Multi-Cloud Architecture

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 […]

HCX Gotchas Vol 1

September 2, 2019 Bilal Ahmed 3

Right so I have been spending a lot of time working with and learning HCX recently. There are loads of people telling you how great it is and the funky things it can do (and it is great). BUT there are things that can trip you up when deploying it, and every-time I have come across one I have documented it, in the hope that I can help people who deploy it and configure it in the future! Deploying HCX Manager Now HCX is a bit of a resource hog, especially when you start deploying the additional appliances, so I was hoping to make full use of my Intel NUCs but that wasn’t meant to be. HCX Managers need 4x […]

It’s a wrap – VMworld 2018

November 9, 2018 Stijn Depril 0

The last 4 days were crazy. We had our yearly VMworld in Barcelona! I had a jam packed agenda starting monday morning at 10 am till today. We could summarize it to long days and short nights! This was my second VMworld since I started working at VMware and it was great! I would even say “the best VMworld I ever attended”. On Monday I got to Barcelona around 9am in the morning. Leaving Brussels Airport early for my first meeting at 10 am in beautiful Barcelona. I planned around 15 meetings in these 4 days and we talked about divers subjects. In my current role it was most of the time storage centric. However a lot of our conversations […]

Guido Appenzeller – NSX the network bridge to the Multi-Cloud future

October 18, 2016 Kim Bottu 0

This presentation was actually co-hosted by Guido Appenzeller, the CTO for the NSBU and Scott Lowe who hardly needs any introduction anymore. In this session they elaborated further on how NSX will bridge clouds together and gave live demonstrations on how it all works! Note: I scheduled this session without actually knowing what to expect. Often these kind of sessions tend to be loaded with marketing talk which doesn’t interest me in the least. However this session in reality was a true gem. The guiding principles The guiding principles for a multi cloud network are that software really has to be independent from the hardware, the software had to evolve to a new model and some form of cloud networking is needed of course. Let’s […]