My Software Defined DataCenter

After completing my previous blog https://my-sddc.net/new-tech-vm-essentials-a-more-serious-deployment/ there have been some developments. One of which is the fact that HPE came out with a new verion, another is that I learned there is an integrated installation available. This includes both Ubuntu 24.04 and the new version of HPE VME (version 8.0.8). The file I am using for installation is called “HVM_Install_24.04.ISO_8.0.8_S5Q83-11031.iso” After powering on, the installation screen is a little different, it now says “HVM Install 24.04”: And also the screens…

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After creating a fairly simple, but working HPE VM Essentials deployment (see https://my-sddc.net/new-tech-hpe-morpheus-vme/), it’s time to make a more serious deployment. In the previous blog I took networking and storage for granted, but in real life scenarios, those topics need a more serious approach. So I am making a “design” for a small customer, that will have three VME hosts, use iSCSI, NFS ánd local storage for their VM’s and use VLAN’s to differentiate between different traffic flows. I am…

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Introduction Well, okay, for mé it’s new Tech. And this may well be a new series, because there is more out there, now that I am working at a partner. Since I left Broadcom at the beginning of the year, the scope of product technology has changed. I am still very much an advocate and a fan of VMware products, because the technology in private cloud is (in my opinion) still unmatched, but there are alternatives out there. And working…

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Today I tried this exam. I had done some preparation and for anyone else trying this exam, a couple of pointers that were critical for me to get to a passing score. Of course, you also need to know the stuff about a lot of other things, but for me, that knowledge was already there. I am talking about the more regular NSX stuff, like: Installation, Transport Nodes, Edge Nodes, Switching and Routing. So the following were some of the…

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The Holodeck Lab is up and running and some of the components have been replaced by pfSense. This has been described in a couple of blogs. Now it’s time to start working on the use cases I wanted to explore with this lab. The first one is doing Multi Tenancy with VRFs within NSX. Firstly, the topology I am planning to implement: If you look carefully, I am planning to create two distinctly different network topologies, within the same NSX…

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So, after the first two blogs, about the initiation of the Holodeck lab (https://my-sddc.net/holodeck-lab-building-the-lab/) and the first part of replacing some components with a pfSense appliance (https://my-sddc.net/holodeck-lab-replacing-networking-with-pfsense/), we now go a little deeper into the networking stuff. We are going to get BGP to work on the pfSense. Goal is to achieve the following topology: The NSX part of this has already been configured, as part of the Holodeck deployment. I grabbed the BGP configuration from the Cloud Builder appliance,…

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After the first blog I posted in this new series: https://my-sddc.net/holodeck-lab-building-the-lab/https://my-sddc.net/holodeck-lab-building-the-lab/, I am going to change some of the networking. The Holodeck itself comes with a pretty good way of containing the lab environment in its own bubble, and only having one entry point (the Holo-A-Router), but since this is in my own home environment, I don’t really need to control it in the same way. I also want some more control over the entities that are in my lab…

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After leaving Broadcom at the end of last year, I lost the control of my “VCF on VCD” lab environment (I am happy to say I was able to transfer it to a colleague, so it got a good new home :)), but that meant, I was without a lab. So, I had to find a way to start over again. I did have an old Proliant Gen8 server available, from my previous (and current) employer, but I ran into…

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As a VMware by Broadcom employee in the VCF Business Unit, you can do three free exams per calendar year, on a voucher, so it makes it fairly riskless to try them out, without (a lot of) preparation. So in my case, I first tried the VCF VCP Administrator exam (2V0-11.24, https://www.broadcom.com/support/education/vmware/certification/vcp-vcf-administrator) in October, and today (about a month later) I tried the VCF VCP Architect exam (Exam 2V0-13.24, https://www.broadcom.com/support/education/vmware/certification/vcp-vcf-architect). In this blog, I’ll give a little bit of insight…

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