Dell EMC updates VxRail software to address Spectre

So Dell EMC have finally released the patches for their VxRail appliances, I know many of my customers were asking about these patches - in a way it's good it was slightly delayed given how many normal VMware customers experienced issues when patching and how one patch was pulled by VMware! The good thing about … Continue reading Dell EMC updates VxRail software to address Spectre

Spectre & Meltdown Update

So it seems that the microcode patches released by VMware associated with their recent Security Advisory (VMSA-2018-0004) have been pulled.... https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52345 So that's ESXi650-201801402-BG, ESXi600-201801402-BG, or ESXi550-201801401-BG. The microcode patch provided by Intel was buggy and there seems to be issues when VMs access the new speculative execution control mechanism (Haswell & Broadwell processors). However, I … Continue reading Spectre & Meltdown Update

HCIBench 1.6.2 – Testing vSAN performance

Over the past month or so I've been running a number of performance tests on VxRail and vSAN solutions. HCIBench is a brilliant tool to help end-users understand the type of performance that they can achieve with their vSAN solution. It's essentially an automation wrapper around the popular Vdbench tool. Vdbench is an utility specifically created to help … Continue reading HCIBench 1.6.2 – Testing vSAN performance

More on vSAN Encryption

So not long after my article was published on SearchVMware, the guys at Virtual Blocks (VMware's own storage blog) released 2 articles which went into vSAN encryption in a bit more detail. https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2017/06/24/vsan-encryption-1/ https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2017/06/24/vsan-encryption-2/ It's definitely worth noting that using hardware encryption does have an overhead whenever you need to rekey (eg when you need … Continue reading More on vSAN Encryption

VMware vSAN 6.6 launched – so What’s New?

Earlier this year it was announced that vSAN had grown to over 7000 customers since launch, which is a pretty decent number given the product went GA just over 3 years ago and we’re on the 6th iteration! What’s even more impressive is how quickly VMware are turning these updates around (almost every 6 months … Continue reading VMware vSAN 6.6 launched – so What’s New?

vSphere/vCenter 6.5 released

So post VMworld, I wrote a long article about what's new for vSphere 6.5 which I was hoping would be published on SearchVMware.com.... unfortunately I'm still waiting on it to be published, last I heard the article was too long and they were splitting it up into two articles! ¬_¬" Anyways, whilst I wait for … Continue reading vSphere/vCenter 6.5 released

VMware vSphere ESXi and vCenter Server 6.0.0b Released

So the first minor release for vSphere ESXi 6.0 is out alongside the second minor release for vCenter Server 6.0. https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere6/doc/vsphere-vcenter-server-600b-release-notes.html https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere6/doc/vsphere-esxi-600b-release-notes.html Looking through the release notes, I don't think I've experienced any of those bugs that have been fixed - which is a good indication of a stable software release..... I'm guessing that the … Continue reading VMware vSphere ESXi and vCenter Server 6.0.0b Released

Comparing the Configuration of vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 and 6.0

Great White Paper here for those of you transitioning from 5.5 to 6.0 and want to know what the differences are: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vsphere/VMware-vsphere-60-vcenter-server-appliance-55-60-comparison.pdf For me the major difference is VMware have dropped the Virtual Appliance Management Interface (VAMI), which makes sense as why would you want to manage your virtual environment from one browser url and … Continue reading Comparing the Configuration of vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 and 6.0

No coredump target has been configured

So recently a number of customers have been experiencing a core dump target error after rebooting their ESXi hosts.... quite strangely I also recently experienced the same issue when my demo environment went down a few weeks ago due to a power failure. There isn't really a clear explanation why this happens, but it seems … Continue reading No coredump target has been configured

Installing/Upgrading vCenter Server Appliance 6.0

I've been itching to deploy vSphere 6.0 GA for weeks now (since it was launched last month - wanted to replace my vSphere 6.0 Beta environment) but due to work commitments I've had to put this pet-project on the back-burner..... really hate when vendors release new toys at the end of quarter as it means … Continue reading Installing/Upgrading vCenter Server Appliance 6.0