Posts - Page 27 of 31

VMware VCP Required Recertification

March 8, 2014 / Martijn / 1 Comment

Up until now the VCP program of VMware has been a “VCP for life” type of deal. You do the exam and get the VCP sticker without having to follow up, unlike other certification programs like the Cisco certifications.

VMware has just announced a change to their certification program which requires current VCP holders to recertify every two years. After the continuing improvements to the VMware certification program, like splitting up the technologies into general, cloud and mobile tracks, you now have to prove yourself worthy of the VCP title every two years.

This new policy gives you three options … Read more

VMware NSX: Configuring Load Balancing

March 1, 2014 / Martijn / 0 Comments

VMware NSX integrates networking into the virtual world. It also brings networking services to the in a distributed and much simpler fashion. One of those network services is load balancing. Using NSX, you can create virtual IP addresses which routes incoming network traffic to multiple real servers.

It works just like your regular hardware load balancer (F5, A10 Networks, etc), but in a distributed way and grouped by real servers on your computing hardware.

Making these network services virtual, means being able to deploy it very rapidly and easy. So easy, you can create a web load balancing cluster in … Read more

Design Guide – Deploying VMware NSX with Cisco UCS and Nexus 7000

February 13, 2014 / Martijn / 1 Comment

VMware has released a design guide for a network with NSX, Cisco Nexus 7000 and Cisco UCS computing. Perhaps it’s a small glueing attempt from VMware to Cisco, maybe it’s nothing. The thing is, I’m really happy about this design guide, there’ll be a FlexPod for NSX yet! 😉

Read it here: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/nsx/vmware-nsx-on-cisco-n7kucs-design-guide.pdf

The document outlines a few important tips:

Use separate links for the routing between NSX and the Nexus switches. As you don’t want to route over vPC.
Use DVS network shares to prioritise your traffic.
Make sure your MTU values are set properly.

It’s a very good … Read more

Guacamole – HTML5 Remote Desktop Sweetness

January 12, 2014 / Martijn / 5 Comments

Guacamole is a gateway application described for HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop, and I absolutely fell in love with it recently. Working in the field, you constantly come across networks where you get limited access to the outside world, where the life’s goal of the firewall outgoing policies is to make your life a living hell when you need to get something from your own network. </rant>

I’ve tried RDP Gateways (not really platform portable), SSL VPNs, Secure VNC, and a bunch more, but none seemed to stuck. None was really usable on all platforms I want access from (Mac, … Read more

Replacing the UCS Central SSL Certificate

November 24, 2013 / Martijn / 0 Comments

The UCS Central appliance is on it’s way to be a proper centralized management platform for multiple UCS domains, but it’s not quite there yet. There are little simple things missing, such as custom SSL certificates. I had to get UCS Central using a proper SSL certificate the other day and couldn’t really find anything on how to do it. After figuring out how to do it, I decided to document it here!

I’m not getting into how you can generate a SSL private key, there are plenty of other tutorials covering those things. You’ve got two options; generate the … Read more

VMware NSX – Installation

November 6, 2013 / Martijn / 0 Comments

One of the good guys, Hany Michael over at hypervizor.com, has made a few videos showing the installation ease of VMware NSX. Unfortunately us normal peasant people do not have access to NSX yet, but you can see how the installation goes. Check these out:

Deploying the NSX vAppliance

Deploying the NSX Controllers

Preparing ESXi hosts

Configuring a Logical vSwitch

Other interesting videos about NSX can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZe_p0Q19xy21onTkNm5pqGtjH9UnTiXu

VMware NSX – Distributed Services

November 3, 2013 / Martijn / 2 Comments

This article is number two of a series about the upcoming network virtualization spree, specifically the one coming from VMware. Check out the other articles.

Traditional network services have evolved over the last years. Introducing more advanced firewalling, loadbalancing and remote access services. Typically, datacenter networks architecture these days look somewhat look this:

The routers can be virtualized inside a physical box, using either VRFs or vendor proprietary router virtual routers, such as Cisco VDC. However, the external and internal firewalls are usually separate monolithic hardware firewalls, which puts a large dent into the network budget.

As we move … Read more

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Page 27 of 31