Author: Robert Verdam

NSX-T 3.0 GA!

Has been a long time since my previous post, but I decided to pick up blogging again! And no better topic to start with then NSX-T 3.0 General Availability!

About a week ago, I was asked as a vExpert NSX if I wanted to participate in a Exclusive Blogger Early Access Program Session about Networking and of course I couldn’t refuse this unique change to pick up blogging again.

In this article I’d like to highlight which I think are the most important new features on the this new major release of NSX-T: VMware’s Single Heterogeneous SDN (Software Defined Networking) Platform. NSX-T provides full stack networking and security virtualization.

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Ravello on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

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.

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VMCE-ADOv1 (exam) experience

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.

Veeam Certified Architect

I’m proud to have passed the exam and now am an Veeam Certified Architect!

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Quick review: NAKIVO Backup & Replication 6.2

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.

naviko-backup-replication-boxshot

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VMworld EMEA Announcements: VMware Cloud on AWS

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).

On-Premises DC expanded to AWS

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

  x-vMotion to AWS

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VMworld EMEA Announcements : VSAN 6.5

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.

VSAN Version History

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:

  • iSCSI-Access
  • Direct Connect for ROBO
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VMworld EMEA Announcements : vSphere 6.5

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.

vCenter Server (Appliance) 6.5

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.

VCSA 6.5 only features

The VCSA-only features which are new to 6.5 are:

  • Native High Availability
    Active/Passive HA solution with a witness for resolving split-brain situations. The setup requires 2 separate networks (Private vs. Public). The private network is used for HA (routed)-traffic between the both VSCA which consists of (sync) DB and (async) file-replication. This gives us a easy way to set-up a high available vCenter server.
  • (Integrated) VMware Update Manager
    VMware Update Manager is now finally integral part of VCSA, so no more managing a seperate Windows VM for using VMware Update Manager.
  • Improved Appliance Management
    Increased insight into how the appliance is doing CPU-, Memory-, Network- and databasewise. This reduces having to rely on the CLI for simple monitoring task on the VCSA and allows do this via the UI (VAMI). A thingy called vMon enhances the watchdog functionality which is also used for determing which host is active and which is passive when using VCSA in a HA-setup.
  • Native Backup & Restore
    Native file-based backup & restore capabilities built-in to the VCSA, which allows backing up via HTTP(s)/FTP(s)/SCP protocols and restoring the state of a VCSA to a (fresh) appliance.  All this happens from within the VAMI (Virtual Appliance Management Interface). It evens allows for restoring the configuration when installing the VCSA via ISO.
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Interview Series: Daniel Zuthof

Meet our next participant in the Cloudfix Interview Series! Enjoy the read, feedback is always welcome!!

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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

Questions

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?

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