VCP-NV - Objective 1.1 Describe the Benefits of a VMware NSX Implementation

Hi,

I will be now diving in to each objectives covering the Blue Print one at a time.

Objective 1.1 – Describe the Benefits of a VMware NSX Implementation

With network virtualization, the functional equivalent of a “network hypervisor” reproduces the complete set of Layer 2 to Layer 7 networking services (e.g., switching, routing, access control, firewalling, QoS, and load balancing) in software. As a result, they too can be programmatically assembled in any arbitrary combination, this time to produce a unique virtual network in a matter of seconds.
Not surprisingly, similar benefits are also derived. For example, just as VMs are independent of the underlying x86 platform and allow IT to treat physical hosts as a pool of compute capacity, virtual networks are independent of the underlying IP network hardware and allow IT to treat the physical network as a pool of transport capacity that can be consumed and repurposed on demand.

More importantly, network virtualization provides a strong foundation for resolving the networking challenges keeping today’s organizations from realizing the full potential of the software defined data center.

With NSX, virtual networks are programmatically created, provisioned and managed, utilizing the underlying physical network as a simple packet forwarding backplane. Network and security services in software are distributed to hypervisors and “attached” to individual VMs in accordance with networking and security policies defined for each connected application. When a VM is moved to another host, its networking and security services move with it. And when new VMs are created to scale an application, the necessary policies are dynamically applied to those VMs as well.

NSX is completely non-disruptive solution:

• Deploys on hypervisors connected to any existing physical network infrastructure and supports nextgeneration fabrics and topologies from any vendor;
• Requires no changes to existing applications and workloads
• Allows IT departments to incrementally implement virtual networks at whatever pace they choose (without any impact to existing applications and network configurations)
• Extends visibility to existing networking monitoring and management tools to deliver increased visibility into virtualized networks

NSX is a multi-hypervisor solution that leverages the vSwitches already present in server hypervisors across the data center. NSX coordinates these vSwitches and the network services pushed to them for connected VMs to effectively deliver a platform – or “network hypervisor” – for the creation of virtual networks.

NSX works with

• Any application. Workloads/applications need not be modified in anyway as the virtual network appears no different to them than the physical network.
• Any hypervisor. Out-of-the box support is available for many hypervisors (e.g., Xen, KVM, and VMware ESXi), while coverage can be extended to others (e.g., Microsoft Hyper-V) by re-configuring them to incorporate standard vSwitch capabilities.
• Any network infrastructure. Hardware independence is achieved based on the fact that NSX virtual networks require nothing more than connectivity and packet-forwarding from the underlying IP infrastructure.
• Any cloud management platform. Out-of-the-box support is available for many cloud management platforms (including CloudStack, OpenStack, VMware vCloud Automation Center,), and integration with other management platforms is provided through the NSX API.

NSX simplifies networking by abstracting virtual networks from the underlying physical network and enables increased automation. Operators dont need to interact with VALNs, ACL, STP.

Physical Netwok only requires to to deliver reliable high-speed Packet forwarding so any physical hardware combination may work as long as they are compatible on that layer.

As its virtual network runs in its own address space, NSX proivdes isolation, security and network segmentation very granularly.

Some other benefits can be listed as follows:

• Streamlines ongoing administration, monitoring, and troubleshooting by enhancing network visibility and eliminating the need to navigate and maintain VLANs, ACLs, and complex firewall rule sets
• Obviates the need to invest in separate, standalone solutions for many of the networking and security functions that are fundamental to data center networking, including distributed routing, firewalling and load balancing
• Requires fewer switch ports and less switching capacity overall – as a result of reducing the need for standalone networking and security appliances and eliminating the need for traffic hair-pinning, respectively
• Allows selection of least-cost networking equipment – as all that’s needed when building/extending physical networks are basic forwarding and resiliency capabilities
• Enables “data center de-fragmentation” – as server utilization can be optimized across application/networking pods and even greater degrees of data center consolidation can be achieved
• Eliminates the need to purchase new networking equipment and/or conduct forklift upgrades in order to take advantage of new innovations in networking technology
• Supports development, testing, and production “environments” all on the same physical infrastructure

The result is the ability for both enterprises and service providers to save lot of dollars in periodic and recurring costs associated with their networks.

I will put the 1.2 shortly so please give some time ;-) and visit the Blog again.

Share and care !

