Design Thoughts/Considerations

vSphere 6.7 Design Cookbook – Review #VCDX #VCAP #vSphere #Design

May 6, 2019 Bilal Ahmed 3

Disclaimer I own the two previous versions of this book and have used them extensively and I was given a free copy of this book to review. I also know one of the authors @VirtuallyMikeB well and he assisted me on my VCDX journey too. So this book is split up into multiple chapters, and I am going to break them down a bit more. I hope this will give you a better idea of what this book is all about and if it is something you would consider buying. Chapter 1: The Virtual Data Center So this chapter focuses on some of the basics, which you will probably already know if you are reading this book. Things like the […]

VCDX Defense Presentation: Mapping it’s genome

May 10, 2017 Jason Grierson 1

So after hours of working on your design, submission, and with some patient waiting you finally get that email from VMware stating your design has been accepted for defense!  Quickly you go into over drive and start ferociously working on your defense presentation.  Now maybe you already started working on your design presentation, maybe you haven’t but I find the questions typically always have a trend of similarity with the biggest one being: HOW do I take a 100-500 page VMware design and cram it into 20-30 presentation slides and get the message across in 75min? So first off why 20-30 slides?  Well taking the 75min you have to defend and dividing that by 20 will leave you roughly 3.75min […]

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Windows vCenter vs. vCenter Server (Virtual) Appliance (vCSA/vCVA)

March 22, 2015 Shady ElMalatawey 5

The following question about vCenter Server is which version to deploy: Windows vCenter Server or vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA). First, let’s examine the components of any vCenter Server. They’re Single-Sign On (SSO), Inventory Service, vCenter Server, Web Client and a back-end Database.   To answer the question above, we need to take a deep look at how answer of the above question affects all of these components. Keep in mind that it’s also related to the way you’d deploy your vCenter Server Components according to your customer/case needs and requirements or constraints. Some components and other VMware products deployment are affected by wither you’d use Windows vCenter or vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA). My vExpert colleague, Mohammed Raffic, made a great comparison between […]

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Virutalizing vCenter Server: Yes or No?

March 13, 2015 Shady ElMalatawey 1

“Should I virtualize vCenter Server or not?!”.. This question is asked a lot, specially during preparing for new vSphere deployments. IMO, and in 99.9% of all cases I meet, I answer with “Yes!! Why not?”. vCenter Server is a central part of your Management Layer of your infrastructure that requires high level of availability and performance. vSphere 5.x is capable of providing the required level of performance for vCenter Server itself or for any one of its components (SSO, Inventory Service or Web Client) as well as its required back-end Database. In the same time, virtualizing vCenter Server provides higher level of availability, using vSphere HA and the new SMP Fault Tolerance in vSphere 6.0. Despite many advantages of virtualizing vCenter Server, […]

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vSphere Hosts: Scale Up vs. Scale Out

March 10, 2015 Shady ElMalatawey 0

Another confusing debate is around the approach you take when choosing your vSphere Hosts hardware configuration.  Two approaches there: Scale Up (Vertical Scaling) and Scale Out (Horizontal Scaling). Scale Up is to get small number of large powerful servers and that why it’s called Vertical Scaling; because you scale the configuration up to the max. with small number of servers. Scale out is to get a lot of small less powerful servers to achieve same required configuration and it’s called Horizontal Scaling; because you scale the number of servers horizontally, each with low hardware configuration. The common misconception of these two approaches is that people thinks that Scale-out approach indicates using Blades and Scale-up approach indicates using Rack-mounted servers. A fully populated, powerful blade chassis […]

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vSphere Hosts: Blades vs. Rack-mounted Servers

March 9, 2015 Shady ElMalatawey 2

One of the political-like eternal debates is the debate around vSphere Hosts Form Factor, which to choose: Blade Servers or Rack-mounted Servers. Both technologies are mature and support high computing power and Hardware Vendors offer both of them now equally. In addition, VMware vSphere supports using both of them and puts no limitation on the form factor of the hosts. They’re dominating now over Tower form factor which began to disappear because of its large foot print and high power usage. Confusing to choose between them, right? Long story short, both options have their own Pros and Cons that should be aligned with your (customer) case and your (customer’s) requirements and constraints. In the following table, a summary of the main differences […]