Introduction: VMware vSAN 8.0 brings forth a range of exciting features and enhancements, aiming to revolutionize storage architecture and elevate performance.  Let's explore the key highlights of this major release and discover how it improves scalability, usability, and overall efficiency. 1) vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA): VMware introduces vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) as an alternative to the original storage architecture (OSA). ESA presents a cost-effective and scalable solution specifically designed for edge and remote deployments.  It employs a streamlined, single-tier architecture, where all devices contribute to storage capacity. This eliminates the need for disk groups with caching devices, simplifying deployment and reducing costs. 2)Native Snapshots with Minimal Performance Impact: vSAN ESA now offers native snapshots that have minimal impact on virtual machine (VM) performance, even with deep snapshot chains. These snapshots seamlessly integrate wi

In Today's fast-moving technology, all want to have a one-stop solution that could help procure all of their services and general needs. Initially, as I mentioned technology phase is where we'll be discussing two major private cloud offering players in the market (VMware and Nutanix). These players were having a great presence in the market due to the robust features they offer to their customers. credit: Datanet Let's get started... First, let's understand the top player's portfolio and their offerings. VMware: VMware, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, is a renowned leader in delivering comprehensive multi-cloud services that drive digital innovation while maintaining enterprise control. By offering a range of products and services, VMware assists organizations in revolutionizing their IT infrastructure, fortifying security measures, and minimizing costs. Founded in 1998, VMware has emerged as a prominent force in the industry, boasting a workforce of over 30

In the dynamic world of cloud computing, staying ahead of the curve is essential for businesses seeking scalability, security, and cost-efficiency. As VMware is a leading provider of virtualization and cloud computing software has recently unveiled VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 (VCF 5.0), the latest version of its unified software platform for building and managing private clouds. Packed with an array of new features and improvements, VCF 5.0 offers enhanced scalability , advanced security , extended support for Kubernetes , and streamlined management capabilities. This article explores the key highlights of VCF 5.0 and why it should be on your radar when considering a cloud platform. 😃                                                                                                                                                                     Credit: VMware Improved Scalability: One of the standout features of VCF 5.0 is its improved scalability. With support for up to 100,000 vCPU

Tunnel endpoints are essential in VMware NSX-T  for managing network connectivity across different environments. They handle the encapsulation and decapsulation of network traffic as it moves between overlay and underlay networks. Here are the key aspects of tunnel endpoints in NSX-T. Its uses in both East-West as well as North-South traffic communication. Geneve Tunneling Protocol : NSX-T uses the Geneve tunneling protocol for encapsulating overlay traffic. Geneve offers a flexible and extensible framework, ensuring efficient and secure communication among virtual machines (VMs) and NSX-T logical networks. Tunnel Endpoint (TEP) IP Addresses: Each hypervisor host or NSX-T Edge node is assigned a unique TEP IP address as its tunnel endpoint. These addresses are used for encapsulating and decapsulating overlay traffic between different endpoints. Overlay Transport Zone (OTZ) : An Overlay Transport Zone defines the scope of network communication within an overlay infrastructure. TEP IP ad

NSX-T is VMware's network virtualization and security platform, which enables the creation of virtual networks and security policies that are decoupled from physical network hardware. VMware has been investing heavily in NSX-T in recent years, and it is considered a critical component of VMware's broader cloud management and automation portfolio. The future of NSX-T looks promising, as it continues to evolve and expand its capabilities to support modern cloud and application architectures. Some of the key trends that are likely to shape the future of NSX-T include: NSX-T is an essential component of VMware's vision for software-defined networking (SDN) and network virtualization, which aims to make it easier for organizations to build and manage complex network environments. Some of the key features and capabilities of NSX-T include: Network virtualization: NSX-T enables the creation of virtual networks that are decoupled from physical network hardware. This allows organiza

NSX-T logical routing is a powerful feature of the NSX-T networking and security platform that allows for flexible and scalable routing of traffic between virtual and physical networks. With NSX-T logical routing, you can create logical routers that can route traffic between virtual networks, physical networks, and even across different cloud environments. In this article, we will explore the benefits of NSX-T logical routing, how it works, and some best practices for its implementation. Benefits of NSX-T Logical Routing NSX-T logical routing offers several key benefits, including: Scalability: NSX-T logical routing provides a scalable solution for routing traffic between virtual and physical networks, allowing you to easily scale your network infrastructure as your organization grows. Flexibility: NSX-T logical routing provides a flexible solution for routing traffic between different networks and cloud environments, allowing you to easily connect your virtual and physical infrastruct

