Hot Topics

• A few security advisories have been released recently for VMware products.  If you operate any of these please take a few moments to review the information to see if it is applicable to your environment:
  • Workspace ONE Access, Access Connector, Identity Manager (including vRealize Automation) – VMSA-2022-0021
  • vCenter Server – VMSA-2022-0018
  • vSphere ESXi – VMSA-2022-0020

• Sphere 6.5 and 6.7 are heading into End of General Support in just a few months – October 15th, 2022.  If your environment is still running these versions – now is the time to plan your upgrade.  Check out this Upgrade Planning Guide to help you get started.

Upcoming Events

VMware Explore
August 29 – September 1, 2022
In-Person at the Moscone Center
San Francisco, California

Same event – new name!  VMworld has become VMware Explore!

There are a variety of ways to pay for a pass.  You can use PSO Credits (24 credits per pass).  These can be purchased via OARnet.  You can also pay with a credit card and there are 2 early bird discount periods. Please refer to the link below for details.

Check out the Content Catalog to start planning your sessions!

Important Date

• July 19th – Breakout Session scheduling begins

Learn more and Register

Product Support Watch

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

vSphere – vCenter and ESXi

• 6.5 – 10/15/22
• 6.7 – 10/15/22

VMware Tools

• Tools 10.2.x – 12/14/22

vSAN

• 6.5, 6.6, 6.7 – 10/15/22

NSX 

• NSX-V (all versions) – General Support ended January 16, 2022 – Customers should migrate to NSX-T

Horizon View / Workspace ONE

• Dynamic Environment Manager 10/2006 – 8/11/22
• Dynamic Environment Manager 10/2009 – 10/15/22
• App Volumes 2.18 – 9/16/22
• App Volumes 4 2009 – 10/15/22
• App Volumes 4 2012 – 1/7/23
• Identity Manager 3.3.4 – 8/4/22
• Identity Manager 3.3.5 – 11/20/22
• Workspace ONE UEM Console 2102 – 10/14/22
• vRealize Operations Manager for Horizon 6.7 – 10/15/22

Networking

• HCX 4.2 – 8/5/22

vRealize

• vRealize Automation 7.6 – 9/1/22
• vRealize Orchestrator 7.6 – 9/1/22
• vRealize Automation – 8/2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 8.6, 8.6.1 – 10/31/22
• vRealize Automation – 8.6.2 – 1/18/23
•  vRealize Orchestrator – 8/2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 8.6 – 10/31/22
• vRealize Orchestrator – 8.6.1 – 11/19/22
• vRealize Orchestrator – 8.6.2 – 1/18/23
• vRealize Lifecycle Manager 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5, 8.6 – 10/31/22
• Log Insight 8.2, 8.3, 8.4 – 10/31/22
• Network Insight – 5.3, 6.0, 6.1 – 10/31/22
• vRealize Operations 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 – 10/31/22
• vRealize Operations for Horizon 6.7 – 10/15/22

Notes from the Field

If you are upgrading to vSphere 7, don’t forget to upgrade your licenses in the VMware Customer Connect portal.  If you haven’t done this in a while, you can review on the steps here.

PowerCLI 12.7 has been released.  A few highlights of the changes:

• The VUM module has been ported to PowerShell 7 and now supports Linux and MacOS
• A number of improvements have been made to the NSX cmdlets
• Horizon module now supports Horizon 8.4
• vSAN module has been improved with new capabilities

VMware TAM Lab – This is a YouTube Channel with content created by TAMs for VMware Customers.  There are videos that span a number of topics. There are two I wanted to highlight today:

• Moving vSphere Authentication from LDAP to LDAPS – If you are still using LDAP, you should update your configuration to LDAPS or considering changing to ADFS.  This session will help you move to LDAPS
• vSphere 7 with ADFS Authentication – vSphere 7 provides the ability to join your vCenter to AD and stop using IWA or LDAPS

Understanding the VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Terminology – If you are trying to get a handle on how VMware can implement Kubernetes you might give this article a read.

Booting ESX hosts from SD-Cards

On 4/27/22, VMware published updated guidance on using SD Cards. The short version is “VMware will continue supporting USB/SD card as a boot device through the 8.0 product release, including the update releases. Both installs and upgrades will be supported on USB/SD cards. The change from the previous guidance is that SD/USB as a standalone device will now be supported on previously certified server platforms”.  KB 85685 has the full details.  Migrating away from SD cards is still recommended.

• A TAM Customer webinar in December 2021 covered this extensively. If you were unable to attend the webinar live, you can watch the recording.
• A VMware engineer has written a blog article on how to move from booting ESX from SD-Cards to using locally attached  SSDs.
• KB 83376 – discusses the issues that can arise when the SD card boot device has exhausted its write capability.  This KB also describes a work around VMware has developed to allow low endurance SD Cards to work with vSphere 7 Update 2 and later.  It involves a manual one-time config change which moves certain highly accessed files to a RAM Disk. vSphere 7.0 U3 automated this process.
• While this should help with vSphere 7.x, VMware guidance for future versions of vSphere is to move to higher performance/endurance boot devices in a future budget or your next hardware refresh plan.