VCAP6-NV Blueprint Word version and PDF version

The Blueprint in PDF version:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B25curGkTxGbOTE2N3NhRmZ2X0E/view?usp=sharing

Word version of the Blueprint:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B25curGkTxGbeWJpakNQbDdfT3c/view?usp=sharing

VCAP6-NV Blueprint download

Like me, if you want to keep a tab or track of your progress of your VCAP-NV. This excel file mapped to VCAP6-NV Blueprint is an awesome way to track your progress. Credit should go to Clinton Prentice https://vzealand.com

 Download from: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B25curGkTxGbeDg5RGVYM3U5bGc/view?usp=sharing

vForum 2016 - Bangkok 29th November 2016.

vForum 2016 in Bangkok was in full swing and exciting event just concluded on 29th November. The venue was at Centara Grand Hotel. Which also was a great venue to hold a vForum in a grand scale.

Some of the moments were captured from the event.

Callum Eade delivering keynote session.

IBM announcing VMware is run on their Cloud.

Callum again on Cross Cloud Architecture

VXRail being the first co-engineered HCI Appliance with VMware!

Myself and my friend Lakmal managed to get a snap :)

Entrance for Solution Exchange booths...

Solution exchange booths...

VMware Certification booth which gave out 50% for VCP Certifications and 25% for VCAP - which was very welcoming1

The sponsors who made the event successful

VEEAM winning one of the awards for exhibitor

VMware vSphere 6.5 is available for download!

As you are aware VMware did some changes to the licensing and eliminated Enterprise Edition.

http://venthusiast.blogspot.com/2016/10/changes-to-vsphere-vsom-licensing_56.html

But the downloads section is showing old model of licenses.


Well It's GA now! That's what matters...

vSphere
https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/6_5


vSOM 
https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere_with_operations_management/6_5

FOLLOW UP Post from How Windows 2016 licensing works with VMware (virtual) environments?

This post is inspired from a question that was asked from one of the comments on the blog by Sebcbi1.

The question was to the post I wrote on How Windows 2016 licensing works with VMware (virtual) environments?

The question was;
A 2 node ESXi cluster having 2 Physical Processor with 10 core each. If the cluster has 10 vm's. How many Standard Licenses is needed to comply with the licensing.

I personally believe it is a great question and great starting point to understand how the licensing works.

Answer

Each processor has 10 Core and having dual processor means it has 20 cores altogether. There are 2 nodes in the cluster, which makes the overall core count to 40.

 No: of physical cores = 2 * 10 * 2 = 40

Since Windows 2016 License are in 2 core packs;

 2 core license packs to comply the physical cores = 40/2 = 20

This covers 2 of the vm instances. We have 8 vm's more to be licensed.

The Windows 2016 Licensing datasheet states;

"Standard Edition provides rights for up to two OSEs or Hyper-V containers when all physical cores in the server are licensed. For every two additional VMs, all the cores in the server have to be licensed again."

So we need to re-license the physical cores for next 2 additional vm's

Which looks like this,

VM	License
2	20
2	20
2	20
2	20

Which sums up to total of 100 (2 core) license packs.

I know what you think LOL!

VCP5-DCV Exams are retiring by 31st March 2017

VCP5-DCV (VCP550) Exam and VCP5-DCV Delta Exam (VCP550D) exams are set to retire on 31st March 2017. Registration for the above exams will be halted on 15th March 2017.

So hurry up and get certified!

You should also note that VCAP5-DCA, VCAP5-DCD and VCIX-NV exams are already discontinued last exam appointment is on 30th November 2015. Last registrations for the VCAP exms and VCIX-NV exam was on 31st of October 2015.

http://blogs.vmware.com/education/2016/10/vcp5-dcv-retirement.html

VMware Horizon View 7 License Comparison

If  you are like me, I am not a fan of how VMware website shows the features and license comparison. I made a table that's visually appetizing.

So here you go,

Following components are bundled in a way so that license distinguishes from each other.

• VMware Identity Manager
• VMware Mirage
• VMware App Volumes
• RDS for Hosted Apps
• vSAN
• VMware vRealize Operations Manager for Horizon

It is evident that named user license is only available for Horizon Advanced and Horizon Enterprise Editions.

Also Linux desktops is only available as a separate license called "Horizon for Linux" and "Horizon Enterprise License".

