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Posts from the ‘Networking’ Category

VMware vSAN, Cisco UCS and Cisco ACI information

I’ve had a few questions regarding VMware vSAN with Cisco ACI.

While mostly the guidance for ACI is the same there are a few vendor specific considerations. upon internal testing we found some recommended configuration advise and specific concerns for the multicast querier. For more information see this new storage hub section of the networking guide. 

If your looking for General vSAN networking advice, be sure to read the networking guide.

If your looking for Cisco’s documentation regarding UCS servers and VMware vSAN it can be found here.

If your looking for guidance on configuring Cisco Controllers and HBA’s Peter Keilty has some great blogs on this topic. As a reminder while I would strongly prefer the Cisco HBA over the RAID controller if you use the RAID controller you will need the cache module to have proper queue depths.

 

KeyNote Part1

VMware: EVO:RAIL – It looks like our shift to SuperMicro for VSAN was the right choice. Will be be looking for
EVO:Rack – A vBlock without limits? We will see.

OpenStack – VMware is doing a massive amounts of code push to OpenStack so OpenStack can control vSphere, NSX etc allowing for people to run VMware API’s and OpenStack API’s for higher level functionality.

Containers – Docker, Google, Pivotal are allowing very clean and consistent operational deployments.

NSX – Moving security from the edge to Layer 2. Get ready to hear “Zero Trust networking”. The biggest challenge in Enterprise shops is they are going to have to define and understand their networking needs on a granular level. For once network security ability will outrun operational understanding. If your a Sysadmin today get ready to have to understand and defend every TCP connection your application makes, but take comfort in that policy engines will allow this discussion to only have to happen once.

Cloud Volumes – While I’m most excited about this as a replacement for Persona, there are so many use cases (Physical, Servers, Thinapp, Profiles, VDI) that I know its going to take some serious lab time to understand where all we can use this.

vCloud Air – In a final attempt to get SE’s everywhere to quit calling it “Veee – Cheese” VMware is re-branding the name. I was skeptical last year, but have found a lot of interest in clients in recent months as Hurricane Seasons closes in Houston

Its Christmas for Cisco fans…

While everyone else is focusing on the new Nexus/68xx switches that allow for enough bandwidth to handle all video traffic for a couple eastern small countries I’m going to look at the stuff thats a little more practical.

The smallest product released are the new Compact Switch upgrades that include the following.

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