but it is an awesome step in the right direction.
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.
Features
VM overview: Review the status of your VMs including state (powered on/off), resource usage and configuration information
VM management: Change the power state of a VM or restart it. Locating the virtual machine to operate on can be done through search.
Task monitoring: Subscribe to any running task and receive a notification on your mobile device upon task completion, even when your device is in-active or you have another application running on the foreground.
Performance charts: Monitor the resource usage of a VM in real time or a day, week, month or year back. Counters include CPU, Memory, Storage and Network.
NOTE: vSphere Mobile Client is currently available for Android devices and vCenter 6.0+ deployments. Check the “Requirements” tab for more details. Access to vSphere infrastructure may require a secure access method such as VPN on a mobile device.
This is a technical preview release and as such it only has a limited subset of the intended functionality. The team would be releasing updates with new features regularly, but our main task is to gather feedback so please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
There are some screenshots on the fling site and the one below from my phone but once I am able to connect to my lab I will add some more.
The MyVMware CLI fling is an early preview of api’s to download your entitled software from http://my.vmware.com.
MyVMware CLI is a command line client used to login and interact with my.vmware.com.
It provides an interface for programmatic query and download of VMware product binaries.
This Fling is in early preview and allows you to find and download:
Every product
Every version
Every file
Note: Any download attempts will be restricted to the entitlements afforded by your my.vmware.com account.
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App Volumes Entitlement Sync
If you have multiple App Volumes installations than the App Volumes Entitlement Sync fling can be usefull to make sure everyone has the same rights everywhere.
The App Volumes Entitlement Sync Fling will read, compare and sync entitlements from one App Volumes instance to another. This helps customers managing multiple App Volumes instances across one or multiple geographic sites.
Updated flings
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App Volumes Toolbox
The App Volumes Toolbox fling makes it easier to manage your App Volumes setups.
The Cross vCenter Workload Migration Utility allows you to vmotion or move vm’s between linked and unlinked vCenter servers. Since this version it also supports NSX-T Opaque networking.
Changelog
Version 2.6, April 15, 2019
Added support for NSX-T Opaque Network (enables migration to/from VMC and on-premises vSphere with NSX-T)
vSphere Perspective Management available under Administration > Customization > Perspectives This new feature enables administrators to take control of which parts of the UI other administrators see. This is done by defining a set of views and combining them together into a so called “perspective”.
[Perspective tab] As an administrator you can show or hide: tabs, portlets and primary views.
[Assignments tab] Perspectives can be assigned to both users and groups.
Demo is available at https://www.dropbox.com/s/06z15xspsvrciys/Perspectives-demo-fling.mp4
Code Capture can also capture calls for operations made when managing Content Libraries.
Code Capture can generate scripts in additional languages: Python and vRO (vRealize Orchestrator) Javascript.
Known Issues
We noticed an intermittent issue with stopping the vsphere-client. You can always kill the process manually by running these commands
ps -ax | grep java
kill -9
ps -ax | node
kill -9
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HCIBench
Want to test your Hyperconverged Infrastructure? HCIBench Is one of the tools you can use for that.
Changelog
Version 2.0
Added fio as an alternative workload generator
Added Grafana for workload live monitoring
Switched UI to clarity
Allow user to select one to four cases while using easy-run
Bug fixes
MD5 checksum of HCIBench_2.0.ova: ba3c2b06b8c27fb41a1bb68baedb325f
Personally I don’t see the added value for this fling since there are already plenty of products that provide the functionality and you can even do it yourself with gpo’s. (and the logo is outdated as well)
A thin client is a stateless, fanless desktop terminal that has no hard drive. Thin clients provide businesses a cost-effective way to access virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI). To simplify the operation steps to access VDI, some features are embedded in thin clients.
For example:
Launch the RDP client default
Hide desktop/task bar
Disable system options to prevent user using other applications
And so on
This Fling will convert physical desktop as a thin client. It will restrict end-users’ behaviors when users log into physical desktops. After user logged in, Horizon view client will be launched automatically and other applications are forbidden to switch. Physical desktop will log off automatically once user exit Horizon view clients.
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Identity Manager Migration/Backup Tool
The Identity Manager Migration/Backup Tool helps you in migrating vIDM settings between environments.
Identity Manager Migration/Backup Tool automates the process of exporting or importing applications and entitlements from one Identity Manager instance to another. If entitlements exists, they will also be backed up to an XML file. This Fling uses Identity Manager API’s for Export, Import, Delete and applying entitlements.
Hiding VMs in Hosts and Clusters view – A very popular desktop client feature is brought into the vSphere HTML5 client where you can go to User’s menu, select My preferences and Inventory tab from where you can show/hide VMs in Hosts and Clusters view by selecting the checkbox.
User’s menu -> My preferences will have additional preference options like Language, Time Zone, Console and Inventory
Developer Center now has API Explorer tab listing all the REST APIs exposed by vSphere SDK.
New layout for the feedback tool and feedback tool can be invoked even when a dialog is open on the screen. This enables taking the screenshot of the client including the dialogs. Also, feedback tool now has the ability to add screenshots, this will help you compare the features between different clients and upload the screenshots.
Improvements
We added the support back to 6.0 vCenters to the fling. You can now point vSphere HTML5 client fling v4.1 to 6.0 or 6.5 or 6.7 version of vCenter servers.
License expiration notification now is increased from 60 to 90 days and includes all the licenses
Evaluation License is now shown in the licenses list
Sorting and Filtering by License Expiration date in the Licenses list
Known Issues
New layout of the feedback tool has issues in the Firefox browser, so you will see old feedback tool in that browser.
There are some areas where feedback tool might not capture the screenshot of the dialog, like VM edit settings.
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Horizon Helpdesk Utility
For a more complete overview of the Horizon Helpdesk Utility fling so the link I posted in the intro to my previous blogpost.
Changelog
Version 1.3.3.1
Removed machine listings from session view (overkill)
Improved Environment view to include metrics on all connected infrastructure:
vSphere
Hosts
Datastores
Remote Pods
Events
Problem Machines
Added repeated queries for logon breakdown if missed on first instance
Added event query support for logon breakdown
Added events view for Farm and Desktop pools
Added inbuilt find / search to users / machines in pool views
Added support for multiselect in pool / farm views
Added graph / chart views of machines / sessions and problem machines on the environment overview
Added a pod switcher to the environment overview
Added a global search to the environment overview
Added support for Pod Jumping.
the ability to jump to a pod on demand
the ability to jump to a pod a session belongs to
Added support for an architecture view of Desktop Pools
Added support for an architecture view of Farms
Enhanced view of servers load evaluator value
Added bulk user tasks via pool or farm views:
Bulk messaging
Bulk log off
Bulk disconnect
Bulk reset
Bulk restart
Added support for a local pod view (AKA environment view):
Connection servers
Farms
Desktop pools
Added documentation (finally)
Added MSI installation support
Added a start time column to user sessions (this will persist as a preference)
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