How I Passed The #CISSP #vExpert #VCDX @kmcnam1

May 10, 2021 Bilal Ahmed 2

My Background: My career has covered areas that turned out to be quite helpful. I started at a bank, doing Media Management/Backups/Silo tapes, moving them between sites etc. I then became a data centre engineer, racking and stacking and cabling I then joined a BC/DR provider and helped customers test their DR processes and workplace recoveries and just managed services. I then became a VMware and Storage admin, working on keeping it running and upgrading it all and managing their DR recoveries. I now work as a Senior Consultant doing migration work and helping customers with changes and joining CAB meetings and all that jazz. I’ve been through many certification exams; I enjoy doing them as they force me to […]

Use ADFS as Identity Provider for vCenter

May 8, 2021 Kim Bottu 0

After you have setup ADFS, you can start using ADFS as a Identity Provider for vCenter server.You can follow the following screenshots as some kind of a guide on how to configure vCenter server to use ADFS. Change the Identity Provider Next, copy the vCenter Redirect URIs. In my case these are: https://vcenter7.vmusketeers.local/ui/login https://vcenter7.vmusketeers.local/ui/login/oauth2/authcode Next, from ADFS copy the Client Identifier, Shared Secret and OpenID Address. But wait, you first have to create these in ADFS! The client identifier will be generated during the vCenter-ADFS – Server application creation in ADFS. So now open ADFS Create a new server application: vCenter-ADFS – Server application Just follow the screenshots now click Next Copy the Client Identifier: 79713503-00db-48a8-910c-d089b0782ae6 Add the vCenter Redirect […]

Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Advanced Load Balancer

April 11, 2021 Chris Noon 5

@Twitter@Linkedin Part 1: Complement your VDI environment with NSX.Part 2: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: dFW.Part 3: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDFW.Part 4: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Introspection Services.Part 5: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDS/IPS.Part 6: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Advanced Load Balancer Thanks to Siegfried Huijgen I ended up receiving a lot of attention on the 5 part series, which spun off into a request for a part 6 on Avi Networks Load Balancing. While the other posts have focused on security, it makes perfect sense to include the NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi Networks) into the mix of complementary services for VDI’s. For the remainder of the post please […]

Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDS/IPS.

March 16, 2021 Chris Noon 5

@Twitter@Linkedin Part 1: Complement your VDI environment with NSX.Part 2: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: dFW.Part 3: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDFW.Part 4: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Introspection Services.Part 5: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDS/IPS.Part 6: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Advanced Load Balancer The final post of this series will be around NSX IDS (Intrusion Detection System) and IPS (Intrusion Prevention System). Both these products are used to highlight attacks targetted around a VMware environment. While the dFW does a great job of providing zero trust access, what if someone tries to take advantage of that open access? This is the use case for IDS/IPS. IDS and IPS used to be […]

Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Introspection Services.

February 28, 2021 Chris Noon 5

@Twitter@Linkedin Part 1: Complement your VDI environment with NSX.Part 2: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: dFW.Part 3: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDFW.Part 4: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Introspection Services.Part 5: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDS/IPS.Part 6: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Advanced Load Balancer Unfortunately, this post will be more of a theoretical one. I don’t have access to any introspection service providers. That said, I think it is something that should be discussed as it adds huge benefits. If any partner out there is reading this and wants to give me a trial of their product, I’m happy to write a Part 4.5 of this series. Introspection Services Concepts. Introspection services […]

Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDFW.

January 29, 2021 Chris Noon 5

@Twitter@Linkedin Part 1: Complement your VDI environment with NSX.Part 2: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: dFW.Part 3: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDFW.Part 4: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Introspection Services.Part 5: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDS/IPS.Part 6: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Advanced Load Balancer Before I start. Shout out to Bilal Ahmed, a fellow vMusketeer who helped me with this post. In this part of the series, we will look into IDFW (Identity Firewalling). IDFW is becoming an increasingly popular feature in VDI and RDSH environments. It allows security constructs to be applied to AD (Active Directory) groups, rather than the IP addresses. This promotes ease of mobility and reduction of operational […]

Complement your VDI environment with NSX: dFW.

January 3, 2021 Chris Noon 5

@Twitter@Linkedin Part 1: Complement your VDI environment with NSX.Part 2: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: dFW.Part 3: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDFW.Part 4: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Introspection Services.Part 5: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDS/IPS.Part 6: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Advanced Load Balancer I started the series discussing the different features within NSX that can complement a VDI environment. I’ll focus on dFW today, a well-known NSX feature. Recap: East/West Traffic between VDI’s. dFW, one of NSX’s well known and most marketable features, with good reason. Many attacks don’t target the motherload first time, but rather something lightly protected (think webserver) and then move laterally within the DC to something of […]

Complement your VDI environment with NSX.

November 26, 2020 Chris Noon 6

@Twitter@Linkedin Part 1: Complement your VDI environment with NSX.Part 2: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: dFW.Part 3: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDFW.Part 4: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Introspection Services.Part 5: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: IDS/IPS.Part 6: Complement your VDI environment with NSX: Advanced Load Balancer Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working with a number of customers that are keen to see how NSX can complement their existing or new VDI environment(s). N.B. I say VDI a lot in this article, but it applies to both VDI and RDSH. As soon as this discussion starts my mind leaps into distributed Firewalling, Identity Firewalling, Introspection Services and Intrusion Detection/Prevention Services. I think it’s […]