All Things VMware Tanzu Application Platform

VMware Tanzu Application Platform So, what is it? VMware Tanzu Application Platform delivers a superior developer experience for enterprises building and deploying cloud-native applications on Kubernetes. It enables application teams to get to production faster by automating source to production pipelines, and it clearly defines the roles of developers and operators so they can work collaboratively instead of stepping on…

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Intel NUC HomeLab BOM

UPDATE: Sold Have finally decided to sell my Intel NUC based VMware vSphere home lab, it’s not being used anymore as I’m fortunate to have access to more powerful hardware at work. In summary, it’s 4 nodes with a total of 16 cores (32 threads) of 2.9GHz (boost to 3.5GHz), 224GB memory, and 2TB storage. Essentially everything you need, bar…

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Kubernetes Podcasts

Updated: 21st September 2020 Like many blog posts or tweets of mine, they come from being asked the same question more than once! This time its what podcasts do I listen to in the Kubernetes space and the ecosystem around it? So, here you go… podcasts I listen to in no particular order: The Podlets TGIK Cloud & Culture The…

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All Things Cluster API

Updated: 27th April 2020 I’m often asked by those who are starting their journey with Kubernetes, what is this “Cluster API” I keep hearing about? I draw a few diagrams and send on several links but then light bulb moment, throw all the links into one page and share that one page, genius! If you have some links to good…

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PKS Resources

Updated: 5th December 2019 From delivering Enterprise PKS workshops, conference sessions, customer briefings, corridor conversations, to helping people over slack, email, and phone, I keep finding myself pointing people to the same resources as-well as my own How to install NSX-T and PKS blog series and Troubleshooting PKS blog series. Light bulb moment, why not document and share them with…

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PKS NSX-T Home Lab – Part 5: Nested ESXi Hosts

Intro In the previous post in this series we created VLAN interfaces and networks on our pfSense virtual router appliance, created firewall rules to allow traffic, and then enabled VLAN trunking on the ports our NUCs were connected to on our physical switch. In this post we are going to created our nested ESXi hosts. Again, like I have said…

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PKS NSX-T Home Lab – Part 4: Configuring pfSense Router

Intro In the previous post in this series we deployed vCenter, DNS, jump hosts and the pfSense virtual router appliance. In this post we are going to configure the pfSense virtual router. Again, like I have said previously, this is one way to do it, there are many permutations. Goal here is to get up and running asap. Nothing stopping…

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PKS NSX-T Home Lab – Part 3: Core VMs

Intro In the previous post in this series we installed ESXi 6.7 on the NUC’s, performed some networking and storage configuration. In this post we are going to deploy some VMs, or core VMs as I call them, on the NUCs such as VCSA, a domain controller, jumps, and a virtual router appliance. Again, like I have said previously, this…

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PKS NSX-T Home Lab – Part 2: NUC setup

Intro In the previous blog post we went through the kit required to setup a home lab. In this post we will cover setting up the NUCs which includes installing ESXi and configuring the base network. As previously mentioned, this series will not be detailed step by step but more so pointers as I believe those installing PKS with NSX-T…

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PKS NSX-T Home Lab – Part 1: Shopping List

Intro The goal of this series of blog posts is to cover how to standup a VMware PKS (with NSX-T) home lab from the ground up. This will be a manual process, aka “the hard way”, not using any automation to stand it all up. I believe if you understand “the hard way” then its a lot easier to troubleshoot…

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