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A new Veeam release brings us a lot of new features including:
You can check the Release Notes for VBR here and for VeeamONE here.
Today, a new version of VMware vSphere 8.0 has been released. It is a major update that contains tons of new features in different areas, including live patch management, partial maintenance mode, embedded vCLS, and more and more.
I do not want to copy all well-written info here but to share a few links.
What’s New in vSphere 8 Update 3?
What’s New with vSphere 8 Core Storage
What’s New in vSphere Update 3 for vSphere IaaS control plane?
VMware ESXi 8.0 Update 3 Release Notes
VMware vCenter Server 8.0 Update 3 Release Notes
A bunch of links with announcements happened during the first day at Nutanix .NEXT 2024 in Barcelona.
Nutanix and Dell Technologies Collaborate on New Joint Solutions for Hybrid Multicloud
Nutanix and NVIDIA Team Up to Accelerate Enterprise AI
Nutanix Accelerates Hypervisor Innovation to Drive Enterprise Modernization
GPT-in-a-Box 2.0 is Here With Four Ways to Get Started with GenAI
Empowering Sustainability with a Modernized Infrastructure
Accelerate your Gen AI journey with Nutanix Unified Storage
Nutanix Widens Coverage for Cloud Native Users With Expanded Project Beacon
Nutanix and EDB Partner to Deliver a Modern Data Platform
On May 21, Veeam Backup & Replication 12.1.2 has been released.
This update contains important security bug fixes for the Enterprise Manager, including CVE-2024-29849 with a score of 9.8 and CVE-2024-29850 with a score of 8.8.
Please note, that CVE-2024-29849 allows an unauthenticated attacker to log in to the Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager web interface as any user. So, consider to update ASAP.
In addition to the security bug fixes, there are many new improvements and features. I won’t post all of them here, but a few are interesting for me:
Improved VMware NBD (Network Transport Mode) transport mode performance by up to 2x;
AlmaLinux 9.3 and Rocky 9.3 are supported for use as Linux-based backup repositories and backup proxies;
VMware Cloud Director 10.4.1 and 10.4.1.1 support;
Veeam Agent for Linux 6.1.2.1781 – AlmaLinux 9.3 & 9.4, RHEL 9.4, Rocky 9.3 & 9.4, and Ubuntu 24.04 Linux distributions support.
In total, there are about 100 improvements and fixes. So even if you don’t use the Enterprise Manager, consider installing this update to add support for new systems’ versions and bug fixes.
VMware ESXi 8.0 Update 2b is out and contains a lot of bug fixes. One of the fixes I want to mention is a bug in CBT:
Changed Block Tracking (CBT) might not work as expected on a hot extended virtual disk:
In vSphere 8.0 Update 2, to optimize the open and close process of virtual disks during hot extension, the disk remains open during hot extend operations. Due to this change, incremental backup of virtual disks with CBT enabled might be incomplete, because the CBT in-memory bitmap does not resize, and CBT cannot record the changes to the extended disk block. As a result, when you try to restore a VM from an incremental backup of virtual disks with CBT, the VM might fail to start.
As a workaround, there were two options: not to use hot extend and perform disk extend operations when the VM is powered off, or create periodically full backups to reset the CBT.
So, if you’re running ESXi version 8.0 Update 2, you should consider updating to the 8.0 Update 2b as soon as possible.
You can read about other release notes here.
Good news for Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) users – two new courses and certification tracks have been announced.
Two free online courses:
Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration (NC2A-AWS) – Configuring and administrating NC2 in the AWS environment;
Nutanix Cloud Clusters on Azure Administration (NC2A-Azure) – Configuring and administrating NC2 in the Microsoft Azure environment.
Both courses include a theoretical part and Hands-on Labs as well.
And there are new certifications – Nutanix Certified Professional – Cloud Integration for AWS and Azure.
NCP-CI-AWS 6.7;
NCP-CI-Azure 6.7.
As usual, both exams are in beta state, and you can take them for free. Use discount code NCPCIAWS67BETA for NCP-CI-AWS 6.7 exam and NCPCIAZURE67BETA for NCP-CI-Azure 6.7. This offer is only available to the first 250 participants, and the last day to test is March 10, 2024.
You may not know, but last year Veeam launched a set of Hands-On Labs (HOL) to demonstrate the product’s capabilities. One thing I like is that it’s not just a point-and-click Labs, but a whole preconfigured environment.
Example of labs available (and more):
You can get access to the HOL as an End user and as a Partner as well.
Notice, that depending on the region the lab set may be different.
After registering to the Lab you will receive an email with instructions on connecting to the environment. It could take a while.
During the test, my overall experience was excellent. The HOLs has clear instructions and a non-lagging environment. So check this out.
VMware vSphere 8.0 Update 2 is out with a number of interesting features. If you don’t know what’s new in this release you can start with What’s new article, released right after the announcement of U2.
Release notes for vCenter Server 8.0 Update 2 are here.
Release Notes for ESXi 8.0 Update 2 are here.
Please note, that at the time of writing this post, vCenter Server was released as GA (General Availability) and ESXi was released as IA (Initial Availability). You can read about the differences between GA and IA here.
