Articles by Bilal Ahmed

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 […]

HCX Gotchas Vol 2 #HCX #Migrations @vExpertHCX #vExpert

September 28, 2020 Bilal Ahmed 1

This article was updated on the 11th of November 2020 So as HCX has progressed over the last year, a lot of the initial things that could catch you out have been sorted and for the most part, it’s all pretty simple to deploy and get up and running. There are times you will come across certain errors and you have to sit back and try and figure out what HCX is doing and why that error is happening, as sometimes the errors can be a bit cryptic…even when you go diving into the logs! Service Mesh When deploying a new Service Mesh I kept coming across this error: After troubleshooting with VMware support and Engineering, their first thought was […]

HCX PowerCLI and Reverse Migrations #HCX #PowerCLI @saintdle @Virtual_Simon

April 27, 2020 Bilal Ahmed 0

So when you are going to migrating a lot of VMs you really need to script it out, as doing it in the GUI is going to slow you down massively! Now I have posted scripts where going forward to the cloud works well, but I found going in reverse can make the scripts a bit more complex. This is because the source and destination sites change, but you still do everything from the HCX Connector appliance. Special shout out to Dean Lewis @saintdle and Simon Conyard @Virtual_Simon. I have enough PowerCLI skills to be dangerous but I was falling over and needed their assistance to help me figure out what was going on. So this script will let you […]

HCX and EVC #HCX #VMware #vExpert

April 23, 2020 Bilal Ahmed 1

So I have been deploying and testing HCX recently for a customer. This customer wants to use the HCX vMotion feature to migrate out of their legacy DCs. Normally HCX Bulk Migration is used to move the majority of VMs out and HCX vMotion is used for the key heavy hitter VMs that you do not want to power down for XYZ reason. The main reason for this is time, Bulk Migration can move 100-200 VMs at a time quite easily as it uses vSphere Replication, but the downside is that during the cutover there is some downtime: VM is powered off at the source Off-line sync happens VM is powered on at the destination You can define when the […]

HCX Migrations using L2 Ext Legacy Complexities #L2VPN #HCX #VCF

March 16, 2020 Bilal Ahmed 5

Lay of the land I have been working with a customer and came across something interesting. Most people when configuring 2 vCenters don’t share VLANs between the 2, with management networks being the exception. But here we had a VLAN in 2 vCenters which needed to be migrated to our new VCF site. This new site would utilise NSX-v to terminate the default gateway. I think this is best shown in a diagram: For some unknown reason, a decision was made to separate out the Windows and Linux workloads into 2 vCenters but use the same VLAN. Sometimes you can come back and visit a decision you made previously with fresh eyes and new info and realise it wasn’t the […]

HCX Service Mesh Considerations #HCX @VMwareHCX #vExpert

January 20, 2020 Bilal Ahmed 0

So let us have a quick overview of HCX Service Meshes before we continue: Service Meshes can contain all 3 appliances or just an Interconnect appliance or just a Layer 2 Ext appliance, depending on your needs. The WAN Optimiser is optional. Features are always being added to HCX, but these are the key services/appliances. The Interconnect (IX) appliance holds most of the services, I tell people to think of it as a vSphere Replication Manager, as that is one of the main services it holds. HCX uses vSphere Replication for all its replication bits, so the same pros and cons that apply to vSphere Replication apply here as well! How the Mesh is configured and deployed is dependant on […]

HCX Migration PowerCLI Scripts #HCX @VMwareHCX #PowerCLI #vExpert

January 6, 2020 Bilal Ahmed 9

So I have been spending more and more time working with HCX and the web interface for migrations is all well and good….but really when you are wanting to do bulk migrations you are really going to want to script it Now these scripts aren’t totally my own, I have butchered other peoples and amended them for my own use cases. The guys working at Global Migration Center (GMC) helped and they actually used William Lam scripts as a base point and a couple of other PSO engineers I work with added their bits too….so credit where credit is due 🙂 Script 1 Now with the above script, you have to put in: The HCX Enterprise Manager as the source The […]

Passing the VCP-NV 2019 NSX-T 2.4 2V0-41.19 exam #NSX #vExpertNSX #vExpert

September 9, 2019 Bilal Ahmed 0

So as many of you will know, I am pretty savvy when it comes to DCV but when it comes to networking in general and especially networking virtualization…I am a rookie. I missed the NSX-V train, it passed me by while I was working on other things and with NSX-T being quite new…I thought now is as good of a time as any to get on board! Networking has always been a weak point of mine, and my goal is to change that. I don’t intend to become the next CCIE or anything like that, but I want to become a more rounded consultant and just have a good solid level of understanding in different areas. I booked myself on […]