Tuesday 24 July 2018

Upgrading to VMware vSphere 6.5 - Free ebook

September is fast approaching and with that, VMware vSphere 5.5 is coming to an end of support.

As a VMware Certified Instructor, I am still running a lot of VMware vSphere 6.5 courses.

Even though we now have VMware vSphere 6.7, 6.5 is still proving a popular choice, and with that in mind, it may be worth having a look at the following ebook.

UPGRADING TO VMWARE VSPHERE 6.5 - Insights for vSphere administrators


The book is only 32 pages long and breaks the upgrade into 3 phases


  • Phase 1: Pre-Upgrade
  • Phase 2: Upgrade
  • Phase 3: Post-Upgrade
The book also has links off to various other useful documents.

Thanks to Emad Younis for his time in authoring this book.


Friday 6 July 2018

How to use Horizon Module with PowerCLI

Today I've been looking at the Extensibility to Horizon View, but primarily using VMware PowerCLI with Horizon.

VMware Horizon PowerCLI provides Windows PowerShell cmdlets for administering VMware Horizon from the command line.

Windows PowerShell uses the Microsoft.NET object model and provides administrators with management and automation capabilities.

As with any console environment, you work with Windows PowerShell by running commands, which are called cmdlets. They follow the verb-noun structure for example Get-Help

View Connection Server includes more than 45 Windows PowerShell-based cmdlets. You can use these cmdlets with the VMware vSphere® PowerCLITM cmdlets. You can also use the VMware Horizon cmdlets to examine the configuration of vCenter Server systems and management of licensing, global configuration, connection brokers, pools, entitlements, and desktop-user assignment. This enhancement enables automation and scripting and provides extensibility to administration tasks.

VMware Horizon PowerCLI is installed during the View Connection Server installation.

For more information download the View Integration guide

For a quick overview watch the following video.


Thursday 5 July 2018

VMware video - vCenter Embedded Linked Mode

We got into a talk last week regarding vCenter Embedded linked mode with vCenter, and I found this video quite useful as a reference.

vCenter Server embedded linked mode enables you to connect multiple vCenter Servers together seamlessly without the need for external Platform Services Controllers.

All explained in 4 minutes, Thanks once again to VMware for providing these useful resources

VMware Workspace ONE - Education Webcasts

A few weeks ago, I wrote a little article about the VCP-DW 2018 certification and mentioned a webcast relating to training and certification.

Upcoming VMware Webcast : What's new Digital Workspace Training and Certification

I then realised that I forgot to post about the next set of webcasts relating to the VCP-DW 2018 certification, so apologies, the first webcast has been played, but is available for on-demand viewing and the remaining webcasts are available to register.

VMware are running a set of webcasts for Workspace ONE for which you can register, and as an added bonus, you will also receive a certification exam voucher with the completion of qualifying Workspace ONE training.

The first session as mentioned is already available for On-Demand and covers Migrating to Workspace ONE

Summary

Migrating to Workspace ONE. What does it mean for AirWatch customers? Many existing AirWatch customers ask “What am I losing by migrating to Workspace ONE?” The answer is nothing! When you extend your existing AirWatch deployment to include Workspace ONE, you gain new capabilities and the ability to conquer challenges including:


  • Deliver any application from the latest mobile cloud apps to legacy enterprise apps
  • Unified app catalog transforms employee onboarding
  • Single sign-on that federates even the most complex on-premises Active Directory Topologies
  • Password-free access leveraging Device Trust and PIN/Biometric timeout settings for authentication

We’ll also provide an overview of Workspace ONE Intelligence, the new reporting capability in Workspace ONE. Workspace ONE powered by Intelligence aggregates and correlates device, application and user data together in one place to give you a complete view of your entire digital workspace environment.

The remaining sessions are:


  • Title: Session 2: Workspace ONE: Managing in Windows 10 
  • Date: Thursday, July 12, 2018
  • Time: 12:00 PM British Summer Time
  • Duration: 1 hour

  • Title: Session 3: Using Workspace ONE to Manage your Apple Device Fleet 
  • Date: Thursday, August 02, 2018
  • Time: 12:00 PM British Summer Time
  • Duration: 1 hour
To register visit VMware Education Services

Wednesday 4 July 2018

Free ebook from VMware - Accelerating Digital Transformation with Containers and Kubernetes

Even as a trainer/lecturer firmly entrenched in the sysop mould, even I have to now concern myself with the move to Devop, on the majority of systems and infrastructure courses I now deliver, we cover containers.

I see the point, I see how they can make our lives easy, I can see how system become more fluid and dynamic.

But!!!!!! I've worked in IT since 1986 and my stereotypical view of developers still exists, these are people who sit in cupboards, have no communication skills and hate the sun light.

Fortunately my views are now be challenged, and at the company I work for, we deliver award winning apprenticeship programs, and seeing the next generation of IT professionals coming through I can see that my stereotypical view of developers is outdated.

VMware have kindly produced a free eBook entitled:

Accelerating Digital Transformation with Containers and Kubernetes



The book is written by Steve Hoenisch and covers.

From the introduction in the book:

Digital transformation, the commoditization of IT, the Internet of things,
the proliferation of mobile devices, the growing popularity of public
clouds, big data, and other seismic technological changes are radically
altering the way businesses are run. Innovative software applications
are, for many businesses, a critical objective. Consumers, customers, and
keeping ahead of the competition demand it.

But one-time innovation is often not enough. The digital era calls for
continuous innovation at an accelerated pace—and the kind of modernized
data centers and software development technologies that make it
possible.

Container technology can help transform a company into a digital
enterprise focused on delivering innovations at the speed of business.
Containers package applications and their dependencies into a distributable
image that can run almost anywhere, streamlining the development
and deployment of software.

By adopting containers, organizations can take a vital step toward
remaking themselves into flexible, agile digital enterprises capable of
accelerating the delivery of innovative products, services, and customer
experiences. Enterprises can become the disrupters instead of the disrupted.
But containers create technology management problems of their own,
especially when containerized applications need to be deployed and
managed at scale, and that’s when Kubernetes comes into play. Kubernetes
automates the deployment and management of containerized
applications. More specifically, Kubernetes orchestrates containerized
applications to manage and automate resource utilization, failure handling,
availability, configuration, desired state, and scalability.

This book introduces you to containers and Kubernetes, explains their
business value, explores their use cases, and illuminates how they can
accelerate your organization’s digital transformation.





Tuesday 3 July 2018

VMware Product Walk through

One of the things that I always find hard when presenting a course is that, there needs to be a balance of the amount of information that is presented vs the amount of time that people can physically sit and adsorb that information.

Therefore I always try to provide additional resources that may be of some use, like this blog for example, which I maintain for my own selfish purposes, it's somewhere to reference with material I find useful, that may also be useful to others.

I always like to reference other products while talking about the VMware SDDC, and I have found that the VMware Product Walkthroughs site to be quite useful.

It has information relating to:


  • vRealize Suite
  • VMware vSAN
  • vRealize Network Insight
  • vSphere 6.x
  • NSX
  • VMC on AWS
  • vCenter Site Recovery Manager
  • VMware Integrated OpenStack
  • Hybrid Cloud eXtension (HCX)
  • SAP on SDDC
  • VMware Partner Edge
  • VMware Cloud Foundation 2.3
  • VMware Cloud Management

For more information go to the:

VMware Product Walkthroughs site