With Hardware VTEP being implemented in, well, hardware, how things work depends on capabilities of the underlying chipset. This means that when we design solutions using these products, we need to keep these capabilities in mind and configure things accordingly.
In this short post I’ll cover a situation we’ve encountered at one of our customers where things “should” have worked but didn’t, and what was the reason for that.
This post is next in series on using HW VTEPs with NSX-v. You can find earlier posts here: 1, 2, and 3.
Today we’ll look at a couple of choices you’ll need to make when deploying Brocade’s HW VTEP, and then check if our configuration is correct before linking it with NSX-v next time.
In a couple of previous blog posts, we’ve looked at the use cases for HW VTEPs. Now, let’s start digging a bit deeper.
In this instalment, we’ll have a look at what things you need to think about when planning your Hardware VTEP deployment. While I’ll be using Brocade VCS as the HW VTEP for this post, some of this info should be applicable to other Vendors’ solutions.
..which includes the session on NSX Troubleshooting methodology that I presented.
Start page:
http://www.vmworld.com/en/sessions/2015.html
To find my session called “NET5488 – Troubleshooting Methodology for VMware NSX”, search for “NET5488”. Both US and Europe versions are available.
In this session, I walk through how NSX-v’s VXLAN-based logical switching works, what commands you can use to see what’s happening under the covers, and how to make sense of what you’re seeing. This should provide a good base for your troubleshooting practice.
(Hat tip to @ericsiebert and @scott_lowe for the info that sessions are now online, free for all)
It is fairly common for VMs to talk to SMB / NFS shares hosted by physical storage arrays, or send their backups to physical appliances.
In this blog post, we’ll have a look at connectivity options for this use case.
VMware NSX for vSphere has been shipping beta support for hardware VTEPs since version 6.2.0, with General Availability (GA) coming in the next few months. With this in mind, I thought it would be useful to provide an overview of HW VTEP’s use cases and considerations.
Nested ESXi is a staple of resource-strapped labs. There is, however, a little something that’s worth keeping in mind when using NSX-v / VXLAN.
#NET5488: Troubleshooting Methodology for VMware NSX (for vSphere, v6.2):
I designed the pack to be read, so hopefully you find it useful without the recording. For those who have attended VMworld, both US and Europe sessions were recorded. You should be able to watch them on vmworld.com.
Not sure which one (US or EU) went better, to be frank. 🙂
This article has been re-published as a KB: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2122060
NSX for vSphere supports three VXLAN Control Plane modes:
None of these is “simply better” than others; each has it’s positive and negative sides. In this post, I’m covering how each mode works along with some of those negatives and positives, to hopefully help you can make a better informed choice for your circumstances.
Telecom Occasionally 