Spectre and Meltdown with VMware environments

Meltdown and Spectre are critical vulnerabilities existing in several modern CPU these hardware bugs allow programs to steal data which is currently processed on the computer. Meltdown and Spectre can affect personal computers, mobile devices, server and several cloud services.

The only way to minimize those security risks is to patch your operating systems or the hypervisor level (if you are using virtual machines).

For VMware this will apply to the ESXi part of vsphere. VMware has released today the below link which have to be updated.

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52085

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52245

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52264

I hope this has been informative and thank you for reading!

Become a VxRail Xpert

I have finally passed the VxRail Xpert Assessment and earned the Certificate.

DR service for VMware datacenters uses AWS Cloud

VMware Site Recovery brings VMware enterprise-class Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) Disaster Recovery as a Service to the AWS Cloud. It enables customers to protect and recover applications without the requirement for a dedicated secondary site. It is delivered, sold, supported, maintained and managed by VMware as an on-demand service. 

IT teams manage their cloud-based resources with familiar VMware tools—without the difficulties of learning new skills or utilizing new tools.

Auto-discovery of on-premises infrastructure by connecting directly to VMware's vSphere server virtualization platform; a simplified policy engine that provides recovery points and recovery times ranging between one and 24 hours; and failback that brings only modified application data back to a primary site from an AWS disaster recovery site.

VMware Site Recovery is an add-on feature to VMware Cloud on AWS, powered by VMware Cloud Foundation.  VMware Cloud on AWS integrates VMware’s flagship compute, storage, and network virtualization products—VMware vSphere, VMware vSAN TM , and VMware NSX—along with VMware vCenter Server  management. It optimizes them to run on elastic, bare-metal AWS infrastructure. With the same architecture and operational experience on-premises and in the cloud, IT teams can now get instant business value via the AWS and VMware hybrid cloud experience.

VMware Site Recovery extends VMware Cloud on AWS to provide a managed disaster recovery, disaster avoidance and non-disruptive testing capabilities to VMware customers without the need for a secondary site, or complex configuration.

VMware Site Recovery works in conjunction with VMware Site Recovery Manager 8.0 and VMware vSphere Replication 8.0 to automate the process of recovering, testing, re-protecting, and failing-back virtual machine workloads.

VMware Site Recovery utilizes VMware Site Recovery Manager servers to coordinate the operations of the VMware SDDC. This is so that as virtual machines at the protected site are shut down, copies of these virtual machines at the recovery site startup. By using the data replicated from the protected site these virtual machines assume responsibility for providing the same services.

VMware Site Recovery can be used between a customer’s datacenter and an SDDC deployed on VMware Cloud on AWS or it can be used between two SDDCs deployed to different AWS availability zones or regions. The second option allows VMware Site Recovery to provide a fully VMware managed and maintained Disaster Recovery solution.

Features and Benefits of VMware Site Recovery

• Provides familiar features and functionality with enhanced workflows to reduce time to protection and risk
• An easy to use disaster recovery/secondary site that is supported and maintained by VMware. This lowers capital costs and makes it easier to protect more virtual machines faster.
• Application-agnostic protection eliminates the need for app-specific point solutions
• Automated orchestration of site failover and failback with a single-click reduces recovery times
• Frequent, non-disruptive testing of recovery plans ensures highly predictable recovery objectives
• Enhanced, easy to use, consolidated protection workflow simplifies replicating and protecting virtual machines
• Centralized management of recovery plans from the vSphere Web Client replaces manual runbooks
• vSphere Replication integration delivers VM-centric, replication that eliminates dependence on a particular type of storage
• Flexible versioning allows for easier upgrades and ongoing management

VMware Site Recovery is deployed in a paired configuration, for example, protected/customer site and recovery/VMware Cloud on AWS site. This document will use the two terms interchangeably because either the customer site or VMware Cloud on AWS site can be either the protected or recovery sites.

VMware Site Recovery utilizes VMware Site Recovery Manager and vSphere Replication. For the VMware Cloud on AWS instance, this software is automatically installed and configured by VMware when the add-on is enabled. For the customer site, VMware Site Recovery Manager is installed on a Microsoft Windows server and vSphere Replication is deployed as an appliance, both by the customer. VMware Site Recovery requires a VMware vCenter Server at the customer site as well. The customer site vCenter can be running either VMware vCenter Server version 6.0 U3 or 6.5. There must be one or more vSphere hosts running version 5.0 or higher at the customer site. VMware Site Recovery utilizes vSphere Replication for transferring data between sites.

