Designing vSphere for 10Gb converged networking, with Cisco UCS, Nexus 1000V and NetIOC
Posted on 01.Nov 2011 by Ray Heffer in ESXi, NetIOC, Networking, Vblock, Virtualisation, VMware, vSphere 5Whilst working on a Vblock 300 implementation a few weeks ago I had an interesting conversation with one of the network architects at VCE and we discussed the subject of best practices surrounding 10Gb and 1Gb networking. Traditionally with 1Gb networking it is best practice to separate traffic on your ESX/ESXi hosts with vSwitches (or dvPortGroups) dedicated to each type of traffic (vMotion, Management, Storage, production networking) and typically designs will contain 6 to 8 NIC’s per host. With the introduction of 10Gb networking, I’ve noticed that some implementations have neglected to include some important design considerations regarding the use of 10Gb networking. Lets say for that we present 4 x 10Gb NIC’s to each host (these are vNIC’s in the Cisco UCS world) or we can present 6 x 1Gb NIC’s using traditional methods of separating the traffic into various dvportGroups. Which is best? Can we get away with just 2 x 10Gb NIC’s or do we need more? The key consideration here isn’t how many NIC’s (or vNIC’s) are presented to each host, but rather how much network bandwidth is available to each traffic type (i.e. vMotion, FT Logging, VM traffic) and critically how we control it. 
VCP5 (VMware Certified Professional on vSphere 5) VCP510 Exam Experience… I passed!
Posted on 05.Oct 2011 by Ray Heffer in ESXi, VCP5, Virtualisation, VMware, vSphere 5
Today I took the VCP510 exam and passed, so I thought I would share my thoughts on this latest certification by VMware. Firstly, I’m in the middle of the VCAP exams, having just completed the VCAP-DCA4 and will soon start studying for the VCAP-DCD4. Why take the VCP exam based on a new version now? Well, mainly because I’ve already been on the VMware vSphere: What’s New [V5.0] course and most of the contents are still fresh in memory. Secondly having passed the VCAP-DCA4 exam, with the next one being design focused I can pretty much focus on design best practices regardless of the version (although there are obvious differences).
After spending a week working down-under in Perth, I managed to get some time off this week to recover from the jet lag, so what better way than spending a few days refreshing my memory and doing LOTS of lab work with vSphere 5!
Much of my focus was around the vSphere Storage Appliance (vSA), vCenter Server Appliance and Auto Deploy and I must admit after reading some other comments I didn’t focus too much on configuration maximums (still glanced over them).
I can’t go into the specifics of the exam, as per the usual NDA, but here are my thoughts… 

