TinkerTry's 31 Days of March 2015 - One vSphere 6.0 related tip published every day, until it's GA!

TinkerTry's 31 Days of March is like VMware's 28 Days of February, but geared toward Tips, Tricks, and Tools for the home lab. Yes, stuff that makes the life a little easier for those brave and willingly unsupported masses of IT Professionals who are also home virtualization lab enthusiasts. Unafraid to push the boundaries of what's possible in the home lab. Especially now that it seems likely for us to move away from 60 day trials, over to 365 day of home lab use for $200 USD, using the new VMware VMUG EVALExperience program.

For all I know, this series of posts could go right on into April. Or this series could end before 31 days We'll see. Oh, and by GA, I mean Generally Available.

Follow me on twitter @tinkererguy, so you'll be notified as each new article is published. I'll use the hashtag #tinkertry31days, as seen in the announcement tweet here.

These posts may be short and straight-forward. Some of the articles may need a deeper drive revisit, once vSphere 6.0 is generally available. That said, since it's no secret that anybody could sign up for the VMware vSphere 6 Beta Program is now open to the public!, then open Service Requests with bugs or feature requests. If you're signed up for the the beta program, you'll see all my VMware Community posts here, including some vSphere 6.0 feedback and tips.

So the likelihood that all these utilities, tips, and tricks will work after the 6.0 release is actually quite high. Come back and see for yourself!

TinkerTry's 31 Days of March 2015 - vSphere 6.0 related tips

Tip #1 (March 1)

Fast and secure uploads to VMware support through their web portal

Tip #2 (March 2)

Lastpass keeps you from having to type administrator@vsphere.local every time you login with vSphere Web Client

Tip #3 (March 3)

Try OPS1E on iOS, a fast and powerful way to manage your vSphere 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x environments

Tip #4 (March 4)

For ESXi 6.0, those ESXi 5.1 VIBs for ASMedia SATA ports and Realtek NICs still seem to be working (but unsupported)

Tip #5 (March 5)

VMware's promise that Windows vCenter can be migrated to vCenter Server Appliance arrives with VCS to VCSA Converter

Tip #6 (March 6)

What's New in the VMware vSphere®  6.0 Platform - VMware Technical White Paper January 2015

Tip #7 (March 7)

Little secret those new to virtualization often miss - ESXi 6.0 continues to be headless, just as it was for all prior VMware hypervisor releases

Tip #8 (March 8)

VMware VCSA 6.0 has a new Direct Console User Interface, and the web UI through port 5480 is gone

Tip #9 (March 9)

Broadwell-DE announced - Intel Xeon D-1520/1540 crams incredible virtualization lab specs into tiny mITX size

Tip #10 (March 10)

Apple and home labs - Because you know it's all about that USB-C, 'Bout that USB-C, not Lightning

Tip #11 (March 11)

RVTools 3.6 works with VMware vSphere 6.0

Tip #12 (March 12)

VMware vSphere 6.0 Documentation Center and Release Notes are now online, read all about it!

and the final post in this series, since March 12 is apparently the day VMware has gone GA, the download itself!

VMware vSphere 6.0 is now generally available, here's how to download it fast

So, this conclused my daily tips, so in hindsight, it could have been called 12 days of March. But worry not, I still tend to write one or two long, technical articles a week. And a video or two, too. And of course, right now I'm working on producing documentation for you to successfully create your vSphere 6.0 home lab, stay tuned!