Calling the EMEA #vCommunity for a Monthly Virtual #vBreakfast EMEA!

For years Fred Hofer has been organizing the vBreakfast for VMworld EMEA across the street of the Fira in a very nice place. A big thank you to Fred to do this every year!! Due to the mess this world currently is in we couldn’t do it in person this year and we moved virtual. Big thanks to Runecast for organizing the virtual space we could use but sadly we had to do it without the vWorldfamous Grumpy Waiter. I really like the way it was setup with separate tables and everything. The only issue was that it seemed to use whatever Microphone, speaker and webcam that where configured in Chrome and switching was almost impossible.

During this meeting we came up with the idea to organize a monthly virtual vBreakfast for EMEA. Kev Johnson offered to do it again on the site that Runecast used for this but I think it would be more flexible if we used something like zoom. Luckily I can use a paid license so it’s no problem to make this a 2 hour long come and go whenever you like session. The talk can be tech, it can be non-tech whatever you like!

When?

Every Last Friday of the month (yes we’ll move the december one!)

How late?

7.30am UK time to 9.00 (8.30 Amsterdam to 10.00, 9.30 Israel time to 11.00, you get what I am saying)

How do I attend?

Drop me an email at vbreakfastemea at gmail.com and I will forward you the invite

But I don’t live in EMEA can I still attend?

Hell yeah, I don’t give a flying F..K where you are from, everyone is welcome and the more the better!

I don’t use VMware but Nutanix or Hyper-V or Citrix?

Didn’t I just say everyone is welcome? Yes I also don’t care what hypervisor or EUC platform you use!

What do you talk about?

The Question is: what do we NOT talk about? Sometimes it’s tech, sometimes its the upcoming weekend. How to become a vExpert etc etc.

I work for company XYZ and want to sponsor this!

I think the only way of sponsoring that could work is if you organize a real breakfast for everyone that signs up. If you are prepared to do that we won’t offer more in return than a mention and a thank you as this is an organized unstructured meeting to meetup with friends.

The VMware Labs flings monthly for August 2020- Time for a new OSOT

The schedule builder for VMworld is open but we should have been at VMworld US around this time if only that stupid virus would have stayed away. In august there where three new fling releases and eight got one or more updates.

New

Software-Defined Data Center Skywalk

Federated Machine Learning on Kubernetes

VMware Container For Folding@Home

Updates

FlowGate

VMware Machine Learning Platform

Demo Appliance for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid

Infrastructure Deployer for vCloud NFV

Workspace ONE UEM SCIM Adapter

VMware OS Optimization Tool

App Volumes Migration Utility

USB Network Native Driver for ESXi

New Releases

[sta_anchor id=”skywalk” /]

Software-Defined Data Center Skywalk

Even with the description it’s not always clear what Software-Defined Data Center Skywalk does but apparently it helps in building vpn’s between VMC & on-prem datacenters.

The current API/UI workflow requires multiple operations in different VMC Software Defined Data Centers’ (SDDC) either using API’s or UI. We are solving the problem to auto register, discover, connect VPN’s between VMC SDDC’s on single click event. The Distributed Firewall DFW firewall policies are also mapped on user inputs from on-premises to VMC SDDC using this interface.

[sta_anchor id=”fmlk” /]

Federated Machine Learning on Kubernetes

Federated Machine Learning (FML) is one of the most promising machine learning technologies to solve data silos and strengthening data privacy and security, which is accepted by more and more financial organization. FATE is an opensource project hosted by Linux Foundation to provide a federated learning framework. FATE has been used to increase the performance of predictions in credit reporting, insurance and other financial areas, as well as surveillance and visual detection projects. It helps organizations to comply with strict privacy regulations and laws such as GDPR and CCPA.

This Fling provides a tool to quickly deploy and manage a FATE cluster by either Docker-compose or Kubernetes. Its features include:

Test and develop models in Jupyter using Federated Machine Learning technologies;
Build a FATE cluster with full life-cycle management of federated learning platform.
In the Fling, a command line tool talks to Kubenetes to initiate an entire FATE cluster. The Fling includes a sample configuration which can be used to quickly deploy and try out federated learning. The configuration can be customized based on actual requirements.

[sta_anchor id=”vcfh” /]

VMware Container For Folding@Home

VMware Container for Folding@ Home is a docker container for running folding at home client. This container is supported on both Docker standalone clients and on a Kubernetes Cluster. Optional command line toggle GPU support on or off as well as all other common FAH client command line in puts.

The Folding@Home container is configured to automatically join Team VMware ID 52737. Everyone is welcome to join! Check out http://vmwa.re/fah for team and individual statistics.

