NET::ERR_CERT_REVOKED driving you nuts after upgrading to OSX Catalina? Well it is driving me nuts for sure. I just found out that if you hit the NET::ERR_CERT_REVOKED error while accessing a page, in Chrome, you can simply continue clicking in the Chrome window and by typing the following: thisisunsafe. Of course you should only do this when you are sure you want to access the page as it basically is telling you that the certificate that doesn’t align with what Apple expects to receive. In my case, I use it for when I want to access our in-house developers cloud. Also, it appears that when you open the page in “developers mode” (go to More Tools >> Developer Tools” you can continue to the blocked page. Very useful to know!
Part 2: Is VSA the future of Software Defined Storage? (Customer use case)
About 6.5 years ago I wrote this blog post around the future of Software-Defined Storage and if the VSA (virtual storage appliance) is the future for it. Last week at VMworld a customer reminded me of this article. Not because they read the article and pointed me back at it, but because they implemented what I described in this post, almost to the letter.
This customer had an interesting implementation, which kind of resembles the diagram I added to the blog post, note I added a part to the diagram which I originally left out but had mentioned in the blog (yes that is why the diagram looks like it is ancient… it is):
I want to share with you what the customer is doing because there are still plenty of customers that do not realize that this is supported. Note that this is supported by both vSAN as well as VMware Cloud Foundation, providing you a future proof, scalable, and flexible full-stack HCI architecture which does not need to be implemented in a rip and replace approach!
This customer basically leverages almost all functionality of our Software-Defined Storage offering. They have vSAN with locally attached storage devices (all NVMe) for certain workloads. They have storage arrays with vVols enabled for particular workloads. They have a VAIO Filter Driver which they use for replication. They also heavily rely on our APIs for monitoring and reporting, and as you can imagine they are a big believer in Policy-Based Management, as that is what helps them with placing workloads on a particular type of storage.
Now you may ask yourself, why on earth would they have vSAN and vVols sitting next to each other? Well, they had a significant investment in storage already, the storage solution was fully vVols capable and when they started using vSAN for certain projects they simply fell in love with Storage Policy-Based Management and decided to get it enabled for their storage systems as well. Even though the plan is to go all-in on vSAN over time, the interesting part here, in my opinion, is the “openness” of the platform. Want to go all-in on vSAN? Go ahead! Want to have traditional storage next to HCI? Go ahead! Want to use software-based data services? Go ahead! You can mix and match, and it is fully supported.
Anyway, just wanted to share that bit, and figured it would also be fun to bring up this 6.5 years old article again. One more thing, I think it is also good to realize how long these transitions tend to take. If you would have asked me in 2013 when we would see customers using this approach my guess would have been 2-3 years. Almost 6.5 years later we are starting to see this being seriously looked at. Of course, platforms have to mature, but also customers have to get comfortable with the idea. Change simply takes a lot of time.
VMworld Odyssey Lab Competition, sign up and win a Macbook!
At VMworld US there was this really cool new initiative at the hands-on-labs. They had this competition called Odyssey where lab teams were competing against each other to complete labs successfully as fast as possible! These labs are on the topic of vSAN, vSphere, vRealize, NSX-T, Horizon and AppD. Not only was the gamification aspect of the HoL a very interesting and fun concept, but it also meant for the participant that they had to work in teams to complete the labs and had to communicate to get a good understanding of who is doing what. Adds a whole new aspect to the exercise, and at the same time made it even a bit more similar to how you manage your datacenters.
But why would you bother doing this? Well besides that it is an enormous amount of fun, believe I have witnessed the competition and everyone was extremely motivated yet at the same time had a huge amount of fun, you also can win a brand new shiny Macbook Pro. Yes you are reading that correctly, every participant of the winning team will get a Macbook Pro, and a nice Oculus Go for the second place. On top of that, for every single participant of the Odyssey challenge the HoL team has created these awesome jackets, which are a trophy to begin with if you ask me!
There are free slots available for teams that want to compete, you (and your team) can register using this link http://hol.pub/regodyssey, or on-site on Monday by going to the Hands-on Labs Area/ Odyssey Info desk.
VMworld Session Repeat – HCI1870BER – HA best practices with vSAN on Thursday 12:00!
Unfortunately the rooms they allocated to my sessions filled up extremely fast. They have been able to move my sessions in to other rooms twice, but as HCI1870BER (HA best practices for vSAN) filled up again and there was no bigger room available the VMworld team decided to schedule a repeat for Thursday at 12:00, it is also filling up fast so make sure to register ASAP if you want to join the HA best practices session for vSAN. Note it is only a 30 minutes session, so it won’t be a full-on deep dive. Anyway. go to the following link to find all of my sessions and register. Before I forget, the Virtually Speaking Podcast session was a huge hit in the US, and I would also highly recommend signing up to that one!
https://my.vmworld.com/widget/vmware/vmworld19eu/eu19catalog?search=Epping
Joined GigaOm’s David S. Linthicum on a podcast about cloud, HCI and Edge.
A while ago I had the pleasure to join David S. Linthicum from GigaOm on their Voices in Cloud Podcast. It is a 22 minute podcast where we discuss various VMware efforts in the cloud space, edge computing and of course HCI. You can find the episode here, where they also have the full transcript for those who prefer to read instead of listen to a guy with a Dutch accent. It was a fun experience for sure, I always enjoy joining podcast’s and talking tech… So if you run a podcast and are looking for a guest, don’t hesitate to reach out!
Of course you can also find Voices in Cloud on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, and other platforms.