VMware vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) VMworld 2020 Announcements

In an effort to continue to give you deeper visibility into your environment, vRNI has some great updates being released at VMworld.  vRNI has always been a great end to end tool but now with assurance and verification giving you the ability to perform intent verification, with network wide visibility, and proactive operations based on … Read more

Importance of VMware NSX-T in the Modern Datacenter VMworld 2020

Back in the day security inside a datacenter was a lot simpler.  You had workloads running onprem and inside the network they were “secure” and you put a firewall on the parameter to keep threats out.  However, with applications living everywhere from traditional infrastructure, private clouds, hybrid clouds, public clouds, and on the edge it … Read more

Useful Cheat Sheet CLI for VMware NSX-T

I just wanted to take a moment to write a quick article on some useful commands I use for troubleshooting NSX-T 2.4 By no means is this everything and I will update this article routinly. How to find VTEP (Tunnel End Points)From NSX Manager#get logical-switch vtep From ESXi Host to display TEP end point#esxcfg-vmnic -land#esxcli … Read more

How to Install NSX-T (Part 2) – Deploy Compute Manger

As this journey continues the next step in deploying NSX-T 2.4 after deploying your first Manager is to add a new compute manager.  This article will be a quick one because it is a quick and easy process.  Woohoo! Other Articles in my serieshttps://digitalthoughtdisruption.com/2019/07/01/how-to-install-nsx-t-2-4-part-1-1st-nsx-manager/https://digitalthoughtdisruption.com/2019/07/03/how-to-install-nsx-t-2-4-part-2-deploy-compute-manger/https://digitalthoughtdisruption.com/2019/07/08/how-to-install-nsx-t-2-4-part-3-deploying-2nd-3rd-nsx-manager/https://digitalthoughtdisruption.com/2019/07/11/how-to-install-nsx-t-2-4-part-4-transport-zone-creation-uplink-profile-tep-ip-pool-configure-nsx-t-for-esxi/https://digitalthoughtdisruption.com/2019/07/15/how-to-install-nsx-t-2-4-part-5-the-war-that-was-setting-up-edge-vms-and-edge-cluster-on-n-vds/ Heads up:This is where having all the required ports open are … Read more

VMware NSX-T – Create (TEP) IP Pool

I know with NSX-T there are plenty of terminology tossed around. Here is another one for you in the tunnel endpoint (TEP) 🙂You may ask, “What is a TEP and why should I care?” Short and simple answer is a TEP enables ESXi hosts to participate in an NSX-T overlay network. Why should I care? … Read more

NSX-T – Deploy Segment (Logical Switch)

A single logical switch is mapped to a unique Geneve segment that is distributed across the ESXi hosts in a transport zone. The logical switch supports line-rate switching in the ESXi host without the constraints of VLAN sprawl or spanning tree issues. A segment is a representation of layer-2 connectivity across transport nodes (ESXi Hosts), … Read more

NSX-T – Deploying Tier-1 (T1) Router

A Tier-1 Gateway can span multiple ESXi and KVM hosts.  A Distributed Router can provide local routing between different segments on a host. A DR also provides distributed east-west routing functionality across hosts. Things to know about a T1: T1 uplinks to a T0 router T1 has down links to segments Owned and config by … Read more

NSX-T – Attach a Tier-1 Gateway to Tier-0 Gateway

When it comes to a multi-tier router architecture you will be connecting Tier-1 router(s) to an existing Tier-0 router. East-West routing is performed by the DR (distributed Router) in the Tier-1 router.  The Tier-0 provides services and external connectivity.  Some things to be aware of: When the service and distributed routers are created, they are … Read more

NSX-T – Deploying Tier-0 (T0) Router

One of the things I like about NSX-T is the ability to deploy Tier-1 and Tier-0 routers. The T0 is the gateway that bridges the virtual world to the physical world. Below you will find a screenshot of the logical architecture followed by a step by step process to deploy a T0 router in your … Read more

Deploying a Domain in NSX-T

As I continue my blogging series on deploying NSX-T 2.4 in your environment, my next topic will be Domains. This will be a quick blog as there is not a lot about setting up Domains. Domains will pop up a lot when configuring NSX-T.  They are great for logically grouping a collection of workloads and … Read more

Deploying NAT Services on NSX-T

There may be instances when you want to leverage NSX-T for NAT services and not an external NAT services. Thanks to the simplified management of NSX-T deploying these services is easy. Terms:Source NAT (SNAT): translates a source IP address of outbound packets so that packets appears as originating from a different network Destination NAT (DNAT): … Read more