vRealize Operations 6.2 was released last night and is now available for download! Looking at what’s new very quickly there are some good new enhancements but when you compare this to the 6.1 release it’s perhaps a little light, nevertheless there appears to be some new cool features and enhancements to be had in this version. There does not appear to be any sizing/scale increases. Upgrading from existing 6.1 versions can be done via a .

For the last few months and certainly very recently (at the London VMUG meeting) I have had the chance to talk to peers and #vExperts and share “war stories” with regards to vRealize Operations Manager. What has become a consistent theme in all the stories is just how much compute resources vROps requires when you “go big” and not just what is clearly defined in the sizing spreadsheet. For example some of the large deployments I have either been involved in or heard about (to monitor upwards and beyond of 30000 VMs) required the deployment of Large vROps nodes.

A series of webcasts on vRealize Operations Manager 6.x, helping you learn about anything and everything about the solution. Some of the examples include, vROps Policies, Alert Definitions, Automated Action Framework, integration to third party etc. This would include power point and live demonstrations. The session would range anywhere between 60 to 90 minutes. With 100+ registrations and more than 70 live attendees, it was definitely a great start to this series.

With a new year comes new things and I am delighted to announce the start of a vROps based webinar series. These will consist of a set of live webcasts on different topics around vRealize Operations Manager open to public to attend live or view the recorded sessions later. Personally I am delighted to get the chance to work with Sunny Dua on this new project. Sunny is a well known and respected Senior Consultant at VMware and can be found often on twitter @Sunny_Dua.

If you use the in-built vRealize Orchestrator instance shipped with the vRealize Automation appliance then you might run into this issue when working with the REST client: Connection pool shut down (Workflow:Get-IdentityToken / Scripting (item3)#14) The vRA appliance version I have (6.2 - note to self, need to update lab!) includes the plugin version 1.0.4 for REST. According to the release notes, this was fixed in 1.0.5 - typical! So the solution is to upgrade the REST API plugin 🙂

So if you are already familiar with vROps you will know you can now have multiple nodes in your cluster. 8 nodes if you are on versions 6.0.x 16 nodes if you are on version 6.1 Why does this matter if you plan to use SNMP with your vROps cluster? Quite simple really, what I discovered today is that even though you have a master node SNMP traps can and will be sent from all of the nodes to the destination you have configured.

This was my second UKVMUG and it was my first vCurry evening! so I was really looking forward to getting up to the event and seeing everyone. The vCurry event was excellent and it was a great chance to enjoy good food in great company. Had the chance to meet with many people I would not normally get the chance to see, Frank @fbuechsel and Brad @VMUG_CEO to name a couple!

First of all, thank you to everyone who came along to my session at the UKVMUG yesterday, it was great to see so many people at a round table discussion, sorry for those that had to stand! I hope that it was helpful and maybe a few of you will be building some awesome labs in the cloud! Ravello very kindly sponsored a free home lab, equivalent to the vExpert 1000 hours account as a prize for my session at the UKVMUG yesterday.

I use mind maps quite a lot for study, I find the visual representation of info makes it a lot easier for me to remember! Below is a mind map I created for learning the roles in vRealize Automation, which I used during my presentation for #vBrownBag on VCP6-CMA objective 2. You can download a PDF version here: vRealize Automation Roles Mind Map

Apologies in advance if this is post is a jumbled nonsense, I’m still way too excited! This morning I woke to the news that I have passed my VCDX-CMA! This was my second attempt at VCDX and although the first failure was a painful experience, the lessons learned from it were invaluable to take into the defence the second time around. Failing doesn’t have to be a negative experience - if there is one thing that I will take from the VCDX program it is that there is ALWAYS more I need to learn, and I can always do better.