Virtualize the Net

Wow, what a ride it has been.

This blog, from the beginning, has been dedicated to helping a current VMware admin who works in DataCenter Virtualization, to get accustomed with network virtualization, and a big thing for me has been pointing out free resources and opportunities to get the equivalent certs and training that this VMware administrator had to take. So I made posts like:

• Highlight the importance of hands on labs
• Study guides and videos created by the vCommunity 
• The great free ebooks created by VMware - NSX for vSphere and MicroSegmentation Day 1
• Certification tidbits, like current CCNA and VCP's could waive the VCP-NV course requirement and just take the exam 

I was able to talk from this point of view, since that was exactly me! The more I learned about NSX, and the more I looked for information, the more resources I found from amazing people who give a lot back for free. 

I'm also very proud to have been selected vExpertNSX in 2016. This was because I shared my enthusiasm for NSX with my VMUG, participated in SocialLabs, vBrownBag and the large latin community. There are many, many, many others that are ahead, technically, over me - this has always been the case in many things - but I decided that I would do my part in letting people know this is the next big thing. If anything, what I want people to feel is a sense of excitement of what's possible, that wasn't possible before!

I decided my first big milestone would be getting the VCP6-NV certification. You may remember from this post that the VCP6.2 NV beta dates coincided with Elver Sena's book release during VMworld (where I actually met him, and got my signed copy!). Meeting Elver was super cool (we got an interview in Spanish done), and having his book, plus the accessible cost of the exam, made me take the plunge, and I got the happy news today that I passed! I wholeheartedly recommend getting the premium edition from Pearson, as those 4 practice exams have lots of questions that I feel helped me a lot!




I think there is a lot more to come for NSX, much more than what we have already seen. I highlighted it is a unique product that offers capabilities no other product can match, especially in security. Likewise, it requires some skills, and busting silos inside companies. I even have some ideas for what will come in the future, when NSX will simply be able to handle all IT assets in the company, starting with IPAM. I know now its next step is that it will be able to handle all IT assets, being the one glue for real visibility and automation, on premises and in the cloud.

My next milestone> I'm looking forward to more experience with NSX (vExperts have both NSX and vRealize Network Insight licenses for homelab use, while vExpertNSX's have had it for a little more time than that) and taking on the VCAP6-NV exam. I already have some great vCommunity resources lined up from Gabriel Maciel and Clinton Prentice and Iwan Hoogendoorn. I just wish I had some real networking switches to play with, but I hear Tim Davis, the official Face of #vExpertNSX, may find some cheap for my homelab - and with a little work, we can make some cool blog posts!

If anything in this blog post, I want you to Get excited about NSX, and do something about it. Go for that first cert, push for a POC or some licenses in your company, and play with it. Dive deep. I guarantee you that it is time well spent, and may I hear about your success soon!

PD, if anyone is still thinking you can't download NSX, I would like to remind you that you can; because it's the only supported upgrade of VCNS, almost all paying customers can access the bits, and this has been the case since NSX 6.2.3. The documentation is public, you can play all day in the HOLs, and everything you need to "hop on" is available. 

VMware's Wade Holmes (VCDX #15) just released a NSX micro-segmentation book in time for the RSA conference. In about 70 pages he focuses on day 1 concepts and considerations. This is incredibly valuable, since the majority of companies begin their NSX journey by first adopting micro-segmentation.

The PDF book is free, and if you were lucky to attend the conference, you may get in in print! See the blog post and PDF link below:

https://blogs.vmware.com/networkvirtualization/2017/02/micro-segmentation-day-1.html#.WKceaW8rKUk

https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/products/nsx/vmware-nsx-microsegmentation.pdf

I will read this soon and provide a more in-depth commentary on the book; I am also planning a install series with more of a concept and mindset, and how to work with the networking/server/security teams overall.

End of support for VCNS was announced for September 2016. One of our vBrownBagLATAM members, Jorge Torres, was tasked with doing the upgrade to NSX and was getting conflicting information - the official docs said one thing and the actual AV product he was using was saying another thing, and he also needed to include a vSphere upgrade.

vBrownBag is a community of people helping each other learn. As such, we decided to do a session to review all of the documentation together and invited other experts to participate such as Elver Sena, author of the official VCP-NV book, and Stalin Pena, VCIX-NV. The result was the following session; I led by reviewing the main documentation available, Jorge did a specific session on his product and then we opened the conversation.

I'm happy to present this entry in this blog and introduce you to the world of vBrownBag if you didn't know about it!

http://vbrownbag.com/2016/11/2016-sep-15-vbrownbag-latam-upgrade-vcns-a-nsx-con-arielsanchezmora-j_kolkes-y-elvers_opinion/

I've been meaning to highlight the amazing work being done by Clinton Prentice, @clint_nz , at his blog vzealand.com. As you all probably know, the first VCIX-NV certification is being slowly replaced with deployment and design vcap6 certifications, which when combined would then become the new VCIX-NV.

