BANNER-vGareth Lewis-VMware-vRealize-Network-Insight-vRNI-On-Prem-Install-and-Configure
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VMware vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) – Part 3 – Identity & Access Management via LDAP

In my previous articles, we installed (VMware vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) – Part 1 – Installation) and configured (VMware vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) – Part 2 – Configuration) our VMware vRealize Network Insight infrastructure.

Now that we have the vRNI components in place and happily collecting data, we’re going to take a quick detour and configure LDAP, enabling our users to log in using their domain credentials instead of the single local@admin user.

Continue reading → VMware vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) – Part 3 – Identity & Access Management via LDAP

BANNER-vGareth Lewis-VMware-vRealize-Network-Insight-vRNI-On-Prem-Install-and-Configure
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VMware vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) – Part 2 – Configuration

In my last vRealize Network Insight article (VMware vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) – Part 1 – Installation) we covered the initial installation of the on-premises Platform and Proxy/Collector appliances.

Following on from the installation we will begin looking at how we actually add data sources to vRNI in readiness for application discovery and data flow analysis.

In this article, we will add a vCenter Server and an NSX-T Manager.

Continue reading → VMware vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) – Part 2 – Configuration

BANNER-vGareth Lewis-VMware-vRealize-Network-Insight-vRNI-On-Prem-Install-and-Configure
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VMware vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) – Part 1 – Installation

In a nutshell, vRealize Network Insight delivers intelligent operations for software-defined networking and security. It helps customers build an optimised, highly-available, and secure network infrastructure across multi-cloud environments. It accelerates micro-segmentation planning and deployment, enables visibility across virtual and physical networks, and provides operational views to manage and scale the VMware NSX deployments.

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North East VMUG 2019 - Gareth-Lewis
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North East England VMUG – 26th September 2019

That didn’t disappoint! I’ve wanted to visit the North East England VMUG for sometime, so being asked to present at the user group made it all the more special. As I sit here in Newcastle International Airport waiting for my flight home, I thought I’d summarise the event for those who’ve never been to a VMUG event, are thinking of doing so in the future, or are thinking of speaking at a local VMUG.

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Deploying vSAN with vCenter Server Appliance

vSAN deployments in brownfield environments are simple. New hosts are configured based on projected workloads (plus points for utilising vSAN Ready Nodes), they’re purchased, racked, built, and absorbed into an existing vCenter workload domain before vSAN is finally enabled and configured. But how would we deploy vSAN into a greenfield environment? An environment with no vCenter, no shared storage, but only brand new ESXi hosts with valid (yet unconfigured) cache and capacity vSAN disks? As vSAN is reliant on vCenter for its operations, we seemingly have a chicken-and-egg scenario.

In this article, I detail the process of deploying (Stage 1) and configuring (Stage 2) a vCenter Server Appliance into a greenfield environment and, more specifically, onto a single-node vSAN cluster in hybrid-mode (Note – this is in no way supported by VMware for anything other than deploying vCenter and vSAN into a greenfield environment). I then add additional hosts to the cluster and configure vSAN storage and networking via the brilliant Cluster Quickstart tool (Stage 3), before applying a vSAN VM Storage policy to the vCenter Server Appliance (Stage 4). Once complete, our vSAN cluster will be ready to host live workloads.

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North East England VMware User Group VMUG
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North East England VMUG – 26th September 2019

The next North East England VMUG will be taking place on Thursday 26th September at the Royal Station Hotel, Newcastle, and I’m excited to be presenting alongside so many fantastic individuals from throughout the vCommunity.

My session will be covering VMware NSX Data Centre for vSphere (NSX-V) and, more specifically, a real world look at micro-segmentation and the implementation of a zero-trust environment. NSX makes this fairly easy thanks to a number of built-in tools, and we’ll explore how we can use the NSX Application Rule Manager to visualise application dependencies in order to start fleshing-out our Distributed Firewall rules.

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VMware vCenter Server Appliance – Reset Lost, Forgotten or Expired Root Password

Patching my lab’s vCenter Server Appliance this evening raised an issue whereby the root password had expired. Unable to login via root, I can still administer the appliance via a vCenter’s SSO domain account (administrator@vsphere.local, for instance), however, attempts to perform any updates will not be possible until the appliance’s root account password is reset. This an easy exercise, however, this is not possible via vSphere UI or console, only bash.

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VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere (NSX-V) – Dynamic Routing via OSPF

VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere (NSX-V) has been able to leverage dynamic routing via Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) for some time and, in this article, I detail the process of configuring OSPF on both an Edge Services Gateway (ESG) and a downstream Distributed Logical Router (DLR).

OSPF, a Link State Protocol and member of the Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) family (which also includes Routing Information Protocol (RIP), Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS), and Enhanced Internal Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)), enables all participating routers to dynamically exchange network topology information to calculate the best shortest path (cost) of a route’s destination.

Continue reading → VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere (NSX-V) – Dynamic Routing via OSPF