2023

Almost exactly one year after the release of VMware vSphere 8.0, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) made available the first STIG for VMware vSphere 8.0.

While many folks with home labs recognize Synology as a manufacturer of excellent user-friendly network-attached storage (NAS) arrays full of features, many might not realize that these same NAS devices include an excellent built-in suite of Backup and Recovery tools. This suite contains Synology Active Backup for Business, Synology Active Backup for Google Workspace, and Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365. Synology Active Backup for Business supports backing up PCs, Macs, physical servers, file servers, and virtual machines from VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V.

Synology Logo Getting Started with the Synology Storage Console for VMware I have used VMware vSAN and a Synology DS1821+ for several years for my home lab’s storage. However, up to now, I have never deployed the Synology Storage Console for VMware. Realizing that the console might have valuable benefits, I decided it was time to try it. This post will walk through the deployment process for the Synology Storage Console for VMware and review its various features.

The United States (U.S.) Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) officially released the first update to the VMware vSphere 7.0 STIG on July 26, 2023. I have updated my custom compliance and alerting content for use within Aria Operations. This content covers almost all findings for the Virtual Machine STIG, a large portion of the ESXi STIG, and a select number of items from the vCenter STIG.

I encountered another fun adventure recently while upgrading some VMware Horizon 8 Connection Servers to version 2306. The upgrade process itself went smoothly, as you would expect. The installer processed the upgrade and stated that it was completed successfully. I attempted to access the VMware Horizon Administrator web console and found it would not process my smartcard authentication. I then tried to authenticate using an account with a password assigned, and again, the authentication was unsuccessful.