My Software Defined DataCenter

So another Sunday to add some stuff to my Ravello Lab. Last time I wrote about the basics, like vSphere, vSAN and NSX. I also added vRealize Log Insight at that point, configuring all the components to write their syslog entries to the appliance. Something not all of the vSphere and NSX customers know is that with both products comes the right to use vRealize Log Insight for free. For each vCenter server licensed, a 25 OSI-license for vRealize Log…

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While in the process of deploying some management functionality to my Ravello LAB (see:  New virtual LAB on Ravello (part 1) and the second part coming), I ran into some issues with disk space. I had created a vSAN with approximately 800 GB of total space: When trying to deploy vRealize Operation Manager, I was told that there was not enough space. But fortunately the Ravello platform gives me the option to easily expand my vSAN. One node at a time,…

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For a customer of mine, we are in the process of implementing a vSAN environment, where stretched clustering is used. They use a witness location, which is (independently) connected to both data-locations. For the vSAN networking, they do not use VRRP or another way to stretch there routing, but they do use stretched layer-2 networking. So their environment looks like this: In order to make sure that HA is handled correctly, it is advised to create a gateway-address within the…

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So, a couple of months ago (two, to be precise) I wrote about a new lab I created at Ravello. The lab was set up, mainly to try out the functionality of Ravello and especially the bare-metal vSphere support they gave. A couple of days later unfortunately, the lab was no longer accessible. I tried recovery and restoration, but both failed. So I had to rebuild the lab again (and this time make sure I save it as a blueprint,…

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In the past two-and-a-half years, since I joined PQR, a lot has changed in my job. I have been more an more involved in pre-sales and evangelization, mainly of VMware SDDC products (with a strong focus on NSX). Today was sort of a special day in that respect, since I had the privilege of presenting a session at the largest VMUG in the world, the NLVMUG in den Bosch. Together with my colleague, Viktor van den Berg (https://www.viktorious.nl) we did…

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One of the main new features in VMware NSX 6.4 is the Multi-User (or RDSH) Identity Firewall. With this feature, it is possible to microsegment traffic, based on User-ID. I have been looking forward to this feature, since a couple of my customers have been waiting for it and it is a very powerful addition to the already pretty packed microsegmentation functionality. I already wrote about this on my company-blog (in Dutch: http://www.pqr.com/blogs/nieuwe-versie-nsx-met-grote-stappen-voorwaarts) and in this article I will dive a…

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For one of my customers, I have created a nested PoC environment, to be run in their own virtual environment (completely nested). The environment consists of three hosts, with all components as virtual machines within the hosts. Within the environment I used vSAN as the storage layer and of course NSX (the latest version, 6.4) in order to demonstrate the micro-segmentation functionality the customer wanted to test out. I used to own a physical lab (consisting of a couple of…

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For years and years I have been an avid consumer of blogs from the community and I found them very useful. I have created several blog-posts, but all of them related to company activity. Now is the time to start a more personal blog, where I can write-up stuff that I find worth to write about, but not suitable for my company-blog. I will be writing about the Software Defined DataCenter (SDDC), since that is the technology I am mostly…

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