WilliamLam.com

Considerations for future vSphere Homelabs due to upcoming removal of SD card/USB support for ESXi

by // 1 Comment

In case you have not heard the news, VMware had recently published a new knowledge base article (KB 85685) outlining details for the future removal of SD card/USB as a standalone boot device for ESXi.

If you have not read the KB, please take a few minutes and carefully read the article, especially as you think about future hardware upgrades and purchases.

There has certainly been no shortage of discussions and debates since the publishing of the VMware KB. One topic that I know many of you have been wondering and asking about is what is the impact to vSphere Homelabs? This was something that had already crossed my mind after I first read the KB and I was thinking about this a bit more this week and specifically some of the potential options that are available to customers right now but also some of the considerations you may want to account for in with future homelab upgrades.

Disclaimer: These are my own personal opinions and do not reflect any official guidance or recommendations from VMware.

[Read more...]

Aquantia/Marvell AQtion (Atlantic) driver now inbox in ESXi 7.0 Update 2

by // 14 Comments

Last spring, VMware and Aquantia (now part of Marvell) collaborated and delivered their first ESXi Native Driver for their AQtion (Atlantic) based 10GbE network adapters. This new driver was primarily focused on enabling network connectivity for ESXi when running on either an Apple 2018 Mac Mini (8,1) and Apple 2019 Mac Pro (7,1) that included the 10GbE networking option. Consequently, this driver also benefited the broader VMware Community as it enabled additional 10GbE networking through a number of Thunderbolt 3 to 10GbE network adapters that customers could now take advantage in their VMware environments.

With all these benefits, VMware has decided to inbox the Aquantia/Marvell driver with the latest ESXi 7.0 Update 2 release, so that customers no longer had to create a custom ESXi Image Profile that included the driver, which was always required when installing ESXi on either the Apple Mac Mini or Mac Pro that were configured with the 10GbE networking option. For a complete list of supported Aquantia/Marvell AQtion based network adapters, please see the VMware HCL.

Here is a screenshot of an earlier release of ESXi 7.0 Update 2 running on the 2018 Mac Mini which now automatically recognizes the 10GbE network adapter out of the box.

VMware customer production use cases for Intel NUC 

by // 3 Comments

The Intel NUC also known as the Next Unit of Computing is a very popular platform for running VMware based homelabs. I have been working with the Intel NUCs since 2016 with their 6th Generation model when I decided to rebuild my personal home lab. Since then I have continued my efforts to ensure that vSphere continues to run extremely well on this amazing little platform even if it is not officially supported by VMware, which now also includes the latest 11th Generation (Tiger and Panther Canyon NUCs).

At the end of last year, I came across this fascinating Intel NUC documentary that was put together by Robtech, which I highly recommend a watch.

While listening to some of the use cases that SimplyNUC had observed over the years which has spanned land ⛰️, air 🛫, sea 🛳️ and space 🚀, it got me thinking about some of the use cases that I had come across while talking to our VMware customers.

Disclaimer: The Intel NUC is not officially supported by VMware and therefore they are not listed on the VMware HCL

A common misconception is that Intel NUCs are only useful for homelab purposes and has no place for running production workloads, which is just simply not true. Here are some of the common use cases that I have seen over the years, most of which are deployed at the Edge/ROBO:

  • vSphere Development/Testing, Education and Training
  • Retail, Grocery, Industrial Factories and Ships
  • Build Automation (CI/CD)
  • Telco/NFV (e.g. Network/Hardware monitoring)
  • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

I also wanted to take this opportunity and to share some of the stories on how some of our customers have taken advantage of this platform, even though it is not officially supported by VMware and some of the underlying business drivers. Hopefully these stories will educate, resonate and perhaps even inspire other customers to explore different computing platforms, especially at the Edge where constraints and requirements will differ quite significantly when compared to a typical Enterprise Datacenter.

If you would like to share your story of how you are using Intel NUC and VMware for production, feel free to reach out using the contact page.

[Read more...]