Another year another VMworld!
I got registered early this morning and headed to the HandOnLabs. Lots of 19xx labs, but nothing groundbreaking that I noticed – mostly updates. Hopefully any big announcements will release cool labs.
I tried challenge labs for the first time and the NSX one (SPL-1992-01-CHG) has a lot of depth – the first hour or so is learning the environment, then they have you launch a powershell script that provides a whole bunch of troubleshooting scenarios. Selecting a scenarios kicks off a script to break the environment, leaving you to fix it. Pretty cool stuff. I’ll have to dig into it more after VMworld.
I also got on track for Cloud Cred who have lots of giveaways all week incl Go Pros and Drone, plus there is a VMware {code} program (vmcc) that is also gamifying learning by giving you “coins” for different activities (incl HoL) but the have a little store in the {code] booth in the hangspace where you can cash in the coins for things like tshirts and phone chargers.
Goody bag for vExpert at the {code} desk and one for being NSX certified at the Cert desk.
Tried to sign up to take the new 3V0-21.18 VCAP DCV Deploy (on vSphere 6.5) exam but the exam is not available for sign ups yet.
Sessions
Hit 4 sessions today – when did they start making 30min sessions? That is not a lot of time!
HCI1475QU : Demystifying vSAN Management for the Traditional Storage Administrator
Pete Koehler, Sr Technical Marketing Architect, VMware
This session packed a whole bunch of info into the time available.
A brief overview of traditional vs vSAN followed by some of the differences and then some of the key things to know about vSAN.
Takeaways:
vSAN is truly-clustered, object-store based on block storage.
The network is the storage fabric
Functionality is based on the number of hosts
If you size to the minimum hosts required you can’t recover before a host is added.
Need ~30% slack space plus the failure mode requirements for overhead.
Performance and Availability are set per-VM
DEV1965QU
QuickStart DevOps Culture with VMware
Marshall Massengill Senior Consultant, VMware
This was a quick overview of DevOps and a brief discussion of how a DevOps implementation by VMware might look.
Takeaways:
Did you know VMware would come over and teach you DevOps?
DevOps can’t be downloaded.
People, Technology, products
Can use a structured approach with one company’s framework or a best-of-breed which might be more chaotic
NET1631QU
NSX Data Center for vSphere Hardware Gateway Solution
Hongya Qu Staff Engineer 2, Architect, VMware
Hardware VTEPs with NSX. Who, when, why.
Takeaways:
Use software bridge if the VLAN is available to a vDS unless you have scalability/performance needs
Use case: Migrate, Integration, L2 stretch
OVSDB is the protocol NSX will use to talk to the HW gateway to setup the interaction.
Can use GUI or API to setup w/ NSX
You add hosts to use as “replicators” so the hardware gateway doesn’t need to handle BUM traffic
Troubleshoot control plane then data plane
Can use redundant hardware gateways w/ BFD
Not available with NSX-T/NSX-Cloud (yet)
Quite a few vendors (incl Cisco 9k tho that was not mentioned in the presentation)
NET2155QU
Troubleshooting for VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere
Hammad Alam Lead Solutions Architect- Networking and Security, VMware
Everything you can learn about NSX troublshooting in 34min.
The organization really stood out here as this should be a several-hour lecture (or 4-day ILT) but he got the overview and covered the basics in just over 30min.
Takeaways:
level 1: Know the basics of NSX and your environment
level 2: Use VMware tools VRNI, Log Insight, NSX UI
level 3:Use third party tools like wireshark w/ packet capture
Native tools are closest to the truth
PowerOps is amazing and shows config state vs actual state (router config vs route table)
Caught up with some clients and some folks that knew me from the VCAP/TestTrack days. Heading to bed to get a good start on tomorrow.
