Organizations implementing NSX-T overlay have several options when it comes to migrating existing VLAN-connected workloads to NSX-T overlay segments. Common methods include re-IP’ing or re-deploying workloads to a new IP space allocated to NSX-T logical networking. It gives the workload somewhat of a fresh start. Besides, a re-IP process can be a very useful exercise…
Back in April I published a post about my GitHub repository containing Ansible scripts that perform automated deployment of nested vSphere/NSX-T lab environments. A lot has happened during the last 5 months and now that we’re close to making version 2 the default branch, I thought it would be a good time to give you…
And now something completely different. Recently, while working on a project, I had to come up with a way to automate Ubuntu Server 20.04 VM installations on vSphere. Utilizing Ubuntu’s new autoinstall method together with some Ansible code I managed to get something up and running. Decent enough to share it with you. Overview The…
Read more Automate Ubuntu Server 20.04 Installation with Ansible
Welcome back! We’re in the process of building an NSX-T Edge – FRRouting environment. In part 1 we prepared the FRR routers by doing he following: Installed two Debian Linux servers Installed VLAN support Enabled packet forwarding Configured network interfaces Installed and configured VRRP Installed FRRouting In this second part we will first deploy the…
Until recently I always used pfSense with the OpenBGPD package as the NSX-T Edge counterpart in my lab environment. It’s quick and easy to set up and works well enough. But pfSense is not what I typically find in a customer’s production environment. I started to investigate other virtualized “top-of-rack solutions” for the lab that…
Imagine this, you’ve been tasked with implementing micro-segmentation in your vSphere environment. You just deployed and configured NSX-T and the next step is to migrate VMs from their VDS port groups to N-VDS segments. You fire up the vSphere Client and expand the VDS to have a look at the current situation: It’s pretty bad.…
Read more Bulk Create NSX-T Segments Using A Postman Data File
Welcome back! I’m in the process of setting up NSX-T in a stretched cluster environment. In part 1 I deployed the NSX manager cluster and configured the ESXi hosts as NSX transport nodes. The N-VDS was installed on the ESXi hosts and their vmkernel adapters migrated from the VDS to the N-VDS. In this second…
A stretched cluster architecture facilitates for higher levels of availability and things like inter-site load balancing. It’s a common multisite solution and also part of VMware’s Validated Design for SDDCs with multiple availability zones. Traditionally compute networking in an active-active multisite setup has had its challenges, but with vSAN storage and NSX networking technologies that’s…
Recently a new version of the NSX-T Reference Design Guide was released. This guide, which now covers NSX-T versions 2.0 – 2.5, is a must read for anyone interested in the NSX-T solutions and their recommended design. One of the things you’ll find in the updated guide is a new recommended deployment mode for the…
With NSX-T 2.5 comes NSX Intelligence 1.0. This component, which is part of NSX Data Center Enterprise Plus, is something I’ve been looking forward to since it was announced. NSX Intelligence adds a powerful analytics engine to the NSX-T platform. It provides workload and network context that is unique to NSX. Application owners and operations…