Updated flings

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FlowGate

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.

Changelog

Version 1.1.2 Update

  • Add Chassis support in API
  • Add PDU phase data.
  • Upgrade Springboot from 1.4.7 to 2.3.7

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VMware Machine Learning Platform

The goal of vmlp is to provide an end-to-end ML platform for Data Scientists to perform their job more effectively by running ML workloads on top of VMware infrastructure.

Changelog

Version 0.3.0

  • Federated ML based on FATE
  • Istio 1.4.9
  • Horovod 0.19.2
  • Upgraded major components (MLflow 1.10.0, Pandas 1.0.3 and others)
  • Important stability bug fixes
  • Added documentation

Includes contributions from: Jiahao “Luke” Chen (bug fixes and Federated ML/FATE integration),
Shan Lahiri (Getting Started Guide), Jason Hutson (relentlessly debugging Kubernetes on VMware
infra), Nick Ford (sorting out VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer/AVI Networks configuration and issues)

[sta_anchor id=”datkg” /]

Demo Appliance for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid

A Virtual Appliance that pre-bundles all required dependencies to help customers in learning and deploying standalone Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) clusters running on either VMware Cloud on AWS and/or vSphere 6.7 Update 3 environment for Proof of Concept, Demo and Dev/Test purposes.

Changelog

Aug 10, 2020 – v1.1.3

  • Support for latest TKG 1.1.3 release
  • Support for TKG Workload Cluster upgrade workflow from K8s 1.17.9 to 1.18.6
  • TKG Crash Diagnostic utility (crash-diagnostics) included in appliance
  • Helm (3.2.4) included in appliance
  • Updated to latest version of Harbor (1.10.3), Docker Compose (1.26.2), Kubectl (1.18.6), Octant (0.14.1) and TMC (d11404fb) CLI in appliance
  • PowerCLI script to automate 100% of pre-req for running on TKG on VMware Cloud on AWS

TKG-Demo-Appliance-1.1.3.ova
MD5: 86ce0c263ebcb6d20addcb6e1767e55a

[sta_anchor id=”idvn” /]

Infrastructure Deployer for vCloud NFV

Infrastructure Deployer for vCloud NFV is an automation-based deployment tool used for setting up the VMware vCloud NFV platform

Changelog

Version 3.3 Update

  • Updated RAID version from 3.2.1 vCloud NFV VCD to 3.3 vCloud NFV OSE (OpenStack Edition)

[sta_anchor id=”wousa” /]

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.

Changelog

20.08 Release Notes & Update:

**Please Note:** If you have already setup WS1 SCIM Adapter, it is possible that moving to 20.08 will create new accounts. Please consider resetting Directory Services configuation for the OG you are connecting to.

New Features:

  • Deployments now exclusively supported on Docker. See install instructions for more details on how to orchestrate the deployment using the included Helm chart.

Bugs Fixed:

  • createGroup returns unexpected error due to missing payload return

Other Notes:

  • Bitnami deployment script introduced in 20.03 has been deprecated. Although it is still possible to deploy on Appliance form-factors, future development will be exclusively supported on Docker.

[sta_anchor id=”osot” /]

VMware OS Optimization Tool

I have read in plenty of places that people managed to mess up their image with OSOT and that they’re never going to use it anymore and even worse accept unoptimized images in production. This is the wrong choice in my opinion. please use osot or other ways to optimize your image but think about what you need to optimize and test it!

Changelog

August, 2020, b1171 Version Update

Optimizations

Disable Passive Polling is no longer selected by default as this was shown to cause issues with some applications thinking they did not have internet connectivity. Note that this optimization entry was previously incorrectly named as Enable Passive Polling.
Added new setting to Use WDDM graphics display driver for Remote Desktop Connections.

UI Improvements

Brand new interface functionality to allow searching of the optimizations to find specific entries. This is available on both the Optimize and My Templates tabs and allows you to find and view settings based on what you type in.
Added a grid splitter to extend area of left tree view under My Templates.

Common Options

New controls to simplify keeping Cortana search and how the search box appears in the taskbar.

Generalize

New option to specify the Administrator account to use after running SysPrep. This defaults to the current user account. The account specified is also added to the Administrators and Remote Desktop Users groups.
New option to perform an automatic restart after the Generalize task has completed.

Bug Fixes

  • Common Options settings were reset after an optimization. These should now be retained.
  • Changed the way the default profile was used to ensure that this works when OSOT is run using the system account.
  • Windows Syspart Repair was being prevented from being disabled properly.
  • Windows Superfetch was being prevented from being disabled properly.
  • Windows Update was sometimes not disabled properly after running a generalize.
  • Updated templates were saved to the wrong location.