VCP-IaaS Objective 3.2 Configure and Generate vCenter Chargeback Reports

In preparation for the VCP-IaaS Exam majority of the blueprint items are covered by @lhjartarson on his blog, but few objectives are probably in progress or never finished so to help the readers and the VMware community I am putting down here "Objective 3.32 Configure and Generate vCenter Chargeback Reports" from the blueprint of VCPVCD510 Exam Blueprint Version 1.2 (Updated 26 July 2011).

Objective 3.2 – Configure and Generate vCenter Chargeback Reports

Knowledge

• Identify vCenter Chargeback report types
• Identify components of the reporting dashboard
• Given a reporting requirement, determine what report type should be run
• Schedule reports
• Manage archived reports
• Generate custom reports

There are four types of reports one can generate in Chargeback Manager 

vCenter Chargeback Manager enables you to generate following reports for a chargeback hierarchy and for entities in the hierarchy.

1 Cost Reports - A cost report provides the cost and utilization information for each computing resource for the hierarchy or entity on which the report is generated based on the cost configured in the hierarchy and the cost model selected during report generation.

2 Usage Reports - A usage report is similar to a cost report except that it provides only the computing resource utilization data. This report type is useful when you only want to analyze the resource utilization for various entities in a hierarchy.

3 Cost Comparison Reports - A cost comparison report enables you to compare the costs for each resource and entity based on two different cost models.

4 Showback Reports - A showback report lets you analyse how the costs are distributed among the entities based on a specified distribution policy. This report type is useful when you know the total cost and want to analyze how this cost is distributed among the entities by selecting different distribution policies.

Report Dashboard

vCenter Chargeback Manager provides a report dashboard that displays various graphs providing information about the resource cost and usage for a selected hierarchy or entity for the last 30 days excluding the current date.

The report dashboard displays three charts, Cost per Resource, Cost per child Entity, and Cost per Day, for

the selected hierarchy or entity. The dashboard also provides an option to view the following Top N reports:

1 Top N most expensive VMs

2 Top N least expensive VMs

3 Top N CPU consuming VMs

4 Top N Memory consuming VMs

Here, N can take the values 10, 20, and 50.

For a hierarchy that includes a vCenter Server that is integrated with VMware vCenter Operations, the Dashboard provides the following details:

• The Cost per Resource bar chart in the Cost projection tab shows cost for each resource, which is color coded, for the past 30 days and projected data for next three months in sets of 30 days each.
• The Cost per Day graph in the Cost projection tab charts the variance in the total cost for the entity for the past 30 days and projected data for next three months.
• The Cost Optimization tab lists the following optimization opportunities: Oversized Virtual Machines, Undersized Virtual Machines, Idle Virtual Machines, and Powered Off Virtual Machines.
• For each optimization opportunity, the corresponding virtual machines along with the configured and recommended resource-cost details are listed.

NOTE

• The graphs and optimization reports are generated only if the vCenter Server user, which was used for adding the vCenter Server to vCenter Chargeback Manager, has either the Global.vCenter Operations User privilege or the Global.vCenter Operations Admin privilege assigned on the root folder.
• Cost projection reports are enabled only with pure usage-based cost model, else graphs based on only past 30 days data are displayed. If the hierarchy is less than 30 days old and is not back-dated, then the graph based on the available data is displayed.

Scheduling reports

When creating a report, you can choose to schedule the report generation from the Create Report screen. You can schedule cost reports, cost comparison reports, and usage reports. Showback reports cannot be scheduled. Other than the create privilege for report and schedule resource types, you must have read privilege on the hierarchy, chargeback hierarchical entities, and cost models to perform this task

On the Schedule page and set the scheduling parameters.

Option                                                  Description

Report Creation Time                    When the report has to be generated.

Recurrence Pattern                         How often the report has to be generated.

Range of Recurrence                      Till when the report has to be generated periodically.

Managing Archived Reports

The Archived Reports page of the Reports tab displays a table listing all the reports archived in the application.

This includes manually generated and saved reports as well as reports generated by report schedules.

All the reports generated by a single schedule have the same name but different Created on and Billing

Period values. 

The reports are listed in the ascending order of their creation time. You can view an archived report by clicking it.

1 Export Archived Report - After a report is generated and archived, it can be exported to the required format at any time.

2 Email Archived Report - After a report is generated and archived, you can send it through email to one or more recipients.

3 Delete Archived Report - You can clear the archive by deleting unwanted reports.

4 Advanced Search for Archived Reports - You can search for specific archived reports by using the advanced search feature of vCenter Chargeback Manager.