VCF Everywhere

October 18, 2019 Stijn Depril 0

As an employee at VMware the only constant is change. Like our customers we are looking into creating a stack that is easy to built and operate in the most consistent way possible. Now that has been a challenge for any datacenter at scale. There were always teams in some dark corner in the datacenter experimenting with something different than the standard. Still in a majority of all datacenters across the globe vSphere is the standard virtualisation service. VMware as a company is been changing the company from a focus on server virtualisation to the virtualisation of all different component in the datacenter. As you know I’m looking into vSAN in the Benelux region. My role within VMware is changing […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Generating SAN security certificate for NSX-T and PKS on Windows

July 22, 2019 Kim Bottu 0

A friend of mine had some problems generating certificates for NSX-T to be used with PKS. When he tried using the commands, from his mac, as instructed by https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Enterprise-PKS/1.2/vmware-enterprise-pks-12/GUID-generate-nsx-ca-cert.html , he would have error all over the place. For your information, afterwards we found out that the copy of the code generated some characters that the CLI didn’t like. Generating SAN certificates on Windows for NSX-T and PKS So I decided to generate the certificates in a different way, using the Windows version of OpenSSL. Obviously the code inthe VMware article will not really work, since that was created for linux type of platforms. Here is what we used to generate the certificate on Windows: Windows certificate creation A certificate […]

NSX-T v2.4 Manager Failures #RunNSX #VMware #Networking #SDDC @UltTransformer

July 12, 2019 Bilal Ahmed 0

Introduction So, I have started getting into the world of NSX-T, I pretty much missed the NSX-V train and while it is still early days in the T world, I wanted to get on board. This led me to attending the NSX-T v2.4 ICM and I have to say it has been one of the best courses I have ever attended. Our instructor seriously knew his stuff and the room was full of highly skilled networking and virtualisation guys. I asked lots and lots of questions and we had some very good discussions regarding topologies and packet flows etc. At the end of the 5th day, me and a couple of guys had some time to burn, and we started […]

CAL! Center for Advanced Learning Advanced Architecture Course – Day 2

June 13, 2019 Kim Bottu 0

Outcome focussed The emphasis today was on VMware’s outcome focussed approach. Instead of focussing on technical solutions, the attention is directed towards what an organization wants to accomplish in order to be successful. What are the business needs and how can we help you reach these? This sounds easier than it is. Since most of us come from a technical background and we rarely get the opportunity to speak to C level and other business levels, we only receive information about the business needs and goals in the way that it is passed to us. Often this may be inaccurate. Exercises To help us get a better grasp on these differences, several exercises were presented to us which we had […]