Network Native

In my personal journey to understand NSX, I've found the greatest understanding to come from the NSX Design Guide. As it so happens, when I decided to write this blog (Dec 30, 2022), I noticed VMware released a new design guide on December 5th. This gave the perfect opportunity to write new blog posts as they relate to topics in the design guide. My intention is to write a series of blog post that give concrete examples corresponding to the section headings in the design guide. The reader will hopefully get a better understanding of the ideas being conveyed in the design guide, and I get to flesh out my understanding of the topic by explaining it.  The NSX design guide can be found here:  https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-NSX-Documents/VMware-NSX-T-Reference-Design/ta-p/2778093?attachment-id=110654 Starting on page 18, we've got an introduction to the NSX Architecture Components. To start, we've got the NSX management cluster. NSX can function with only a single NSX ...

While working at VMware I learned the value of capturing packets inside of an ESXi hypervisor. I used packet capture so frequently I memorized the commands. Let me explain the basics of ESXi packet capture in this post. A network engineer's most precise tool to figure out what is happening in the network is always going to be a packet capture. Fortunately, ESXi hypervisors make this easy. My baseline of comparison? Packet capturing on physical networking infrastructure, such as a Cisco switch. With Cisco, the process entails creating a monitor port, connecting a cable to the switch, attaching a computer with a packet sniffer and finally, collecting and analyzing the packets with an application such as Wireshark. With ESXi packet capturing, the most cumbersome aspect is remembering the incredibly long commands! My pcap (packet capture) commands can be referenced in VMware's official documentation: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-703-net...

I was there for my second DEFCON and it was AMAZING! DEFCON 30 was on August 11th through August 14 of 2022. Here are my thoughts on what made it worthwhile for me. DEFCON brings into focus a fracture in my life. I don't think I'm the only one who experiences this fracture. For the people who know me IRL (in real life), it requires some explaining to express what DEFCON is. For most of the people that I personally know, I simply state that DEFCON a tech conference in Las Vegas. For someone not interested or immersed in technology, who would know the difference between a tech conference and a hacker conference? Does it even matter?  Herein lies the reason why DEFCON has appeal for me. Socializing with other tech oriented people is the primary reason I attend DEFCON. There is a certain frustration a person experiences when  you don't have peers who understand or relate to your passions or interests. DEFCON is a 4 day catharsis for said frustration. There IS a difference betwe...

In this post, I will discuss NSX vSphere Installation Bundles (VIBs). When installing NSX, one must perform the action of "preparing" the ESXi host. To prepare the host, it means install the requisite NSX VIBs on the ESXi host. If you're coming from a purely networking background, you might be wondering, "What is a VIB"? VIBs are basically drivers, or bundles of software, that give ESXi enhanced or distinct software abilities. Even in cases where NSX is not installed, ESXi hosts will have VIBs installed to perform its day-to-day server virtualization functions.   Non-NSX VIBs List VIBs Command: esxcli software vib list To give the ESXi host NSX capabilities such as Network Function Virtualization, NSX specific VIBs must be installed on the host. During host preparation, the VIBs are pushed from the NSX-T Manager to the host. Lets take a look at those vibs and I'll give a description of what each of them do. You'll notice in the image below that the NSX V...