Author: vcdx133

Chief Enterprise Architect and Strategist, 4xVCDX#133, NPX#8, DECM-EA.

VCDX-NV Explained

vcdx-nv The VCDX-NV “Blueprint” and “Handbook and Application” are now available at the VMware Certification site.  I have blogged about VCDX-NV before and I tweeted the other day about VCDX-NV which generated quite a bit of conversation.  This post summarises the points raised in that chat.

Ignore version 1.1 of “Handbook and Application”, it was a cut and paste of the DCV blueprint, they need to update the “Index to Highlights” to match the “Blueprint”.  From the Blueprint you can see that the technology silos are:

  • NSX Infrastructure Components
  • Virtual Networking
  • Physical Networking
  • NSX Security
  • NSX – Cloud Management Platform Integration

It makes sense that there is no requirement for Compute, Storage or Virtual Machines in your VCDX-NV design.  So you can use any hypervisor that supports NSX, the only requirement is that you include NSX in your design.

Continue reading VCDX-NV Explained

VMworld 2014 US – Closing Comments

This was my first time at VMworld US and I was impressed with the level of planning and attention to detail.  The highlights of the conference where:

  • vCommunity Hang Space – vBrownbag TechTalks, VMware Community and Blogger’s area, VMware Foundation “Give Back” event
  • Hands On Labs – 10,000 labs were taken this year.  They just get better and better.
  • Sessions – lot of cool content was presented this year.
  • Thursday’s General Session was very interesting and informative.
  • Announcements about EVO:RAIL and Open Stack support within vSphere.
  • Solutions Exchange – loads of new technology out there.
  • TAM Day was fantastic.

Continue reading VMworld 2014 US – Closing Comments

Most popular NSX use case

From talking to the NSX experts yesterday at “Meet the Experts”, I learned that the most popular use case for NSX is “micro segmentation” within the enterprise, moving firewall filtering between VMs to “ESXi as a service”.  “I thought vCNS does that?”, I hear you ask.  Well, vCNS vShield App is actually a separate virtual appliance, instead NSX provides this functionality as a service within the ESXi kernel, which provides greater scalability and improved performance for large scale enterprise and service providers.

The clock is ticking, register for VMworld EU 2014, plan your travel and reserve your sessions:

Is “vRealize” another “vRAM”?

I was very happy when VMware announced the “vCloud Suite” two years ago.  It unified the entire Data Center and Cloud Automation eco-system of VMware’s products under a single umbrella with a unified licencing model.  No more buying per VM licences for multiple products, just licence your physical sockets with the level you wanted and off you go.  It was a great move.

Fast forward to this year: “vRealize”? Who were the vPeople in vMarketing who vSuggested this vChange and who is the vGroup who vDrank the vCoolaid and vSupported this?  Who is the vBoss who vSigned off on it?  Sticking a “v” in front of every word does not make it cool, just look at the previous two sentences.  You have done a good job of it so far, but placing a “vee” in front of verbs is taking it too far, stick to nouns!

Continue reading Is “vRealize” another “vRAM”?

VMworld US 2014 – Keynote Announcements

Summary of announcements from the Keynote session:

  • Third year of implementing the SDDC strategy
  • NSX is gaining industry recognition and adoption
  • vCloud Suite is rebranded as “vRealize” to incorporate vCHS, vSAN, vVols & vSphere
  • VMware’s foray into the Hyper-Converged market: EVO suite (aka “Marvin” & “VMCI”) with Rail (medium enterprise) and Rack (large enterprise)
  • VMware will contribute code to the Open Stack project to support OpenStack APIs
  • “Containers without compromise” – VMware working with Docker and Google on “container” technologies
  • vCloud Governance service for vCloud Air (aka vCHS) customers with a heavy US Government compliance requirement (available September 2014)

The clock is ticking, register for VMworld EU 2014, plan your travel and reserve your sessions: