This post was originally published on this site —Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a vCenter Server update and a patch? Or between an upgrade and a migration? Why don’t some vCenter Server versions align? Keep reading for the answers! Version Numbering The first thing you should understand is vCenter Server versioning. When reviewing your vCenter Server version’s you may see many different references to versions or builds. One of the first places you will notice a version identifier, is in our release notes. Here Read more […]

This post was originally published on this site —vSphere Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) ensures that workloads can be live migrated, using vMotion, between ESXi hosts in a cluster that are running different CPU generations. The general recommendation is to have EVC enabled as it will help you in the future where you’ll be scaling your clusters with new hosts that might contain new CPU models. To enable EVC in a brownfield scenario can be challenging.  That why we stress to have it enabled from the get-go. This blog post Read more […]

This post was originally published on this site —Vulnerability Summary Customers should be aware of an important issue with VMware Tools where a non-privileged user on a Windows VM could read information or cause problems in a VM running VMware Tools lower than 10.3.10. The official designation from VMware is VMSA-2019-0009 on the VMware Security Advisories page and mailing list. This vulnerability is classified as “important” which, according to the Security Response Policy, means that it can result “in the complete compromise Read more […]

This post was originally published on this site —With security and compliance on the minds of IT staff everywhere, vSphere certificate management is a huge topic. Decisions made can seriously affect the effort it takes to support a vSphere deployment, and often create vigorous discussions between CISO and information security staff, virtualization admins, and enterprise PKI/certificate authority admins. Here are ten things that organizations should consider when choosing a path forward. 1. Certificates are about encryption and trust Certificates Read more […]

This post was originally published on this site —August 2019 can seem far away but the Cloud Platform Business Unit at VMware is working tirelessly preparing for another outstanding customer experience for VMworld 2019 US. We are excited about what’s to come and invite you to register to attend and take advantage of Early Bird pricing which ends June 21st. Just as vSphere is the foundation for your Hybrid Cloud, it is also the foundation for VMworld. Not only will there be a robust Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure track featuring vSphere, but Read more […]

This post was originally published on this site —As enterprises transition to digital businesses, there is a significant growth in the number and variety of applications. Modern applications are different from those of the past. Software is written and deployed faster and in more places than before. Today’s distributed applications go well beyond one or two virtual machines (VMs) in a data center. They encompass many VMs, residing on different platforms and in different clouds—public and private—located across geographical locations Read more […]

This post was originally published on this site —Users of Virtualization-Based Security or the virtual I/O MMU features in vSphere should take note of a serious issue that has been discovered with the 1903, 19H1, and May 2019 updates to Windows 10, Windows Server, and Windows Server 2019 LTSC editions. In short, a new installation of the OS at these levels, or an update of an existing guest OS to these levels, will cause the guest VM to hang or emit a blue screen of death (BSOD) during the boot process if VBS or the I/O MMU is enabled. What is Virtualization-Based Read more […]

This post was originally published on this site —Persistent Memory (PMEM) is modern technology that provides us with a new storage tier that will be beneficial for Enterprise Applications that need reduced latency and flexible data access. Examples are (in-memory) database platforms for log acceleration by caching, data writes and reduced recovery times. High Performance Computing (HPC) can also greatly benefit from PMEM for example using it for in-memory check-pointing. PMEM converges memory and storage. We now have the possibility to store data Read more […]

This post was originally published on this site —Are you running Hyper-Converged Infrastructure or about to make the transition to HCI? Moving to HCI requires organizations to rethink how they store and secure their data from the foundation to the application. VMware HCI includes end-to-end security for applications, infrastructure, data, and access. Two core VMware technologies, VMware vSphere 6.7 Platinum and VMware vSAN, simplify the path to data center modernization and transform security for organizations looking to accelerate digital transformation. As Read more […]

This post was originally published on this site —The release of vSphere 6.7 Update 2 brought with it a new vSphere CPU scheduler option, the Side-Channel Aware Scheduler version 2 (SCAv2) or “Sibling Scheduler.” This new scheduler can help restore some performance lost to CPU vulnerability mitigations, but also carries some risk with it. Further complicating matters is the newest Intel CPU vulnerability, Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) identified by CVE-2018-12126, CVE-2018-12127, CVE-2018-12130, and CVE-2019-11091, as well as Read more […]