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Events

VMware Explore 2024 | Las Vegas – Recap

by Tommy Grot August 26, 2024
written by Tommy Grot 5 minutes read

VMware Explore Las Vegas

The Venetian Convention and Expo Center
August 26, 202
4

Day 1


Its an absolute blast to connect with an incredible group of individuals from the VMware community during day 1 of VMware Explore 2024. The event brought together some of the brightest minds in the industry, including the prestigious VCDX (VMware Certified Design Expert) professionals (John Arrasjid & Mark Gabryjelsk)  and the dedicated team from VMware Education. (Karl Childs & James Robinson)

The energy and passion within the team was exciting, as we shared ideas, discussed emerging trends, and exchanged knowledge. It was inspiring to witness the depth of expertise and commitment demonstrated by each member of this remarkable team. Their dedication to driving innovation, educating the community, and shaping the future of virtualized infrastructure is truly admirable.

The Hub & Expo

This is an awesome area to connect with the community and networking space of VMware Explore. This area welcomes all attendees to kick back and relax, network and learn from the Code Community or Expert Bar. There are many activities and break out sessions and live streaming like the Broadcast Booth featuring theCUBE, the Spring Theater, Hands-on Labs and the VMware Rewards Space. The all-encompassing VMware Communities Space now includes VMUG and more!

Lots of great Vendors giving out great information on their products, and solutions and cant forget, SWAG!! There was vendors giving out light sabers to t-shirts, and so many stickers! Its a great time to collaborate with friends and vendors and get to learn about their products that they are offering that works along with VMware Cloud Foundation!

VMware Communities (vExpert & VMUG)

I enjoyed spending time at the VMware Community Booth, where Corey Romero – Senior Manager of vExpert Community, we talked about many exciting things, from vExpert and the future projects, collaboration with team members, spending quality time with an amazing individual that cares for his vExpert Team, without Corey the community wouldnt be the same, thank you to all you do!

Day 2

The General Session

In the morning it was all about the main stage! Where everyone got together for an innovative general session where attendees heard about cutting-edge developments in private cloud, AI, app delivery, and edge computing. Broadcom leaders, VMware experts, and innovative customers provided real-world insights on optimizing, scaling, and securing enterprise workloads. Check out my other blog post about the General Session here!

The rest of the day 2, was filled with countless hours or sessions and events and networking with fellow vExperts and Broadcom leadership, got invited to a Broadcom Leadership Party where I got to meet and talk to Hock Tan! It was a great time where he answered our questions and as well had fun and made us laugh!

Meeting Hock Tan


Day 3

The Party!

Another long day is over and a successful day! There have been many outstanding sessions around 80 of them, 16 VMware {code} Theater sessions, 27 Meet The Expert Roundtables, 23 Community Quick Talks, and 19 ​​Hands-on Labs Expert-led Workshops. Tons of great knowledge being shared by the community. Networking with fellow team members within many different industries and being able to share knowledge and experiences. Also cant forget about The Party! with a DJ playing music and then live band Jimmy Eat World!

The Party! First there was a DJ that played outstanding music, then around 9pm Jimmy Eat World came up on stage and started off playing great music!


The Party was located indoors in the Main Stage Hall at The Venetian, it was awesome to have it indoors this year, there was a great turn out of Explorer’s that showed up, tons of great food, drinks, and networking going on!

Overall, Day 3 of VMware Explore 2024 delivered valuable insights and practical takeaways for attendees. The conference continues to be a great platform for learning, connecting, and staying updated with the latest trends and advancements in virtualization and cloud computing. In the end The Party was a blast, great DJ and awesome live music – Jimmy Eat World

Day 4

A Farewell for now…

VMware Explore 2024 has come to a close, and it was an incredible week filled with new insights, connections, and innovations. Over the past five days, we’ve had the opportunity to dive into the latest developments in cloud infrastructure, digital transformation, and new product releases.

