Virtualize the Net

Gabriel Maciel is one of the smartest NSX engineers that VMware has and part of a "Dream Team" of Latin American NSX experts such as Elver Sena, Raymundo Escobar and Stalin Pena. Particularly for the VCAP6-NV Deploy, you will notice Gabriel is one of the exam contributors so heed any advice he gives out (without breaking NDA of course!).

Today he presented "Section 7 - Perform Advanced VMware NSX Troubleshooting" in the LATAM chapter of @vBrownBag. Once the video is live I'll embed it into this post. The presentation is in Spanish but the advice is Universal :D

Here are some of the tips covered for the exam in this session in written form:

• HOL 1625 has everything you need to study for this topic
• The documentation is your best friend: https://pubs.vmware.com/NSX-62/index.jsp
• Apart from the Troubleshooting Guide mentioned in the blueprint, make sure to also study the Command Line Interface Reference manual! CLI is very important for both the exam and real life.
• Learn how to check Manager and Cluster Health through GUI
• Take advantage of Central commands that show information for the whole NSX deployment (new in 6.2)
• Learn how to check common controller issues, such as lack of space, a wrong deployment network, or an exhausted IP pool!
• Don't erase a failed controller unless 1) your other two have majority 2) you've already opened a case with GSS and uploaded logs 3) all other options are exhausted. There is normally a bigger problem that is manifested as a problem in the controller, so that needs to be fixed first.
• Very important to understand the limits that transport zones represent. Make sure the correct clusters are members. This ties in with cross-vCenter NSX in Section 6.
• Take advantage of the GUI troubleshooting tools to check for Flows and Logs, but be comfortable with the CLI options as well. Most networking guys will be happy that there is a CLI option to check all firewall rules applied to an interface or load balancer details.
• For Section 7.3 search for "service" in the CLI Reference and learn and practice the commands in the mentioned HOL.
• Gabriel keeps a document with all his frequently used commands - he graciously shared it with us for all vBrownBag listeners. You can download this document here.