I have been getting quite a few inquiries about my fully nested VMware homelab setup. People seem to be struggling mostly with setting up the networking bits. I describe the overall topology in this blogpost but this blogpost will contain a lot more details on the network configuration. I also made a couple of changes, ...
In my previous blogpost, I explained how to remove a failed PKS cluster by removing the BOSH deployment using the BOSH CLI. Removing the BOSH deployment does not remove the NSX-T objects however. Manually deleting these NSX-T objects using the GUI is prohibited because these objects are supposed to be managed by PKS and are ...
Nested homelab and NSX-T I recently published a blogpost about my fully nested VMware homelab.After completing a beta NSX-T Install, Configure and Manage course, I was keen on adding NSX-T to the mix. The beauty of NSX-T is that it is not hard coupled to vCenter Server. By simply adding another (nested) ESXi host to ...
NSX DFW Enable TCP Strict Today, I finally had some time to dive a bit deeper into the 6.4.0 release of NSX for vSphere. When I was configuring the Distributed Firewall, I noticed a setting called ‘Enable TCP Strict” which I didn’t immediately recognize. After some investigation, it became clear that this setting strengthens the ...
Common load balancing topologies Sometimes you stumble across something so obvious that you cannot believe you missed it. I had such a moment today. I have been discussing load balancing topologies with one of my customers in the last few days and in each discussion we stayed exactly within the predefined color lines: a one-arm ...
Traffic analysis for a NSX micro-segmentation design using Syslog In a recent project I had to setup micro-segmentation using the Distributed Firewall (DFW) of VMware NSX in a greenfield environment. The approach I choose was to design and configure the DFW rule base using the Service Composer and all the information could gathered within the ...
Using the NSX API as a consumption layer VMware’s Software Defined Networking (SDN) solution NSX is architecturally separated in different planes: the management plane, the control plane and the data plane. Right at the top of these three planes sits the consumption layer of NSX. This can be the vSphere Client GUI, a Cloud Management solution ...
NSX and vCloud Director lab problems I had to do some NSX troubleshooting on a lab environment running vCloud Director and NSX yesterday with a colleague. Apparently something broke in our lab during an NSX upgrade and the quick ad dirty decision was made to just reinstall NSX. As it turns out, the hosts were not ...
Here’s a topic I did not think I would ever blog about: OSPF. I kind of mentally blocked out most specific details about all dynamic routing protocols after completing the Cisco CCNP Routing exam many, many years ago. Now I am studying for VCIX-NV and al of I sudden I find myself studying Not So Stubby ...