The event featured thought-provoking general session, breakout sessions, and hands-on labs, offering attendees a well-rounded experience. We heard from industry leaders, got to explore cutting-edge technologies, and connected with like-minded individuals passionate about driving digital change.

One of the standout moments was the announcement of VMware’s new suite of products, VMware Cloud Foundation 9, which is designed to empower organizations in their digital transformation journey with a on premise private cloud. With enhanced security features, improved scalability, and simplified management, these tools will enable businesses to build more efficient and resilient cloud infrastructures.

Another high point was the opportunity to network with peers. The event brought together a diverse range of professionals, allowing for the exchange of ideas, best practices, and even future collaborations. It was inspiring to see the dedication and expertise represented in the room.

As we bid farewell to VMware Explore 2024, we feel grateful for the knowledge shared and connections made. The event has equipped us with fresh perspectives and practical insights that we will carry forward in our journey towards digital excellence.

Until next year, VMware Explore 2025!

August 26, 2024 1 comment 695 views
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VMware ESXiVMware vCenter

Upgrading to VMware vSphere 8 Update 1

by Tommy Grot April 18, 2023
written by Tommy Grot 4 minutes read

Tonight’s topic is upgrading to the new and most anticipated update of: vSphere 8 Update 1 from vSphere 8.0. In this walk through we will do a step by step process of what you will need to do before you upgrade your vSphere environment.

What’s New

Some tidbits of information below from the Release Notes – More Information check out the release notes here

  • vSphere 8.0 IA/GA Release Model: For more information on the Release Model of vSphere Update releases, see The vSphere 8 Release Model Evolves.
  • vSphere Configuration Profiles: vSphere 8.0 Update 1 officially launches vSphere Configuration Profiles, which allow you to manage ESXi cluster configurations by specifying a desired host configuration at the cluster level, automate the scanning of ESXi hosts for compliance to the specified Desired Configuration and remediate any host that is not compliant. vSphere Configuration Profiles require that you use vSphere Lifecycle Manager images to manage your cluster lifecycle, a vSphere 8.0 Update 1 environment, and Enterprise Plus or vSphere+ license. For more information, see Using vSphere Configuration Profiles to Manage Host Configuration at a Cluster Level.
  • With vSphere 8.0 Update 1, vSphere Distributed Services Engine adds support for:
    • NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPUs to server designs from Lenovo (Lenovo ThinkSystem SR650 V2).
    • 100G NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPUs to server designs from Dell.
    • UPTv2 for NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPUs.
    • AMD Genoa CPU based server designs from Dell.
  • Support for heterogenous virtual graphics processing unit (vGPU) profiles on the same GPU hardware: vSphere 8.0 Update 1 removes the requirement that all vGPUs on a physical GPU must be of the same type and you can set different vGPU profiles, such as compute, graphics, or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure workload, on one GPU to save cost by higher GPU utilization and reduced workload fragmentation.
  • Integration of VMware Skylineâ„¢ Health Diagnosticsâ„¢ with vCenter: Starting with vSphere 8.0 Update 1, you can detect and remediate issues in your vSphere environment by using the VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics self-service diagnostics platform, which is integrated with the vSphere Client. For more information, see VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics for vSphere Documentation.
  • VM-level power consumption metrics: Starting with vSphere 8.0 Update 1, you as a vSphere admin can track power consumption at a VM level to support the environmental, social, and governance goals of your organization.

What you need:

  • SFTP Server to back up your VCSA
  • ESXi 8.0.1 Image via Customer Connect – (VMware-VMvisor-Installer-8.0U1-21495797.x86_64.iso)
  • Few minutes of preparation

First thing you want to get your vCenter Server Appliance on the newest version, before you upgrade your VMware ESXi hosts to 8.0.1.

Below we will walk through the process to get your VCSA backed up before upgrading!

