The following four part series are based on announcements made at VMworld 2014 US and EMEA.
- Part 1 – vCloud Suite, vCloud Air, and vRealize Cloud Management Platform (CMP) Exposed
- Part 2 – VMware Announces Software Defined Infrastructure with EVO:RAIL
- Part 3 – NSX 6.1 Announced, Contains Plethora of Enhancements
- Part 4 – VMware Integrated OpenStack (VIO) Aims to Provide Simplified, Enterprise Grade OpenStack
- Part 5 – vRealize Suite 6.0 – The One Ring To Bind Them
- Part 6 – The Bajillion Spiffy Upgrades to vRealize Operations 6.0
- Part 7 – vRealize Automation and Operations Play Nice Together
Additionally, these announcements were appended:
- Now Available – VMware Certified Professional (VCP) in Network Virtualization
- vMotion Enhancements for vSphere 6 Announced
The following guides walk through the installation and configuration of various components within NSX. You can also view all posts by selecting the Working With NSX category.
- Part 1 – Deploying NSX Manager
- Part 2 – Assigning User Permissions
- Part 3 – Deploying NSX Controllers via GUI and API
- Part 4 – Preparing the Cluster and Hosts
- Part 5 – Configuring VXLAN and VTEPs
- Part 6 – Creating NSX API Calls with PowerShell
- Part 7 – Fixing VTEPs and Building Logical Switches
- Part 8 – Layer 2 Bridging
Released on August 26th, 2013, vSphere 5.5 ushered in a vast amount of improvements and new products / solutions. This 9 part series covers the vast majority of interesting tidbits.
- Part 1 – The New Hotness in ESXi 5.5
- Part 2 – Pushing For A Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC)
- Part 3 – Lions, Tigers, and 62TB VMDKs
- Part 4 – Virtual SAN (VSAN)
- Part 5 – vSphere Flash Read Cache (vFlash)
- Part 6 – Site Recovery Manager (SRM) and vSphere Replication
- Part 7 – Single Sign On Completely Redesigned
- Part 8 – Network Virtualization with NSX
- Part 9 – Networking and VDS Razzle Dazzle
Guides related to vCenter upgrades, migrations, and certificates:
- The Upgrade Process From vCenter 5.1 to 5.5
- Lumension Endpoint Management Does Not Play Well with vCenter Server
- Migrating a vCenter Server Installation? Don’t Forget Your SSL Certificates!
- Setting Up Multiple Sites within a Single vCenter SSO 5.5 Authentication Domain
- Installing vCenter SSO 5.5 in a vCenter 5.1 Environment
Features and user experience in vSphere 5.5:
- Exploring Enhanced LACP Support with vSphere 5.5
- Examining the User Experience in the new vSphere 5.5 Web Client [Video]
Released on August 27th, 2012, vSphere 5.1 introduced some heartaches with Single Sign-On (SSO) but also added a ton of really handy features for storage, compute, and networking.
- Part 1 – Network Health Check
- Part 2 – Configuration Backups and Rollbacks
- Part 3 – Port Mirror and NetFlow Enhancements
- Part 4 – LACP, SR-IOV, Elastic Ports, and More
I’ve also provided a fair number of reference posts on vCenter Single Sign-On (SSO):
- Successfully Installing vCenter SSO Part 1 – SQL Database
- Successfully Installing vCenter SSO Part 2 – Service Installation
Here are posts to help you upgrade from 5.0 to 5.1:
- vCenter 5.1 Upgrade Planned? Verify SSL Certificate Checking
- Tips for a Successful vCenter 5.0 to 5.1 Upgrade
- Granting AD Accounts Administrative Access to vCenter SSO
This four part series covers many of the misconceptions around NFS and offers a variety of design methods using different network segmentation strategies and teaming policies.
- NFS on vSphere Part 1 – A Few Misconceptions
- NFS on vSphere Part 2 – Technical Deep Dive on Same Subnet Storage Traffic
- NFS on vSphere Part 3 – Technical Deep Dive on Multiple Subnet Storage Traffic
- NFS on vSphere Part 4 – Technical Deep Dive on Load Based Teaming
NFS Guides
Various guides that cover the use of NFS
- Seriously, Stop Using Port Channels for vSphere Storage Traffic
- How To Reclaim Unused Disk Space on NFS Storage
- Online Migration Of vSphere NFS Mount Points
- Cisco UCS Appliance Ports for NFS Storage
- The Necessity for NFS VMkernel Ports Explained
- Using PowerShell to Manage NetApp NFS Export Permissions (ACLs)
- A Look At NFS on VMware
iSCSI
If you’re looking to use iSCSI storage in your home or work environment, here’s a number of articles that address various pitfalls and tips: