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VMware

Introduction to the Nexus 1000V

by Tony Mattke on February 23, 2011



The Nexus 1000V is a software-based Cisco NX-OS switch that integrates into VMware vSphere 4 and operates inside the VMware ESX hypervisor. With the 1000V your virtual servers have the same network configuration, security policy, and diagnostic tools as your physical servers. VMware has also certified it to be compatible with vSphere, vCenter ESX and ESXi.

System Overview

The Nexus 1000V has two major components…

  • Virtual Ethernet Module (VEM) - Think of this like a line card in a switch. The VEM actually integrates with the ESX(i) kernel. It uses the VMware vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) API to provide advanced networking capability to virtual machines. The VEM also takes configuration information from the Virtual Supervisor Module (below) and performs Layer 2 switching and advanced networking functions including port channels, QoS, PVLANs, ACLS, port security, Netflow, and SPAN/ERSPAN.
  • Virtual Supervisor Module (VSM) - Think of this like the supervisor module in your switch. The VSM actually controls multiple VEMs as one logical modular switch. Instead of physical line card modules, we define profiles for immediate use on all VEMs.

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JunOS Olive Demonstration

by Tony Mattke on October 4, 2009



As a follow up to my JunOS Olive tutorial, I made a demonstration video that shows Multicast functioning via OSPF to another Olive and an ImageStream VM.

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Running JunOS under VMWare (updated – again!)

by Tony Mattke on October 3, 2009



Interested in trying out JunOS? Can’t afford to build a real Juniper lab? Sounds like you need some Olives. No, we’re not talking about the green fruit commonly seen in a martini glasses across the nation. Olive is the codename name given to JunOS software running on something other than a Juniper router. It can either run on a PC of similar specifications to a Routing Engine, with no forwarding hardware (or PFE) attached, or inside a Virtual Machine (VM). If you took a Routing Engine out of a Juniper router and booted it in a blade server chassis, it would effectively be an Olive.

This guide is to help you run Olive inside vmware to create a virtual Juniper router lab. You can also extend your lab to dynamips (Cisco Emulation), or other router VMs that you may have. My screenshots will be from VMWare Fusion on Mac OS X, but should work perfectly well, possibly even better (since you’ll be able to setup multiple interfaces) on VMWare Server. At some point, I would like to test using VMWare ESXi as well.
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Fixing Vista Partition Error Messages when using Bootcamp

by Tony Mattke on December 1, 2008



So, I had to reinstall Vista on my mac today — hadn’t touched it since I moved onto the Late 08 model… and once again, I started getting the common partition errors while Vista loads the bootloader.

 Unrecognizable partition table for drive 80. Please rebuild using a Microsoft-compatible FDISK tool

Luckily I remembered a quick and easy fix that I found when setting it up the first time. Download and install EasyBCD. Open up the Manage BootLoader section… select ReInstall Vista BootLoader, and you should be all set !

Hope this helps !

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the road to Mac

by Tony Mattke on November 5, 2008



I’ve been pondering it for quite some time, but yes now I have switched to Mac.

I purchased a new 2.5ghz, 4gb of Ram, 15″ Macbook Pro. Purchased the 320gb 7200rpm hard drive seperate for about $109, and I’m pretty happy so far. I miss the extra screen real estate that my Dell d820 offered, but its not _that_ significant. Besides, my current plan is to ride this one out for a few months, maybe get an external monitor and keyboard for when I’m doing some serious work. Then, when things are right, upgrade to the 17″, once they update it, and maybe sell this one, or just keep it for kicks.

So, the transition hasn’t been so bad. I have some issues on the keyboard, mainly the moving of the Control key. Getting used to not being able to Alt Tab (Cmd Tab) between multiple windows from the same application. But most are minor issues. I do have some software problems, that I have yet to sort out 100%….

I miss Winamp — Why are Mac users so in love with iTunes ? Its horrible, it dosen’t support watch folders, its klunky at best, and its slow. I’m not asking for much, a simple clean interface (like the winamp iPlay skin), a library that dosen’t try to move, rewrite or modify my collection, CD ripping (MusicBrainz support would be nice with this), possibly some streaming media options, and of course watch folders !

What, no Visio — Microsoft, is this your evil plan to prevent people from switching ? Seriously? For now I’ll either be running visio under VMWare Fusion, or Crossover Office. (Which was free a few days ago).

Font Rendering — This is going to just take time for me to get used to. With reguard to fonts, Apple generally believes that the goal of the algorithm should be to preserve the design of the typeface as much as possible, even at the cost of a little bit of blurriness. Apple’s method, to me at least, makes the fonts look horribly chunky and slightly blury, very distracting and hard for me to read.. Microsoft generally believes that the shape of each letter should be hammered into pixel boundaries to prevent blur and improve readability, even at the cost of not being true to the typeface.

As for stability, I’ve had random issues with the mac so far, lagging during shutdown, program crashes, etc. But my current issues a few and far between. Soon, I’ll do a software review and let you know what I’m using.. Of course, as always, comments are welcome !

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