(Side Note – Make sure you have SFTP or any other means of backing up your VCSA, for this walk through we will not go through setting up a SFTP server)

Once the VCSA is backed up successfully – > Then click Stage and Install

Accept that lovely EULA 🙂 If you don’t then no upgrade for you.

Click Next – it will be running pre-checks, and the upgrade process will start, the whole process took roughly less than 15 minutes, this depends on your environment and how large the db and how many objects maintained within VCSA.

Install in progress….

During this process it will convert your data from the previous installation over to your new one, so if there is lots of metrics and logs and historical information it may take a bit.

I went and took a look at how the vSphere Client status is, and there is a new UI addon where it is different from previous deployments of vSphere 8.0

Lets log back into your vCenter!

We will prep the cluster image and since I have Dell PowerEdge R740s (14th Gen) hardware I make sure I have the correct Vendor addon selected and validated.

After few minutes of validating, your Image for your cluster will be ready to be applied

Lets start remediating some servers, one by one. As I have Dell PowerEdge R740s, I have quick boot enabled so the whole upgrade process for each ESXi host was less than 10 minutes for each host.

Upgrade In Process…

While we are waiting, I like to login to the servers iDRAC and watch the upgrade process.

Few minutes later we are on VMware ESXi 8.0.1

After all ESXi hosts are upgrade to 8.0.1, next we will go to Configure -> vSAN – > Disk Management -> Upgrade Disks format version to version 18.0 from 17.0

Some neat additions to vSphere 8 Update 1 – I do like how there are tiles now with more detailed information, but also you can toggle the hamburger menu to collapse all these tiles into a easier to see all Health Findings.

Also, I am glad that the usage is back into its tile on the vSphere User Interface, it is a much needed and appreciated addon back into vSphere 8.0.1

That is all! After following through the walkthrough you should of been able to upgrade your vSphere 8 to vSphere 8.0.1.

April 18, 2023 0 comments 4.5K views
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Hardware ReviewsHome-Labs

Intel Optane 905P NVMe Opportunity & VMware vSphere 8

by Tommy Grot January 20, 2023
written by Tommy Grot 1 minutes read

Being apart of the VMware vExpert Program is awesome, working with other VMware vExperts and collaborating with them is a blast! Plus getting sample hardware to install and review in your home lab is pretty sweet, I must say!? With #Intel and VMware sending me 10 Intel Optane 905p 280GB SSDs, I have been testing them and putting workloads on top of these NVMe’s. With optane memory it has insane access to storage and the crazy intense IOPs that allow many intensive workloads to keep crunching under high demands.

In my deploment I have tested many different scenarios, I have few optanes in my Dell PowerEdge R740s, a Dell 14th Generation Server. These Servers have the following Specs

  • Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6138 CPU @ 2.00GHz
  • 512 GB DDR4 of Micron Memory
  • 2 x Intel Optane’s per Dell PowerEdge R740
  • 2.5TB SAS SSD 12Gb/s
  • 40/50Gb Network Connectivity (ConnectX-4 Mellanox)
  • 1100 Watt Platinum PSU’s
Top View of the #Intel Optane 905P
Side View of the #Intel Optane 905P

The 3 – Dell PowerEdge R740s that have 2 Intel Optane NVMe 905Ps each installed
Wide View

Benchmarks

This test was done on a VM on vSphere 8 with Crystal Disk Mark –

VM Specs: 8vCPUs and 32GB of RAM, VM Version 20.

Crystal Disk Mark – Measuring in GB/s!
8 x 16MiB IOPS Test
8 x 128MiB IOPS Test
8x16GiB IOPS Test

Upgrading Firmware of the Intel 905p

Intel Mas Update Tool – Download

I will start the process of upgrading my firmware of all 6 Intel Optanes that are installed within the 3 – Dell R740s.

Upload the intel-mas-tool via SCP, I used WinSCP to upload it into the /tmp directory on the esxi host.

Then I ran

esxcli software component apply -d /tmp/intel-mas-tool.xxxx

i

January 20, 2023 0 comments 879 views
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