Nutanix Test Drive Revamped

The Nutanix Test Drive environment has been revamped with a new look and feel. Gone is the Community Edition running on Ravello, it now uses the latest version of AOS and runs on GCP. There is also a helpful interactive storyboard that takes you through the Prism UI, which is great if this is your first time with Nutanix.

To access Test Drive:

  • Visit the Nutanix Test Drive page
  • Enter your details and press “Launch Test Drive”
  • Take note of the admin credentials and press “Start Test Drive”
  • Accept any SSL warnings and the Prism UI will appear
  • Follow the Interactive Demo prompts to learn the Prism UI
  • This instance is available to you for 2 hours
  • Test Drive only covers Prism Element, the advanced features of Nutanix Enterprise Cloud are not included

vCSA 6.7 – Health Status Storage Alert /storage/archive

This post is applicable to customers using the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) 6.7.

Update: This KB indicates VMware Engineering is aware of the issue and has been fixed. The workaround detailed below may not be supported, so implement it at your own risk.

Problem:

  1. vCenter Server Appliance 6.7 deployed and in use.
  2. Login to vSphere Client: https:// <IP Address or hostname of vCenter Server>
  3. vSphere Client System Configuration reports Node Health is Degraded. Access this page from Administration, Deployment, System Configuration.
  4. Login to vCenter Server Appliance VAMI: https:// <IP Address or hostname of vCenter Server>:5480
  5. vCenter Server Appliance VAMI Health Status reports an Alert for Storage: “File system /storage/archive is low on storage space. Increase the size of the disk /storage/archive.” Access this page from Summary, Health Status.
  6. VMware has not created an updated KB article explaining how to remediate this particular issue.

Continue reading vCSA 6.7 – Health Status Storage Alert /storage/archive

Nutanix .NEXT EU 2018 Announcements

This week, Nutanix .NEXT EU 2018 is being held in London. There are six announcements of note:

  • Nutanix Xtract announcements:
    • Xtract 2.0 GA Targeted for FY Q2
      • Support for AWS as a source
      • Performance enhancements to reduce migration time
      • Installation & Upgrade improvements for 1-click experience
    • AWS to AHV Customer Preview
      • Migrate running EC2 instances to AHV
      • Mini instance of Xtract deployed on AWS to orchestrate migration
      • User VMs “instrumented” to determine change block tracks and AHV conversion
    • Hyper-V to AHV Alpha
      • Win 2012R2 and 2016 supported
      • Alpha in progress and GA targeted for 1H 2019
  • Nutanix Era announcements:
    • Era 1.0 is GA
    • Supports Oracle 11.2.0.4 & 12.1.0.2
    • Supports PostgreSQL 9.6 & 10.3
  • Nutanix Karbon announced and in Tech Preview (on-prem Kubernetes)
  • Nutanix Files:
    • Version 3.2 November 2018 GA
      • Nested Shares
      • Larger Shares (140TB/share)
      • SMB signing performance
    • Version 3.5 December 2018 GA
      • NFS v3 Early Access
      • Multiprotocol Early Access
      • File Analytics 1.0
      • NFS self-service restore
      • NFS Change File Tracking (CFT)
  • Xi Leap DR service available in December 2018:
    • North America only
    • Offered as a cloud service with monthly, 1 year or 3 year subscriptions
    • Sold directly and through channel partners
  • Xi IOT service announced (no other details provided)

VCDX – Levels and Focus

There are levels to this game. There is a significant amount of effort that goes into achieving your first VCDX, but I would argue that the level of effort and skill required for multi-VCDX is significantly more than the first. In addition, the amount of time for multi-VCDX is approximately 9-12 months of effort per track and it takes a laser focus to concentrate on the task at hand and ignore the “noise” around you.

Continue reading VCDX – Levels and Focus