PCI-DSS Compliance with vSphere

What is PCI DSS?  The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) is a standard that any organisation that maintains a business relationship with Europay, MasterCard or Visa must adhere to.  The standard is about securing and protecting Cardholder data (eg. Primary Account Number – PAN, Cardholder Name, Service code, Expiry Date) and identifies any system that stores, transmits or processes Cardholder data as a “PCI Asset”.  If you work for a bank, financial organisation or retail chain, then you will be well aware of the PCI Data Security Standard. Continue reading PCI-DSS Compliance with vSphere

Evolution of Storage – What is your strategy?

The Chinese saying, “May you live in interesting times” certainly applies here. Right now so many new storage technologies are emerging, that if you are an infrastructure decision maker, you would be having a hard time selecting the right technology. The trick is to formulate a strategy that leverages the existing infrastructure you already have, but provides agility and scale for the future at a reduced cost. Continue reading Evolution of Storage – What is your strategy?

Tech101 – EMC Symmetrix VMAX & PowerPath/VE

My VCDX design architecture was based upon the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K.  I spent a lot of time with EMC SMEs learning everything I could about it.  The first step was learning the major building blocks of the VMAX and how it all fits together.  The examples I provide below are with the vSphere ESXi host being the consumer of VMAX storage services. Continue reading Tech101 – EMC Symmetrix VMAX & PowerPath/VE

KB 2050288: vCenter Log Export – NMI reset of Responsive Windows Server 2012 or Windows 8 VM

Here is an Operational Risk that should be mitigated with an update of your Operational Procedures and Administrator training/awareness.  This exact issue impacted my organisation recently. Continue reading KB 2050288: vCenter Log Export – NMI reset of Responsive Windows Server 2012 or Windows 8 VM

Host Design – Scale Up or Scale Out?

When you first start learning about virtualisation as an architect, the first design question you will learn is: “Scale Up or Scale Out?”  The basis of the question is quite simple: “Do I buy a small number of hosts with a large amount of resources, or do I buy a large number of hosts with a small amount of resources?”  Simply put: “Can I afford to put all of my eggs in one basket?”  The answer to that question varies, depending on the business requirements and constraints of your customer. Continue reading Host Design – Scale Up or Scale Out?