It's been a few weeks since I returned from VMware Explore 2023 in Las Vegas, which has given me some time to review the information I gathered from sessions and hallway track discusions with Product team members. A few of the items and features of interest:

• NSX 4.1.1 feature - VPC for tenancy, essentially allows for users to provision their topology. In addition to the Projects feature, the new VPC feature allows for granular RBAC access to create objects without being able to see all objects of that type. This should be great for integrations with mult-tenant CI/ CD flows in Tanzu
• Tanzu - Good tips on resource management for TKG: each vSphere cluster should have independent storage. Use tags on datastore for use by storage polices. Don't allow user self-service of the vSphere namespaces.
• NSX Monitoring - NSX Ops Playbook - contains recommended API endpoints for Operational checks and training. Tips on how to check resources, for example: using load_average instead of running top on the appliance; checking garbage collection frequency instead of monitoring memory; RSS only works on same NUMA node, and check drivers.
• vRNI (ArON) - new application topology in 6.11. They’ve also upgraded the UI, with better drill-down.

I will be testing some of these in the Lab when I get time, particularly the NSX VPC feature. Interested in checking if quotas on VPC work!

I can’t express how much I love some of the new features in Network Insight (Operations for Networks .. bleh). The new heatmap feature in ArON (vRNI) 6.8 is the simplest way to get a quick status on your vCenter and NSX solution health. It is much faster than looking at the list of Issues and filtering by solution.
I recommend reviewing the Product Tour (under Help in top-right) for additional features: the Troubleshooting feature that was demonstrated at VMware Explore looks extremely promising.

With the rebranding from vRealize to Aria, vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) has become Aria Operations for Networks. I met some of the Product Team at VMware Explore 2022, and they are trying out the ArON acronym; I always preferred “Network Insight” as the most descriptive.

There is also a new release (though all the docs still use the old naming): https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vRealize-Network-Insight/6.8/rn/vmware-vrealize-network-insight-68-release-notes/index.html
The most obvious change is the new Home page you start on upon login. One neat feature is the heat map view of issues, you can click on the tiles to jump to the objects.

It will take a bit to get used to the navigation changes, but overall I expect Network Insight to remain an important tool in our troubleshooting and microsegmentation toolkit.

Without much fanfare NSX 4.0.0.1 released earlier this month. Among other features, there is IPv6 support. However, a big requirement is you must complete your N-VDS to VDS 7.x migration before upgrading to NSX 4.0 Oh yes, the NSX-T name is now retired (along with NSX-v), so NSX-T is now .. plain NSX.

Here's the release notes: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX/4.0/rn/vmware-nsx-4001-release-notes/index.html

The release notes include a link to this extremely detailed doc on N-VDS migration: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/79872

There was a quick 3.2.0.1 patch in January for critical bugs (related to log4shell still I believe), but almost 6 months after 3.2, we finally have 3.2.1. With 4.x already being discussed for “Cloud First” environments (such as VMC on AWS), and pushes towards managing your NSX-T via vRealize LifeCycleManager, better get those 3.1 versions upgraded now before automation takes it out of your hands! :lol:

Here's the latest on 3.2.1: https://blogs.vmware.com/networkvirtualization/2022/05/nsx-t-3-2-1-rolling-upgrade-for-nsx-management-plane.html/

Don't forget to follow the Upgrade Checklist: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T-Data-Center/3.2/upgrade/GUID-E35506A7-8050-482A-BABA-F356D2AC3B65.html

It's been a while, but NSX-T 3.2 finally released, just in time for the Log4Shell vulnerability last month. While I wouldn't go installing the first (or 2nd) version, it includes a whole lot of fixes and some new features.

Here's the announcement: https://blogs.vmware.com/networkvirtualization/2021/12/nsx-t-3-2-innovations.html/

On top of all the other announcements the last month (vSphere 7, NSX-T 3), a new version of vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) has been announced (available later this month most likely).

Here's the announcement: https://blogs.vmware.com/management/2020/04/announcing-vmware-vrealize-network-insight-5-2.html

Red Hat sent out the link for their Virtualized Summit Session Catalog yesterday, check it out: https://summit.redhat.com/conference/sessions

Some interesting sessions:

• Demystifying systemd
• RHEL 8 performance and tuning
• Conquering the edge
• Defend yourself using built-in RHEL security technologies
• When to use to a rules engine
• Using cloud-native technology to modernize applications

NSX-T 3.0 is out, with many improvements to 2.5.1 and tighter integration with the recently released vSphere 7. Look for a write-up later this month!

See the blog post announcing it: https://blogs.vmware.com/networkvirtualization/2020/04/nsx-t-3-0.html/

I expect an update to the NSX-T Design Guide in the next month or 2, you can find it here: https://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-37591

Follow-up to the vSphere 7 is Coming, GA is Here!

See the blog post announcing it: https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2020/04/vsphere-7-new-generation-vsphere.html

Many new features are covered in the What’s New posts: https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/tag/vsphere-7

Some insight into the Development time from virten.net: https://www.virten.net/2020/04/vmware-vsphere-7-0-ga-download-links-available/

With NSX-T 3.0 around the corner, there will be plenty to do while we have stay-home orders in the USA for the next month or 2.