I have mentioned Runecast a fair amount on my blog, dating back to 2017, but somehow I forgot to blog our episode with Stan on the topic of Runecast on the Unexplored Territory Podcast. I just noticed it, so I figured I would share the episode with you folks. I have been a fan of their solution from day 1, and I would encourage people to look and what they have to offer, and of course listen to the episode. Listen via Spotify ( bit.ly/3Nr16nz), Apple ( bit.ly/43AlZlB) or the embedded player below!
Management & Automation
Unexplored Territory #006: Event-driven automation (VEBA) with William Lam!
In this sixth episode, we talk to William Lam, Senior Staff Architect in the Cloud Infrastructure Business Group at VMware about event-driven automation. William explains what event-driven automation is, how customers are using it today, and why you should also consider trying out the VMware Event Broker Appliance! (https://flings.vmware.com/vmware-event-broker-appliance) Enjoy the episode, and if you haven’t done so yet, make sure to subscribe! You can also listen via your podcast apps of course for Apple: apple.co/3pxet9P Spotify: spoti.fi/3mW19dt Google: bit.ly/3pDoUJ3
Can’t have more than 255 characters in VM notes using the vSphere (h5) Client?
I had a question about a limit a customer was hitting with the VM notes using the vSphere (H5) Client. They noticed that whenever they got around ~260 or so characters, they could not add any characters beyond that unless they deleted some. After talking to an engineer within VMware I found out that this is indeed the limit for the vSphere Client today. Through the API, and of course also PowerCLI, you can go beyond the 255 if needed. Also with the Web Client you could do this. If you are hitting this issue, please be aware that it is a known issue and VMware is looking to resolve it hopefully soon.
Cool tool update: RVTool 4.0.4 released
Probably one of the most downloaded tools ever, just released a new version: RVTools 4.0.4. Rob emailed me over the weekend, that this new version was just released and he also mentioned that he has reached over 1.2 million downloads. 1.2 million indeed! Crazy number, especially knowing how many customers VMware has today. Congratulations Rob! Anyway, RVTools 4.0.4 was just released, what is in it?
Version 4.0.4 (May 1, 2020)
- Upgraded RVTools solution to use VMware vSphere Management SDK 7.0
- Upgraded RVTools solution to use CIS REST API, available since vSphere 6.5, to get tag information
- vInfo tab page new columns: Virtual machine tags and min Required EVC Mode Key
- vCPU tab page new columns: Virtual machine tags
- vMemory tab page new columns: Virtual machine tags and Memory Reservation Locked To Max
- vDisk tab page new columns: Virtual machine tags
- vPartition tab page new columns: Virtual machine tags
- vCD tab page new columns: Virtual machine tags
- vFloppy tab page new columns: Virtual machine tags
- vNetwork tab page new columns: Virtual machine tags
- vSnapshot tab page new columns: Virtual machine tags
- vTools tab page new columns: Virtual machine tags
- vRP tab page new columns: Resource Pool tags and object ID
- vCluster tab page new columns: Cluster tags, custom attributes and object ID
- vHost tab page new columns: Host tags, in Maintenance Mode and in Quarantine Mode
- dvSwitch tab page new columns: Distributed VirtualSwitch tags, custom attributes and object ID
- dvPort tab page new columns: Distributed VirtualSwitch Port Group tags and object ID
- vDatastore tab page new columns: Datastore tags, custom attributes and object ID
- Preference extra checkbox for “Exclude tags”
- CLI new parameter -ExcludeTags
- Bug fix: removed column “Config Checksum” from vInfo tab page.
This Base64Binary field was sometimes the cause for a XML deserialize error! - Bug fix: not all snapshots from all snapshot siblings where displayed
- Bug fix: preference setting “Exclude Annotation fields” value was overwritten.
- Bug fix: Name on vRP tab page was full path
- Bug fix: In example RVToolsBatchMultipleVCs.ps1 script parameters changed for RVToolsMergeExcelFiles.exe
- Bug fix: vSphere 7, “Unhandled exception: Input string was not in a correct format.”
- Known issue: Tags are only visible when logged on with userid/password. It’s not working when SSO is used!
Top 10 VMware tools podcast and RVTools 3.11.6
Right after we finished recording the Virtually Speaking Podcast on the topic of VMware Tools (Listen to it, great episode featuring Pete, John, William Lam and myself) yesterday I received an email from Rob. Rob mentioned an update to RVTools, bringing it now to version 3.11.6. As I mentioned on the podcast, RVTools has been around for 10 years now, what an achievement! Insane number of downloads, but understandable as it is very useful for anyone and everyone running a VMware environment. If you never looked at it, download it today, I am sure you will find various inconsistencies or issues, we all have! So, what changed in 3.11.6?
Version 3.11.6 (March, 2019)
- Upgraded RVTools solution to use VMware vSphere Management SDK 6.7U1
- Windows Authentication Framework (Waffle) is no longer used by RVTools
- NPOI .NET library for creating excel export files is no longer used by RVTools
- RVTools now uses OpenXML and ClosedXML for creating the excel export files
- Performance improvements for export to excel
- added -ExcludeCustomAnnotations switch to RVTools command line interface
- added –DBColumnNames switch to RVTools command line interface
- vInfo tab page new column: Creation date virtual machine
- vInfo tab page new columns: Primary IP Address and vmx Config Checksum
- vInfo tab page new columns: log directory, snapshot directory and suspend directory
- dvSwitch tab page new columns: LACP name, LACP mode and LACP loadbalance Algorithm
- vNIC tab page new column: Name of uplink port
- vNetwork tab page new column: Network Adapter DirectPath I/O Parameter
- vHost tab page new columns: Serial number and BIOS vendor
- Header row and first column in export Excel file are now locked.
- First “Select” column is removed from excel worksheet vFloppy, vCD and vTools.
- added a new executable to merge your vCenter xlsx files super-fast to one xlsx file.
RVToolsMergeExcelFiles.exe -input c:\temp\AA.xlsx;c:\temp\BB.xlsx -output c:\temp\AABB.xlsx -template c:\temp\mytemplate.xlsx -verbose –overwrite - Example script RVToolsBatchMultipleVCs.ps1 is changed. It will now uses RVToolsMergeExcelFiles to merge the xlsx files.
- Bug Fix: a Single Sign On problem solved
- Bug Fix: ExportvSC+VMK2csv command was not working
- Bug Fix: ExportdvPort2csv command was not working
- Bug Fix: On vNIC tabpage not all Switch/dvSwitch information was displayed
- Bug Fix: Export now reflect value of “Latency Sensitivity” enumeration
- Bug Fix: After changing the preference settings the data is not always refreshed as needed
- Bug fix: Content Libraries vmdk files are no longer reported as possible zombie files