Category Archives: NSX

vExpert NSX – 2018

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Honored to be included among the very smart crew of folks who champion the need for SDN on the VMware NSX-v and NSX-t platforms!  Such a great team of people and always great to work with the NBSU at VMware (@VMWareNSX).

                  

I love having NSX discussions with folks.  If you want to connect hit me up here on LinkedIn or on twitter @VirtSecurity.

At @ConnectionIT I am able to work with another fine VMware vExpert @MBLeib who also happens to be a VMware vExpert NSX member also.  If you haven’t gotten the understanding about what NSX and SDN can do for you ask your @ConnectionIT Account Manager to reach out to one of us.

I get excited to imagine what will be released next week while at @VMworld in Las Vegas.  I hope there will be further information on how NSX/SDN will be used in systems like #IoT and even down to endpoints with products like AirWatch.  Eventually we all will have to move off rule based firewall systems and onto policy based engines that will work throughout our corporate infrastructure no matter where we are connecting from.  Sometimes we just get focused on just the Data Center or even the edge of the Data Center and the DMZ where the largest amount of attacks happen but we need to look holistically into where all the traffic moves and most of this is East/West bound in between our VMs inside the rack servers/blade servers/HCI/converged infrastructure.  If we don’t how will we react not just when or if a breach happens or even more likely a badly configured application/buggy app is let loose.

Let’s keep the discussion going!

Here is a list of the other VMware vExperts for NSX.

https://blogs.vmware.com/vexpert/2018/08/17/vexpert-nsx-2018-award-announcement/

 

VMworld Day 1 – kickoff

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So today was the day of big announcements.  Some things people already knew about and had been waiting for General Availability (GA) and some things that might have been a shock or surprise to some.

  1. VMConAWS – yes that means that organizations will be able to consume AWS services/API stacks running on VMware vSphere. Sewn together with NSX and some other magic sauce. I will have to dig into this further to see how this is provisioned, consumed, managed and what caveats there are. What will be the pros and cons with this. 
  2. VMware announced the release of AppDefense a new model to protect your apps running on virtualized and cloud environments. This will leverage virtualized infrastructure to monitor running applications and report deviations and correlations from known good states.  This was previewed last year at VMworld 2016 as Project Goldilocks. 
  3. Products also getting a new version were vRealize Network Insights, VMware Integrated Openstack, a new vSAN offering and a new product called: vSphere Scale-Out which will enhance BigData and HPC environments.
I will be digging into these new items further down the line.  
 
For me today was a pretty big day in that I took and passed my VCP-NV exam for VMware NSX.  This was a big step in getting back to the basics.  I hadn’t taken a vendor Professional level exam in almost 2 years. In fact the last exam I took was my VCAP-DCA5 exam at VMworld 2015.  I have already started on plans for the VCIX-NV. 
 
This evening I was able to have some time to celebrate and see some vendors at various parties.   Thanks to BigSwitchNetworks, Zerto, and Nutanix for their parties that I was able to attend and also a thanks to Tintri for the invitation but also apologies in that I wasn’t able to make it to your event.  See everyone online tomorrow with more breaking VMworld 2017 news.
 

Pre-VMworld Day 2 – PEX Breakouts

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Partner Exchange is all about enabling the VMware Partner ecosystem.  Since some of the things during this period are under embargo until released tomorrow (8/28/2017) My focus has been EUC and NSX and thus this will be my schedule today:

  • NSX Assessment-led Selling
  • NSX Advanced Security
  • Business Growth Keynote – Embracing Digital Transformation
  • Business Growth Keynote – The Future of Cyber Security

Depending on the content in each of these sessions I may opt out and head over to the Hands On Labs (HOL) here at VMworld.  During my lab time I am focused on NSX.

Pre-VMworld Day 1 – PEX Bootcamps – NSX LiveFire Bootcamp – notes

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Deep dive on VMware NSX and implementation best practices.

Security considerations – Cluster design – Distributed Firewall rules

Important to remember to create an exclusion for your vCenter and External Platform controller from the Distributed Firewall rulesets being deployed if you have default rules or you may “accidentally” disable access to your vCenter and it’s communication to/from the NSX Mgmt platform.

Policy Policy Policy – This simplifies your network security.

Leverage vCenter objects and especially Security Groups to abstract workloads. This will allow for more dynamic policies and are setup as static memberships or dynamic memberships. Of course by definiton dynamic groups are much more flexible.

Security tags are stored in the NSX Mgr database separately from vCenter tags. These are defined as part of service composer blueprints.

This LiveFire training focused on NSX-v and not NSX-t.

Please excuse any typos as I was typing this on my iPad.

@Spousetivities #VMworld – Why it’s important

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Ok so let me get this started.  I like conferences.  I am an extrovert and love talking to people.  But… I don’t like being gone for long periods of time without my wife.  So back in 2010 I think I heard about @Spousetivities and how there were sponsored events and activities for my wife to go do while I am “networking” at VMworld.  This was an awesome thing.  We have been in both San Francisco and Las Vegas for VMworld and there are times and places that may not always be the safest.

While she can take care of herself I do worry about other people and worry about her finding things to do that she will like.  Crystal Lowe definitely came up with a solution to a problem that no one realized was there.  In the true meaning of Entrepreneur she found a need and went about filling it.  I am glad that Jill can hang out with all the @Spousetivities bunch each year and get to do some amazing activities.  If you haven’t brought your spouse or significant other along to a conference because they feel like it will be boring to be inside at a hotel or resort all day then go take a look at Spousetivities.com.  There also amazing sponsors who can get your other half into parties with you in the evenings.

I really liked the shirt that Jill came back with a couple of years ago.  She was definitely the #vCutie!!

I would like to thank the following sponsors and people involved for @Spousetivities #vmworld 2017:

@rhipecloud Rhipe Cloud

@TVPStrategy vPractice – TVPStrategy

@veeam https://www.veeam.com/

@myVMUG https://www.vmug.com/ Join this for the VMUG Advantage and get access to licenses for your VMware Home Lab.

@VMWareNSX VMWare Network Virtualization Blog

@datrium https://www.datrium.com/

@actualtechmedia http://www.actualtechmedia.com/