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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 […]

Using the API to add a new certificate to a vRLI cluster

March 13, 2020 Kim Bottu 0

When you have to replace certificates on multiple vRLI clusters, using the API might be a better way to change them on all your cluster nodes. Prerequisites You will need to prepare a certificate with a subject alternative name (SAN) for each of the cluster members and the Internal Load Balancer (ILB).You can use this article as a guide. How to Take note that I do not know if this is officially supported, but in my tests it works. Use a REST API client and connect to the ILB IP and request a session token. Make sure to add the credentials to the body of your request. When you post the command, a session token will be generated. You need […]

VCF4, vSphere 7, vSAN7, vROps 8.1 and everything else!

March 10, 2020 Kim Bottu 0

Introduction The days where all applications ran from a couple of servers managed by a couple of administrators hidden away in the basement of an office building are coming to an end. Although a big chuck of traditional applications will continue to need traditional servers to run from, it cannot be ignored that containers have been changing the application landscape. More and more applications are running from containers in a distributed architecture. Because the business expects applications to be delivered when they are needed, not in 3 months from now. Agility drives business and this is no different for the applications that the business relies on, no one wants to wait for an extended provisioning time for setting up new […]

How to export and import vRLI alerts which make use of vROps fallback objects, into another datacentre, by using Postman

February 25, 2020 Kim Bottu 0

In case you are managing a multitude of datacentres and are relying on vROps and vRLI to monitor your environments, by now you have found out that some alerts are present in vROps and other alerts are present in vRLI. You can configure alerts in both products, but while you can export and import vROps alert definitions and symptom definitions created in environment A into environment B, this does not go as easily for vRLI when you are using vROps fallback objects . If you are not using fallback objects, you can disregard this post. Requirements vRLI vROps Postman or any other REST API client. I use Postman myself. Notepad ++ Create some alerts in vRLI Create some alerts in […]

VMworld 2019

November 9, 2019 Stijn Depril 0

Another VMworld came to an end earlier this week. Third year I was present and I can only say – this was another great edition. So let’s talk about my highlights… My VMworld started on Monday when arriving in Barcelona. At this moment not the best city in the world to visit but I always love the atmosphere in the city and during the event. Once arrived I had two customer meetings in the meeting center. The meeting center is a place where you can have meetings with specific people in different BU’s about different topics that might be relevant for you and your business. They can go from just a friendly handshake to a proper deep dive in a […]

Homelab part 2

September 22, 2019 Kim Bottu 1

Introduction Some months ago someone asked me if I was willing to share exactly how I have setup my nested lab environment. Back then I didn’t have the time, but tonight I am willing to make time to describe just that. So here is part 2 of my homelab post. Hardware – 1 x Supermicro SYS-E300-9D-8CN8TP– 1 x Sandisk Ultrafit 32GB USB 3.0– 1 x Samsung PM883 240 GB SATA 2.5″ 1.3DWPD– 2 x Samsung 970 EVO 1 TB NVMe M2 80mm– 2 x Crucial 64 GB ECC DDR4-2666 LR-DIMM, ECC As you can see, the seconds NVMe drive has been added to my lab. This was needed to get my vSAN lab to support erasure coding for Raid 5. […]

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 […]

NSX-T 2.4 Edge Failures

July 22, 2019 Bilal Ahmed 0

Introduction So in the first part Chris (@UltTransformer) and I (@Dark_KnightUK) played with and broke the NSX-T Manager.  We thought it was the Edges turn, so… Now to test Edge failures!   Let’s recap.  We have one(1) edge cluster with two(2) edge nodes of medium size.  We have a T1 configured that connects to two(2) T0’s (active/active) and both T0’s have”external” access (within the lab). All is good with the world! Edge Nodes Explained This is an interesting concept. Edge Transport Nodes are VMs, the Edge Nodes are containers/VRFs and the SR/DR are services deployed inside these containers/VRFs.  At least that’s the way we see it. You can have up to ten(10) Edge Nodes in a cluster. Edge Nodes can be […]