 According to VMware, “Micro-segmentation enables organizations to logically divide its data center into distinct security segments down to the individual workload level, and then define security controls and deliver services for each unique segment.” (Lawrence Miller, CISSP and Joshua Soto, 2015, p. 21) The benefit of micro-segmentation is that it denies an attacker the opportunity to pivot laterally within the internal network, even after the perimeter has been breached. VMware NSX-T supports micro-segmentation as it allows for a centrally controlled, yet distributed firewall to be attached directly to workloads within an organization’s network. The distribution of the firewall for the application of security policy to protect individual workloads is effective as rules can be applied that are specific to the requirements of each workload. The additional value that NSX-T provides is that the capabilities of NSX are not limited to homogenous vSphere environments, but support the hetero

  Bidirectional forward detection (BFD) is the protocol designed for detecting fast forwarding path failure detection various media types, encapsulations, topologies and routing protocols. BFD helps in providing a consistent failure detection method.  In NSX-T environment where Edge node in edge cluster exchange its BFD keep-alive status on management and tunnel (TEP/overlay) interface to get proper communication among each Edge/host transport nodes in NSX-T environment.                                                       Fig:1 (Credit: vmware.com) eg: When the standby Edge node on T0 gateway fails to receive keep-alive status on both (management & tunnels) interfaces then in that case its not going to become active as its already in standby state. What its looses is its interface communication either from management of overlay. Some features of BFD  High availability uses BFD to detect forwarding path failures. BFD provides a low-overhead detection of fault even on physical medi

NSX-T Data Center included two types of firewalls: Distributed Firewall    ( for east-west traffic ) Gateway Firewall        ( for north-south traffic )                                              Fig:1 (credit: vmware.com) The distributed firewall is a hypervisor, kernel-embedded stateful firewall:  It resides in the kernel of the hypervisor and outside the guest OS of the VM.  It controls the I/O path to and from the vNIC. The gateway firewall is used for north-south traffic between the NSX-T gateways and the physical network: Its is also called as perimeter firewall protect to and from the physical environment. It applies to Tier-0 and Tier-1 gateway uplinks and service interfaces.  It support both Tier-0 and Tier-1 gateway. If its applies to Tier-0 or Tier-1 gateway then HA status of that gateway should be active-standby. It is a centralized stateful service enforced on the NSX Edge node. Lets discuss both of the above firewall types in detail: Distributed Firewall DFW(Distributed

  This article explains how to extract the logs from NSX-T Edge nodes from CLI. Let's view the steps involved: 1) Login to NSX-T  Edge node using CLI from admin credentials. 2) Use of  " get support-bundle " for Log extraction. get support-bundle command will extract the complete logs from NSX-T manager/Edge nodes. nsx-manager-1> get support-bundle file support-bundle.tgz 3) Last step is to us e of " copy file support-bundle.tgz url " command. copy file will forward your collected logs from the NSX-T manager to the destination(URL) host from where you can download the logs. copy file support.bundle.tgz url scp://root@192.168.11.15/tmp Here, the URL specified is the ESXi host ( 192.168.11.15) under /tmp partition where logs will be copied and from there one can extract it for further log review. Happy Learning.  :)

NSX-T BGP Neighbor validation  BGP is one of the most popular options for establishing routing adjacencies between NSX and existing networks. It can be configured on the Tier-0 Logical Router . This article demonstrates various ways from where you can validate the BGP Neighbor status from T0 to its associated ToR switches into the rack. Let's get started.. Methods from where one could validate BGP status are as below. Using NSX-T Manager UI From NSX-T Edge CLI First thing first, let's discuss using NSX-T Manager UI method. Login to NSX-T Manager UI Click on MANAGER mode Click on Network Select the desired T0 Gateway > Action > Generate BGP Summary This will show the BGP Connection status.  If Connection status is showing as "ESTABLISHED". This means that T0 router has successfully peering with ToR switch. The second method where you can validate the BGP Connection status is from NSX-T Edge nodes. Steps involved: Login to NSX-T Edge node using SSH Get into the lo