Showing posts with label access to the bits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label access to the bits. Show all posts

Thursday, March 2, 2017

A "Thank You" post - passed the VCP-NV 2V0-642! A look back

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:



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 VMUGparticipated in SocialLabsvBrownBag 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. 

Friday, June 17, 2016

NSX 6.2.3 and some exciting news for current customers with access to vShield

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.