August, 2020, b1170 Update

Templates

New combined template for all versions of Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 and 2019. Optimizations can have optional parameters to filter the version that a setting is applied to.

Optimizations

Turn off NCSI is no longer selected by default as this was shown to cause issues with some applications thinking they did not have internet connectivity.

New Optimizations added and some removed, For details see: https://techzone.vmware.com/resource/vmware-operating-system-optimization-tool-guide#Template_Updates

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed issues with re-enabling Windows Update functionality on Server 2016 and 2019.
  • Fixed issue that was preventing Windows Antimalware from being disabled properly.

Common Options

Changed interface and language on the Common Options page for Windows Update to remove confusion. This option can only be used to disable Windows Update as part of an optimization task. To re-enable Windows Update functionality, use the Update button on the main menu ribbon.

Guides

Updated OSOT user guide: VMware Operating System Optimization Tool Guide.

[sta_anchor id=”avmu” /]

App Volumes Migration Utility

App Volumes Migration Utility allows admins to migrate AppStacks managed by VMware App Volumes 2.18, to the new application package format of App Volumes 4. The format of these packages in App Volumes 4 have evolved to improve performance and help simplify application management.

Changelog

1.0.4 Version Update

  1. Fix for “AppVolumes Manager is invalid” error shown in the UI when connecting to App Volumes Manager 4 version 2006.
  2. Fix for the bug “failed to get old appID from YML entries” in the AppCapture.log during migration of appstacks.

[sta_anchor id=”unnde” /]

USB Network Native Driver for ESXi

USB has become one the most widely adopted connection type in the world & USB network adapters are also popular among Edge computing platforms. In some platforms, there is either limited or no PCI/PCIe slots for I/O expansion & in some cases, an Ethernet port is not even available. Another advantage of a USB-based network adapter is that it can be hot-plugged into an system without a reboot which means no impact to the workload, same is true for hot-remove.

This Fling supports the most popular USB network adapter chipsets found in the market. The ASIX USB 2.0 gigabit network ASIX88178a, ASIX USB 3.0 gigabit network ASIX88179, Realtek USB 3.0 gigabit network RTL8152/RTL8153 and Aquantia AQC111U. These are relatively inexpensive devices that many of our existing vSphere customers are already using and are familiar with.

Changelog

Aug 24, 2020 – v1.6Add

  • support for Aquantia and Trendnet AQC111U (0xe05a:0x20f4)
  • Add support for Realtek RTL8153 (0x045e:0x07c6)
  • Add support for Realtek RTL8156 (0x0bda:0x8156)
  • Support for persistent VMkernel to USB NIC MAC Address mappings
  • Simplified USB NIC persistency
  • Resolved link speed issue for RTL8153 chipsets

Note 1: There are known issues when using Jumbo Frame 9K for RTL* chipset, this is still being investigated. For now, only up to 4K is supported.

Note 2: This will be the last release which will include support for ESXi 6.5

ESXi700-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-39035884-component-16770668.zip
ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-39203948-offline_bundle-16780994.zip
ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-39176435-offline_bundle-16775917.zip

My VMworld EU 2019 presentations

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!

vExpert Daily: Video | Deck

vBrownbag: tools for Horizon Helpdesk: Video | Deck

EUC Beer and Tapas top 5 flings for Horizon: Video | Deck

VMware{Code}-Horizon API 101: Video | Deck

VMworld EU 2019 day 3 report

I am writing dus from my own desk in my own house after an awesome VMworld 2019. Day three was the day where I presented at the VMware{Code} theater. There was a good audience that really want to start using the Horizon API’s to automate their environments. The rest of de day I spent for a bit in the Solutions Exchange but mainly in the community area. We talked a lot, played some fussball and at the end of the day we had some fun with Eric Nielsen’s workshop about working with Raspberry pi’s and sensors.

 

VMworld Europe 2019 day 2 report

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.

 

Day 1 of VMworld Europe 2019

So yesterday was a very interesting day for me. It started at the reserved bloggers seats for the keynote where we didn’t see too much really big announcements. After that I had to rush to the community area for my appearance in the vExpert daily this year. If you’re interested to watch that you can find it over here. And at 12.45 I had another go at vBrownbag presenting on a couple of helpdesk tools for VMware Horizon. The rest of the day mainly was hanging around in the community area distributing Pink Cookies, Stroopwafels and gathering swag inn the solutions Exchange. In the evening I once again went onto a stage with Hans Kraaijeveld at the EUC Community beer and tapas event. This was my biggest crowd to present for until now but the beer part made it rather easy. We even showed a brand new fling called Horizon Reach from Andrew Morgan that hasn’t even been released yet. The evening came to a closing for me at the Benelux party where we had some beers and tapas again.