Clinton is going through the VCAP6-NV Deploy blueprint (1.2 from what I can tell) doing a blog (with practical demo!) for each of the blueprint items. It's phenomenal, difficult and time consuming work, and I just want to make sure he gets the shout outs he deserves :) Definitely will be a shoe-in the next time vExpertNSX applications open!

You can see all his posts by accessing his tag directly:

https://vzealand.com/category/vcap6-nv-study-guide/

As far as I know, this is the only public study guide on this new certification so far - not to take away from previous VCIX-NV study guides such as Iwan's http://www.vcix-nv.com/vcix-nv-study-guide/

I figured I hadn't showcased the VMware NSX Youtube channel. There's great videos in there that you can't find anywhere else, as well as in the main VMware channel. Pay attention also to their playlists, as they have great compilations that include videos that are not particularly on their channel, but complement - such as the OpenvSwitch videos with Ben Pfaff.

I leave you with this very fun "Introduction to NSX" video - can't believe this one is 3 years old!

This is a very quick recap of some major events which have happened within the last few months regarding NSX:

1) The first major licensing change for NSX was announced back in May 2016. If you are buying NSX today, you should read KB 2145269 . The typical customer that starts with micro-segmentation needs at least the Advanced tier, while customers upgrading from VCNS (which is no longer under support on September 19, 2016) can use the cheapest version of the product. This post by the register is a nice summary.

2) NSX 6.2.3 was recalled as it had problems (KB 2146227 and KB 2146293 are two examples) that caused downtime. 6.2.4 was released shortly after to correct this, and customers were advised to skip 6.2.3. This link is great to keep up to date with any NSX KBs and issues: http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/nsx

3) VCP-NV Exam news : the first version of the VCP-NV exam, VCPN610, was retired on November 30, 2015. The current version is called VCP6-NV and its code is 2V0-641. This is based on NSX v6.0. A new version of the exam, 2V0-642 which is based on NSX 6.2, is now in Beta (go to mylearn.vmware.com, head to the Pearson site using the new single sign on, and check under the Beta category). At a cost of only $50, it's worth taking, even if the timeline makes this more of a "practice run" than a serious study target. 

4) The official study guide for the VCP6-NV 2V0-641 was officially released August 17. This book was written by Elver Sena Sosa, who I had the pleasure to meet in VMworld (more on that in another post). I bought my copy and had him sign it :)

Right now you can get it a discount using this post-VMworld promotion: http://www.pearsonitcertification.com/promotions/vmware-press-138356

If the promotion expires, you can also get it from my Amazon affiliate link below and you would automagically send me a very small cut of the sale price :)

NSX 6.2.3 was released June 9. It's really an important release, although not a major one. I think a lot of the features are being added in response to actual customers hitting deployment limitations that no one had bothered to finish implementing. You can check the full release here

Some of the more important updates were:

• Change in the VXLAN UDP port from 8472 to 4789
• Hardware VTEP
• Lots of UI & management enhancements
• Log Insight for NSX now available

However, there is one big consequence that ended being quite the nice surprise.

Change in default license & evaluation key distribution: default license upon install is "NSX for vShield Endpoint", which enables use of NSX for deploying and managing vShield Endpoint for anti-virus offload capability only. Evaluation license keys can be requested through VMware sales.

What this means is huge. If you had vShield in your organization, the upgrade path is NSX. Since you had access to vShield before, you get access to NSX now.

Note: vShield isn't a high requirement. vShield Endpoint is part of Essentials Plus and up. Most enterprise vSphere customers will now see the NSX 6.2.3 download available if they look for the vSphere binaries, even if they choose version v5.5 (that is still the minimum, but please install the latest for your labs)



With this, the "floodgates" have opened and much more people have access to the NSX bits. You still need a real license to play with all the features, but at least the NSX OVA is in your hands and you can start deploying it and learning.

One can expect to see more NSX content out there, and also, I would think a lot of content and community presentations for people upgrading from vShield to this new NSX level.

I think VMware has released this at a good time and hopefully soon I'll add my grain of salt and help everyone that came from being a vSphere admin in learning NSX.

I just came back from manning the Q&A interface on the Mission VMUG event. I was able to translate my VMUG presentation into Spanish and join other 5 friends . I'm switching to Spanish now

Hola amigos de Latinoamérica! Fue un honor participar en las sesiones de comunidad de este evento. Fue muy divertido ponernos de acuerdo entre todos para asegurarnos q esta oportunidad de presentar en un evento global de VMUG en espanol! 

Grabe dos sesiones "Como le explicaria NSX a un colega en 10 minutos" y "¡Entra en la comunidad virtual!". Aqui dejo las presentaciones para que puedan aprovechar los links :)

Aqui están los twitter handles de todos los presentadores en Espanol:
@virtualizecr @arielsanchezmor @DavidMirror @kylemurley @stalin_pena @pipoe2h