In my previous blog post on using Terraform and Ansible to deploy a simple ‘dummy’ application, I showed you how to use Terraform to build a simple two-tier application infrastructure (Web/App + DB). This blog shows how to use Ansible to configure the application on the deployed infrastructure.
As I’m am very interested into automation I was curious if I would be able to deploy a (dummy) application to AWS by only making use of
This article series shows how I used Terraform and Ansible to make this possible.
Previously I blogged about the Ravello platform and how it allows you to move an VMware workload (app) to the cloud (AWS / GCE) as-is, hence it is as easy as exporting the application from your VMware-environment and importing it into Ravello (here).
Recently I was invited to join the beta of the new Ravello platform which also allows to run these Ravello workloads on Oracle’s own cloud (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure) and test how the new additional modes of running Ravello increases performance for the workloads.
As I wanted to take the next step in certification on the Veeam Backup & Replication solution after achieving the VMCE-certification last year, I decided to take the (mandatory) VMCE-ADOv1-course and subsequently have a go at the exam to become Veeam Certified Architect.
For more information about these certifications please have a look at this page dedicated to the certifications currently available.
I’m proud to have passed the exam and now am an Veeam Certified Architect!
We are proud to welcome yet another sponsor to our blog: NAKIVO!
Thanks for supporting Cloudfix! The least we can do is write a introductory blog about their backup & replication solution for VMware. So this is not a full review of all the features of the product, but I hope it gives you a good glimpse of the product and I get’s you interested to do some further investigation into their products.
Besides a backup solution for VMware environments, NAKIVO is also offering a solution for backing up AWS-instances, so if you’re looking for a solution for backing up and recovering your company’s EC2 instances, please give their website www.nakivo.com a visit.
WOW! I think we just witnessed one of the biggest VMware-announcements we will remember for a long time this year at VMworld 2016. VMware is going to run a full vSphere SDDC-stack (vSphere / VSAN / NSX) bare-metal on AWS. Let me emphasize on this: It’s running BARE-METAL, so NO nested hypervisor. AWS will be running your workloads on the same vSphere-bits with the same feature sets, you learned to love on purpose-made, dedicated hardware available from all of their AZ’s (Availability Zones).
It gives you a easy way to extend your private on-premises DC to the AWS cloud and have uniform central management plane, leveraging vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode across all your (public & private) vCenter-servers. One of the coolest things which we witnessed was now really moving a VM from your on-premises and totally moving it to AWS with XvMotion-technologies
Besides bumping their virtualization-platform to version 6.5, VMware also added some new features to the SDS-solution in the new version of VSAN it announced. This quick article talks about the main new features which stood out according to us.
To give a idea what the main new features were in the previous releases of VSAN here, a short overview:
| Version | Timeframe | Added features |
| VSAN (1.0) 5.5 | March 2014 | Inital Version |
| VSAN 6.0 | March 2015 | All-flash 64 Node cluster 2x Hybrid Speed |
| VSAN 6.1 | September 2015 | Stretched Cluster Replication RPO of 5 minutes 2-node ROBO |
| VSAN 6.2 | March 2016 | Deduplication Compression QoS |
We really enjoy the pace in which this product is being developed and in such a incredible pace. Keep it going guys!
The main new features for this 6.5 release which is announced during VMworld EMEA 2016 (Oktober 2016) according to us among others are:
Today VMware announced it’s latest version of the vSphere and vCenter platform, version 6.5. This article talks about some of the latest features VMware added to their virtualisation-platform.
VMware is dramatically simplifying the experience using the vSphere-platform which is primarily based on the announcement of vCenter Server Applicance 6.5 and it’s new capabilities which are exclusive to the vCenter Server Appliance.
The VCSA-only features which are new to 6.5 are:
Meet our next participant in the Cloudfix Interview Series! Enjoy the read, feedback is always welcome!!
| Full Name: | Daniel Zuthof |
| Company: | Equinix |
| Certifications: | VCAP5-DCA/DCD, VCP3,4,5-DCV, VCP-Cloud, MCSE NT4,2000,2003, MCITP EA 2008, MCSA 2012, MCTS Exchange 2007, MCTS SQL Server 2000,2005, Brocade BCNE, NetApp NCDA 7-mode,cDot Novell CNE 3,4,5,6, Oracle 11g OCA, ITIL, Prince2 |
| Twitter: | @DanielZuthof |
| LinkedIn: | https://nl.linkedin.com/in/daniël-zuthof-0b9ab5110/en |
Who is Daniel Zuthof?
I am an IT enthusiast living in Enschede with my wife and 2 young kids. In my spare time I love to spend time with my family, friends, ride my motorcycle and road bike as often as possible.
After finishing school at age 20 I started working at several employers of which all are in IT. The first was at a local IT firm in the city I lived in at the time. Afterwards I worked at several larger businesses in the Arnhem and Utrecht area. Before starting at Equinix, I worked in the IT department of the hospital in Enschede as senior systems engineer.
Can you tell us something about your employer/company?
I work at the Managed Services department at Equinix. Equinix is the world largest suppliers of carrier neutral datacenters and operates 145+ datacenters across 5 continents in 40 metro areas. In The Netherlands, Equinix operates 10 datacenters of which 1 is currently being build.
The main business consists of housing, inter rack connections, inter metro area connections, inter country connections, direct public cloud connections (Equinix Cloud Exchange) and internet connections.
The Managed Services department designs, builds, operates and supports IaaS and PaaS platforms for customers inside our own datacenters. Besides building dedicated platforms according to customers specifications we also operate our own Equinix Business Cloud (EBC) IaaS platform, which is located in 3 datacenters across The Netherlands. Other products we sell are security & storage solutions and back-up & replication services.
Can you describe your IT infrastructure in short?
Recently we came into contact with a company called Runecast to review their product called Runecast Analyzer. We quickly decided to do a quick review of the product and keep you updated how this product develops even further! We will also be paying them a visit on VMworld Barcelona to get some more details from the guys/girls themselves. So we will keep you updated!
Runecast analyzer is able to scan your vSphere environment for known issues described in KB articles from the VMware knowledgebase (kb.vmware.com), displays them in a table (sorted by severity) and allows you to copy this information or export this information easily for use in custom reports you might want to build from this information (note: in the version i’m using the PDF-export is showing a cut off PDF, but i’m sure this will be fixed in a feature release). The table allows you to dive deeper into the details of the KB and on which objects (vSphere Server, ESXi-host or VM) are affected by this issue.