VMware Site Recovery and VMware vCenter Server as well as the workloads they are protecting require infrastructure services like DNS, DHCP and Active Directory. These must be in place at both the protected and recovery sites.

I hope this has been informative and thank you for reading!

Christmas gift: vSAN Essentials book available for free

Christmas is coming so Cormac and I figured we would do something special for everyone, after a long debate we decided to make the vSAN Essentials book available for free. Note that this is the “Essential Virtual SAN” book which was published by VMware Press / Pearson and is based on the 6.2 version of vSAN. The book however is still very relevant today, and of course we are considering doing an update of the content to either the latest release, or maybe even to an upcoming release. You can read the book online (which is what we recommend), but you can also download it as PDF, EPUB or MOBI format. 

Free vSphere 6.5 Host Resources Deep Dive E-Book

The VMware vSphere 6.5 Host Resources Deep Dive is a guide to building consistent high-performing ESXi hosts. Written for administrators, architects, consultants, aspiring VCDX-es and people eager to learn more about the elements that control the behavior of CPU, memory, storage and network resources.

This book explains the concepts and mechanisms behind the physical resource components and the VMkernel resource schedulers, enabling you to:

• Optimize your workload for current and future Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) systems.

• Discover how vSphere Balanced Power Management takes advantage of the CPU Turbo Boost functionality, and why High Performance does not.

• Tune VMkernel components to optimize performance for VXLAN network traffic and NFV environments.

We are proud to announce that you can download the e-book version (PDF only) for free at rubrik.com. Just sign up and download your full e-book copy here.

VMware Cloud on AWS

VMware Cloud on AWS brings VMware enterprise-class Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) software to the AWS Cloud. It enables customers to run production applications across private, public, and hybrid cloud environments based on VMware vSphere, with optimized access to AWS services. It is delivered, sold, and supported by VMware as an on-demand service. IT teams manage their cloud-based resources with familiar VMware tools—without the difficulties of learning new skills or utilizing new tools.

The VMware Cloud on AWS solution enables customers to have the flexibility to treat their private cloud and public cloud as equal partners and to easily transfer workloads between them—for example, to move applications from DevTest to production or burst capacity. Users can leverage the global AWS footprint while getting the benefits of elastically scalable SDDC clusters, a single bill from VMware for its tightly integrated software plus AWS infrastructure, and on-demand or subscription services.

VMware Cloud on AWS - Getting Started

Get hands-on with the proposed UI design for VMC on AWS, meet with the design team to provide feedback. Help us choose among design alternatives for the best getting-started experience, creating SDDCs, and configuring networking and hybrid link mode.

VMware Cloud on AWS – Advanced Topics


Explore design alternatives and provide feedback on advanced topics to the VMware Cloud on AWS design team. Topics may include networking, workload migration, hybrid linked mode, logging, and maintenance for the patch and upgrade.

VMware Site Recovery Manager 6.5.1

VMware Site Recovery Manager 6.5.1 is an exciting released for VMware. vsphere 6.5.1 released added a number of cool features that make it easier to use SRM and vsphere Replication.

Site Recovery Manager 6.5.1

• VMware Site Recovery Manager 6.5.1 is compatible with VMware vSphere 6.5 Update 1.
• Supports upgrade migration path from vCenter Server Virtual Appliance 6.0 Update 3 to vCenter Server Virtual Appliance 6.5 Update 1 by delivering a direct upgrade path from Site Recovery Manager 6.1.2 to Site Recovery Manager 6.5.1.
• Site Recovery Manager 6.5.1 now supports the following external databases:
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 2
• Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1
• Site Recovery Manager 6.5.1 now supports the following guest operating systems:
• Windows Server 2016
• CentOS 6.9
• RHEL 7.3.5
• Ubuntu 17.04 non Long Term Support (LTS) 

Vmware SRM 6.5.1 Release note

Vsphere Replication 6.5.1

• vSphere Replication 6.5.1 is compatible with VMware vSphere 6.5 Update 1.
• Supports upgrade migration path from vCenter Server Virtual Appliance 6.0 Update 3 to vCenter Server Virtual Appliance 6.5 Update 1 by delivering a direct upgrade path from vSphere Replication 6.1.2 to vSphere Replication 6.5.1.
• vSphere Replication 6.5.1 now supports the following external databases:
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 2
• Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1
• vSphere Replication 6.5.1 now supports the following guest operating systems:
• Windows Server 2016
• CentOS 6.9
• RHEL 7.3.5
• Ubuntu 17.04 non Long Term Support (LTS)

VMware vSphere Replication 6.5.1 Release Note

I hope this has been informative and thank you for reading!