Features	Sub-Component/Product	Horizon For Linux	Horizon Standard	Horizon Advanced	Horizon Enterprise
Concurrent User (CCU)		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Named User		No	No	Yes	Yes
Windows virtual desktops and session based desktops	VMware Horizon	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Linux Desktops	VMware Horizon for Linux	Yes	No	No	Yes
Unified workspace - XA, RDSH, SaaS, ThinApp	VMware Identity Manager Std	No	No	Yes	Yes
Hosted Applications (RDSH)	RDS Hosted Apps	No	No	Yes	Yes
Packaged Applications	VMware ThinApp	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
BLAST Performance (3D, UC, MMR, etc)	VMware Horizon	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Application and Desktop Access with Single-Sign-On	VMware Identity Manager Std	No	No	Yes	Yes
Image management for physical desktop	VMware Mirage	No	No	Yes	Yes
Real-time application delivery	VMware App Volumes	No	No	No	Yes
Just-in-Time Delivery with Instant Clone Technology	VMware Horizon	No	No	No	Yes
User, profile and policy Management	VMware User Environment Manager	No	No	No	Yes
Operations Dashboard – Health Monitoring & Performance Analytics	VMware vRealize Operations for Horizon	No	No	No	Yes
Capacity Management – Planning & Optimization	VMware vRealize Operations for Horizon	No	No	No	Yes
Virtual Storage	VMware vSAN Advanced for Desktop with all-flash	No	No	Yes	Yes
Cloud Infrastructure	VMware vSphere Desktop & VMware vCenter Desktop	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

VMware NSX is not downloadable even for VCP-NV people!

This post is kind of a rant to express my displeasure in not allowing to download NSX software.

Since I couldn't download NSX I raised a support request with VMware. I mentioned I am a VCP-NV yet I cannot download NSX software to install on my own lab environment.

The support person has confirmed that it is not downloadable, and that's only available for customer's who have purchased the software.

I believe the adoption of software will only come from enabling the engineers. That enablement come in a major way of trying out the software in your own labs. NSX is no exception to it.

I might be one individual voicing this. But I strongly believe at least allow VCP's in NV to be able to download the software.

How Windows 2016 licensing works with VMware (virtual) environments?

Are you confused with Windows 2016 licensing like me? 
Well it seems nothing have changed apart from minimum of 16 cores has to be complied.

Upto 8 cores per processor or 16 cores per server there is a minimum license number that has to be complied. 

License comes in 2-core packs. At least 8 packs needs to be purchased to comply with the licensing. 

If Standard License were chosen it comes with 2 vm guest licenses.
If Datacenter License were chosen it covers unlimited virtual guest licenses.

What's new in vSphere 6.5, vSAN 6.5 and vRealize Automation 7.2

Here are the new features of vSphere 6.5, vSAN 6.5 and vRA 7.2

vSphere 6.5
- Introduction of vCenter HA without dependency of shared storage
- Granular based backup that can supplement image based backup tools
- Integrated Update Manager (VUM) is now integrated with VCSA. Doesn't need a Windows License.
It will be enable by default and can scale at any level of your VMware Cluster.
- New graphical interface is now available for Auto Deploy which easy and very intuitive.
- Native HTML5 Client is integrated.
- Both web clients will be available that can be run side by side.
- Automated migration process of Windows based vCenter to VCSA.
- ESXi secure boot and with trusted signed code.
- Applying encryption to individual machines
- Encrypted vMotion traffic.
- vSphere integrated containers offers docker containers
- REST APIs for Virtual machine operations for DevOps workflows.
- Orchestrated HA restart for tiered applications.

vSAN 6.5
vSAN Native Support for iSCSI Target
- Support for Physical servers. Which means an iSCSI lun can be provision for non-vSphere Physical workloads
- Support for MSCS with shared storage. 
- This also supports MS Exchange DAG with share witness node majority quorum.
- MS SQL Availability Groups with file share witness or node majorit quorum.
- Oracle RAC Support
- MS SQL Failover Cluster Instances support
- Since iSCSI natively supported other 3rd party hypervisors like MS Hyper-V are supported.

2 Node Direct Connect Support
- This means it has the ability two nodes directly using a crossover cable
- Two cables between hosts for higher av
- Support for T1 lines for ROBO scenarios

vSAN for Cloud Native Apps
- Support for vSphere Integrated containers
- It extends the support with Photon controllers to integrate with kubernetes and mesosphere.
- It can now run containerized storage in production environments.
- Native vSphere container data volumes support.
- Leverages existing vSphere/vSAN features.
- Developer-friendly APIs for storage provisioning and consumption.


vRealize Automation 7.2
1. Azure Endpoint - The ability to manage deployments in MS Azure
2. Container Management - Support for Docker hosts, containers with ability to consume docker compose files and covert to vRA blueprints.
3. ServiceNow Integration - ServiceNow service catalog and CMDB integration is possible now and is a feature out of the box.