Ninite Pro has numerous options for control and deployment, from an agent-based, cloud-controlled UI to a more classic Active Directory-integrated network-scanning executable. There’s a version available to meet the needs of organizations of any size. What would make it even better: Ninite’s only weakness is the small number of applications supported. I would really like to see not only a wider variety of popular free applications supported and I’d like to see the ability for vendors to partner with Ninite to have their software installers made available. It would be great, for example, to have Ninite’s agent control the install of Puppet agents, or VMware tools.
While officially Acronis Backup for VMware 9.0 does not support Windows Server 2016, the following items will still apply P.S. Remember that Acronis Backup 12.5 is the natural successor for Acronis Backup for VMware 9.0 product, with upgrade path available, so it's recommended to use this new.
I’d like to see coming startups like Tresorit or Sync.com make a deal with Ninite so that their solutions could be installed and managed by Ninite Pro, even if those applications aren’t free. It would make my life a lot easier, and Ninite Pro already makes it pretty easy. The next best product: Chocolatey Notepad This product is awesome because Notepad is a Windows 10 survival tool.
It’s a tabbed Notepad replacement that also serves as a fantastic code editor, with awareness and detection of most development languages. It autosaves and even autosaves unsaved files.
If your system crashes or reboots, all your work is preserved, making it an absolutely essential tool. Notepad has a wide range of features. These range from various flavors of side-by-side editing, to massive plug-in extensibility. Notepad supports regex replacement in an individual tab, a tab group, or across all opened tabs. Multi-line editing is another great feature.
I’m constantly jotting down notes on things I research, ideas for new articles or just saving interesting links that might be useful in the future. Under Windows XP and Windows 7 I could do this with classic Notepad. I controlled when my computer updated and, hence, when it rebooted. With Windows 10, end users and administrators have very little control over critical aspects of the OS like updates. Notepad saves my bacon on a regular basis, and it’s my preferred application for writing code to boot. What would make it even better: I’d love it if there was a 'word processing' mode with integrated spell check, including the classic 'red squiggly' that checked as you typed.
Not that useful for writing PHP, perhaps, but very useful when writing up help docs, or taking notes. More integration (running code directly from the editor) would be great, too.
The next best product: Text editors are a topic nerd holy wars have been fought over. Remember vim vs. The current who’s hot battles seem to involve Atom, Sublime and Visual Studio Code. Sync This product is awesome because Sync is a Canadian Dropbox alternative that cares about your privacy. Sync uses zero knowledge encryption, which means that it’s implemented in such a way that Sync can’t crack open your storage and give the contents away to someone else, even if it wanted to. Sync has all the expected capabilities of a Dropbox alternative. It synchronizes local data with the cloud, you can select which folders get synchronized to individual devices, and you can select files or folders to be shared with others in your organization or provide publicly visible links to select content.
Bonus: Sync is reasonably inexpensive, and has proven very reliable over the years I’ve used it. What would make it even better: It would be super if upgrades didn’t cause Windows Explorer to restart. The next best product: Debates over which sync-n-share service is better than the next are even more tribal than text editors. There are dozens.
If zero knowledge-class privacy isn’t a concern for you, then your favorite one is probably the one that happens to come with some other service to which you already subscribe. Popular offerings include Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, GDrive, SugarSync and Tresorit. Backblaze B2 This product is awesome because At $0.005 USD/GB, Backblaze B2 is the low-cost player in the archival cloud storage space. Backblaze integration into SMB NAS units such as those provided by Synology makes for a dirt-cheap cloud backup solution for home and small business storage. What would make it even better: I don’t know that it gets any better! The next best product: Amazon Glacier ioSafe Server 5 This product is awesome because ioSafe Server 5 is a disaster-proof server. It’s fireproof, waterproof and resistant to being banged around.
Unlike previous ioSafe offerings that were entirely focused on operating as storage solutions, ioSafe Server 5 is a proper Xeon-D server that can handle up to 128GB of RAM. Any x86 workload can execute on ioSafe Server 5.
I find it makes for an excellent VMware ESXi server for those sites where disaster recovery isn’t easy. There are lots of places here in Canada where Internet connectivity isn’t exactly thrilling, and even without trying to back up VMs to the cloud the WAN is run to the limits all day long. The ability to run workloads without worrying what happens if the building (or camp!) burns down helps me to sleep at night.
What would make it even better: If there were a bigger brother to the ioSafe Server 5. The next best product: As far as I know, ioSafe Server 5 is unique. VMware NSX This product is awesome because NSX returns to my list of winning products for another year because VMware keeps ratcheting up the excellence. NSX is a software-defined networking (SDN) solution that enables the current trend of application isolation through network microsegmentation. This is a really fancy way of saying that NSX makes automating network security easy, and integrates this automation with existing virtualization management tools. What would make it even better: NSX still has a long way to go on price before it’s affordable by any but the largest organizations.
There is also work to be done on integration with vRA and vSphere, but integration is progressing rapidly. The next best product: Openstack Neutron Trevor Pott is a full-time nerd from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He splits his time between systems administration, technology writing, and consulting. As a consultant he helps Silicon Valley startups better understand systems administrators and how to sell to them.
Keith Townsend, The CTO Advisor Oracle Ravello Cloud Service This product is awesome because I cut my teeth in IT when a home lab consisted of two 486 machines and some BNC-based Ethernet. I’ve had every version of complaint from my wife as it pertains to running a lab inside a household. Oracle Ravello Cloud has eliminated the need for me to have such a setup. I create a complex lab inside of VMware Fusion on my map, and simply import the VMDKs into Oracle Ravello, where they run on top of commodity clouds.
The solution even supports nested hypervisors, so I can test the latest VMware products without disrupting my existing lab and only paying for the resources I need, when I need them. Click on image for larger view.