Hot VMware Topics – September

Hello everyone! September is now well behind us and that means it’s time for another edition of our Hot VMware Topics series! As a reminder, this series showcases useful links, interesting reads, and great how-tos from the world of VMware from throughout the previous month.

As VMworld is quite a ways behind us now, there aren’t all that many big, groundbreaking announcements to be had in this month’s segment, but we have some useful links all the same! Let’s get started!

1. New PowerCLI Function: Get-DeployedProduct Returns a List of Products, Versions, and Important URLs

Author: Brian Graf

As one of my favorite uses of PowerShell is automation within infrastructure, I’m always on the lookout for some new handy Function that will solve some issue for me, or provide some useful feature. Brian Graf has put together this useful function that will pull quite a bit of useful information together for you regarding the guests running within your environment. I could see capturing this information in a variable and then referencing it later in a script, so the targeting options that this creates could be quite useful. It’s one for the bookmarks at any rate!

2. Virtual SAN Availability Part 6 – Maintenance Mode

Author: Jeff Hunter

Do you have VMware VSAN in place? Have you ever wondered what it looks like when Maintenance Mode needs to be used on a host that is also acting as a node for a VSAN cluster? As we know vSphere Maintenance Mode is highly useful for maintenance operations, but it doesn’t always feel the greatest when you have to take a storage node offline. If you want to feel a bit more at ease about how the process works, check out this article by Jeff Hunter. He does a good job of reviewing all the options and the process itself.

3. vCenter Server Migration Tool: vSphere 6.0 Update 2m

Author: Emad Younis

Raise your hand if you’re still running a Windows Server based vCenter Server? Now keep your hand up if you think it’s a pain in the rear end to continue to manage? Yeah I think so too. While the Windows piece isn’t difficult to manage, vCenter just seems to run better via the VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance). It makes sense as it was built from the ground up just for the task. Well if you’ve been putting off migrating to the appliance format because you don’t want to deal with the migration, you’re in luck. VMware has released a new migration tool that assists with Windows Server vCenter to VCSA migrations. Emad Younis has the details above!

4. Preparing for a vCenter Server Migration Using the vSphere 6.0 Update 2m Migration Tool – Part 1

Author: Emad Younis

This one goes hand in hand with the previous entry. So after you’ve read about the new tool and it’s capabilities, you can follow this link to actually start planning the migration. Again, Emad Younis does an excellent job of stepping us through the process. This will be certain to help those still running Windows Server based vCenters.

5. VMware – Windows Server 2016 Support

I’ve been asked by many if I know what VMware’s official stance is on Windows Server 2016 yet. So to boil it down to simplicity, VMware is still doing it’s final validation testing, and will update the VMware Compatibility Guide when ready. However, if you want the official statement straight from VMware, check out the link.

6. VMware KB Digest

I’m surprised how many people don’t know about this one still. VMware throws together a master list of all the new and updated KB articles on a weekly basis so people can keep an eye out for new issues and what not. Usually, I’ll post or tweet about just a specific week’s KBs, but I figured I’ve had enough puzzled looks lately when I mention this that I would post the base page containing all the announcements. Bookmark this one away for the next time you’re troubleshooting a vSphere issue.

Wrap-Up

Well that wraps up things for this month’s segment of  Hot VMware Topics! Hopefully you enjoy sifting through all the information I’ve linked and I hope it provides value in your day to day operations. Until next month, thanks for reading, and if there is a link or useful page missing from this list that you feel should be included, be sure to let us know in the comments section below!

Thanks again!

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