 

The VMworld day 0 report in text and some tweets

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.

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteTec/status/1191446898017742848

The VMware Labs flings monthly for October 2019

Only two days before I am flying to Barcelona, I am really looking forward to VMworld. The bad things is that it will probably be over before we know it as well. One of the new flings from last month has been renamed, one new was posted and six received updates. Kubernetes eXtensible Desktop Client (KXDC) was renamed to Kubewise and the Virtualized High Performance Computing Toolkit is the new fling posted. Updated flings are vRealize Operations REST Notifications Helper, vSphere Mobile Client, Workspace One UEM Workload Migration Tool, Virtual Machine Compute OptimizervRealize Build Tools and the vSAN Performance Monitor.

New releases

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Virtualized High Performance Computing Toolkit

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
  • Configure NVIDIA vGPU
  • Configure RDMA SR-IOV (Single Root I/O Virtualization)
  • Configure  PVRDMA (Paravirtualized RDMA)
  • 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

 

[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
  • For Notification Appliance – 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 14 GB storage
  • 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)
  • Bug fixes

My schedule for VMworld 2019 Barcelona

In less than two weeks VMworld Europe will begin, for me it will be a busy one this year. With four sessions that I will participate in, a bunch of Design Studio sessions, parties and let’s not forget vSoccer (or football for us Europeans). Let me give you an insight into how my schedule will probably look. Probably because things can still change even during the event itself. Sadly there is no Hackathon this year but it would have been a hard choice between that and playing some football anyway.

Monday

My earliest session during the week will actually be on Monday starting at 8am with a Design Studio session. Later in the morning there will be another Design Studio session followed by the entire afternoon filled with an NSX-T workshop. While I am still undecided about the Partner reception I will go to the vSoccer in the evening. After last year’s first but very successful version of it in Las Vegas I am again looking forward to playing some footie with friends. Having lost a bit of weight the last year will also help in how long I will actually stay on the pitch.

Tuesday

This is a packed day for me, after the keynote where we bloggers can sit in the press area I will spend the entire day in the Community area and maybe the Solutions Exchange. I will be there because I will be in the vExpert Daily, will be presenting my own vBrownbag session and someone has to be there as emotional support for my buddy Hans’s first ever vBrownbag as well. From 17.30 I will be at Brian Madden’s EUC Community Tech Talks & Beer evening where I am presenting with previously mentioned Hans. Party wise I can go to the vExpert party but that’s a bit further away than I would like so I’ll wait on where the Benelux party is or I might even just go to the Veaam party.

Wednesday

The Wednesday is a mixed day for me starting in the community area to watch the vExpert Daily followed by two Design Studio sessions and two regular sessions. Well regular? One of the two is the live Virtually Speaking podcast with a lot of great names.

Thursday

On Thursday I will be presenting my own Horizon API 101 Session at the VMware{Code} stage. This session is fully booked but there’s probably a spot for everyone. Session wise I will be doing three regular sessions and a workshop. I will be flying back on Friday so if anyone wants to go out for dinner or something just let me know!

The VMware Labs flings monthly for September 2019

And yet another month gone, next week I will be in Kopenhagen for Nutanix .Next and the month after that I will be speaking at VMworld Barcelona. Will I see you at either of these two events? Last month one new fling was released:  Kubernetes eXtensible Desktop Client (KXDC) , seven received updates: App Volumes Entitlement Sync, vSphere HTML5 Web Client, DoD Security Technical Implementation Guide(STIG) ESXi VIB, VMware OS Optimization Tool, vSphere Mobile Client, Workspace One UEM Workload Migration Tool, USB Network Native Driver for ESXi and one was marked deprecated: VIB Author.

New releases

[sta_anchor id=”kxdc” /]

Kubernetes eXtensible Desktop Client (KXDC)

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

[sta_anchor id=”appvolentsync” /]

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

[sta_anchor id=”vspherehtml5″ /]

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

The DoD Security Technical Implementation Guide(STIG) ESXi VIB fling helps in hardening your vSphere environment.

Changelog

Update September 2019

  • New ESXi 6.7 STIG VIB release
  • 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

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Workspace One UEM Workload Migration Tool

With the Workspace One UEM Workload Migration Tool it’s easy to move devies and applications between WS One UEM environments.

Changelog

Version 2.0.0

  • Baseline Migration Support
  • MacOS application
  • UI refactoring to make bulk migrations easier
  • 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

ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-28903484-offline_bundle-14722970.zip
ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-28903792-offline_bundle-14722993.zip