We are full on into spring.  The flowers are blooming, and I am cutting grass twice a week.  Welcome to the April 2019 edition of vToolBelt.   vSphere 6.7 Update 2 is the big news this month.  It is out and hot. We will also cover VMware Project Skyline.

For those of you still running vSphere 6.0, don’t look over your shoulder – End of General Support is less than a year away.  Time to start planning the upgrade!

Let’s get to it!

Product Watch

The following products are nearing the End of General Support.  You can find the full list on the VMware Lifecycle Product Matrix.

 Notes from the Field

vSphere

vSphere 6.7 Update 2 is now available!   You can read more about it on blogs.vmware.com.   Some of the highlights:

• Scheduler Performance improvements – Many customers haven’t fully remediated against L1TF due to the performance hit it might take.  With 6.7 U2, the scheduler has been improved to help enhance performance.
• vCenter Server Converge Tool Updates – This is the tool that helps you migrate from an external PSC to embedded.  It has now been integrated into the GUI and has multiple views to better help you understand your environment.
• Enhanced Auditing & Logging
• Changes to VMware Tools – The VMXnet3 driver is now available via Windows Update!

If you haven’t tried Update Manager to upgrade or patch your hosts, you should really learn what it can do for you and give it a try!  Update Manager can now also use the Dell/EMC repository for iSM & Driver updates.

Get up to speed on VMware Project Skyline.  This tool can proactively help identify and propose issues in your environment.  It is now available to all VMware customers with Production level support

A few other bits on vSphere

• vSphere 6.7 will be the last version of vSphere to support VMKlinux and Native drivers.  You can learn more about this and how to tell if this change may impact you
• A few cool vSphere command line commands you should know
• ESXtop can help you diagnose performance problems.  You should get to know it
• Did you know you can launch an SSH session to a host right from the HTML5 host client?

Grab Bag

• Some insight on how to design a vSAN network.
• Check out the VMware Support Insider – This bookmark-worthy tool shows you the most recent top 20 support issues by product
• NSX Product Guide Library – a large number of free e-books to help you learn about, design and operate NSX
• What’s new in vRealize Operations 7.5
• Horizon 7.5 – What’s new overview.  You can also catch up on User Experience Improvements & Client Updates
• VMware Presents at Cloud Field Day 5 – Presentations on all aspects of VMware Cloud on AWS
• Proactively calculating egress fees for VMware Cloud on AWS
• Creating a Security Audit Dashboard using vRealize Network Insight
• Learn how VMware IT uses vSAN

Check out the vToolbelt Category for past newsletters.