Free Kindle copy of vSphere 5.0 Clustering Deepdive?

Do you want a free Kindle copy of the vSphere 5.0 Clustering Deepdive or the vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Deepdive? Well make sure to check Amazon next week! I just put both of the books up for a promotional offer… For 48 hours, Wednesday June the 5th and Thursday June the 6th, you can download the Kindle (US Kindle Store) copy of both these books for free, yes that is correct ZERO dollars.

So make sure you pick it up either Wednesday June the 5th or Thursday June the 6th, it might be the only time this year it is on promo.

"Free Kindle copy of vSphere 5.0 Clustering Deepdive?" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com.

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Reference Architecture - VMware Horizon Workspace

Reference Architecture - VMware Horizon Workspace
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VMware Horizon Workspace combines applications and data into a single, aggregated workspace, with flexible access to the data and applications employees need for productivity, regardless of where they are based.

With fewer management points and easier access, Horizon Workspace reduces the complexity of IT administration. Horizon Workspace is delivered as a virtual appliance that is easy to deploy on site and integrate with existing enterprise services.

It helps organizations to centralize assets, devices, and applications and to manage users and data securely behind the firewall. Meanwhile, it enables users to share and collaborate with external partners and customers securely when policy allows.

This reference architecture specifies the sizing and connectivity requirements for a 2,000-user Horizon Workspace application management and file sharing solution. Horizon Workspace 1.0 enables IT to maintain control over the implementation, aggregate resources, and allow end users to access their entitled applications, data, and Horizon View desktops from inside or outside the corporate firewall, on the device or devices of their choice.

Reference Architecture - VMware Horizon Workspace

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Does IT eat its young?

This is a great article on how we as IT throw our newbies to the wolves,  or at least put them in charge or backups (because no one else wants to do it)

Does IT eat its young?
By Patrick Gray

In nature, several species routinely eat their young for various reasons, ranging from scarcity of food resources to eliminating future competition for mates. While this behavior has been recorded in humans in various cultures, it's currently manifested metaphorically in several fields where senior personnel obstruct, sabotage, or make life generally difficult for new entrants to the field. In response to one of my recent articles about IT's "woman problem," several readers emailed that whether they agreed or not with IT having a problem with the fairer sex, there was obstructionist behavior toward new entrants.

The not-so-beautiful arts and IT
The field in which I've witnessed this behavior at its worst is in the arts. While my artistic abilities are generally limited to a stick figure or two, I come from a family of artists who have worked in fine art, film, and crafts. When my sister was in film, she'd recount tales of maniacal directors and bosses with inane demands, short tempers, and little more than strings of expletives directed at junior staff.

My own experience with publishing was similar, where literary agents made petty demands and snide remarks until my book was commercially published, when suddenly my calls would be returned and I was no longer treated as a life form slightly lower than pond scum.

When confronted on this behavior, I'm usually given some variation of a "survival of the fittest" explanation-that senior staff in the field exhibit unreasonable behavior to "weed out" those who can't make it in the field, and that engendering "eating of the young" makes the field as a whole stronger.

While less prevalent than in the arts, I've seen similar behavior in IT. A rock star developer or technician is given a pass on poor behavior, and managers and junior staff shrink back in awe when this person enters a room. In other cases, there might be a grizzled veteran who possesses specific knowledge of a complex legacy system and avoids sharing any knowledge or specifications in order to protect his turf and build job security.

In cases where these types of behavior are tolerated, "eating of the young" routinely occurs as those with superior longevity, and hence superior knowledge, use this knowledge as a means to bully new staff. Management is generally complicit in this activity and is willing to destroy its future in order to maintain its current all-stars.

An alternative approach
I've spent most of my working years as a consultant within IT organizations and have always been intrigued by how consultant organizations treat their new staff. Like fields that eat their young, the big consulting companies will identify high-potential talent, even if their experience lies outside the content area in which they'll be consulting. When I started at a large consulting firm, more of my peers had history or marketing degrees rather than degrees in information systems or computer science.

Almost to a fault, these organizations invest heavily in training and early staff development, and then throw the new folks onto a consulting project in a menial role. During the first six months of my career I did everything from mind-numbing massaging of spreadsheets to running errands for office supplies.

While similar to the role of a new staffer on a film, I was never insulted or belittled, and was explicitly told that the goal of this role was to get used to the consulting environment and essentially be "tested" before being given more responsibility. When I was assigned to my next project, "trial period" over, I was expected to perform alongside more senior developers, and soon after was leading my own teams of developers and business analysts.

While the "trial by fire" aspect was similar to the arts, I learned in a supportive environment, and insults, poor behavior, and bullying by more senior staff were simply not tolerated. Those who couldn't do the work were naturally weeded out, and senior staff actively encouraged development and advancement for those who were capable.

There's no harm in breaking in new staff through more menial tasks, and coddling staff doesn't do anyone any favors, especially as terms like "bullying" have become overused to the point that they lack any meaning.

However, there's a difference between "testing" staff through challenging work and subjecting new staff to rudeness, poor behavior, and active harassment in some misguided attempt to toughen them up. Either of the above approaches results in competent senior staff; however, the fine arts-style approach generates cynical, mean-spirited staff that actively eats the young of their industry. Which would you rather have in your organization?

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Now available as Rough Cut - Virtualizing Microsoft Business Critical Applications on VMware vSphere 5

The Rough Cuts service from VMware Press gives you exclusive access to an evolving manuscript that you can read online or download as a PDF and print. A Rough Cuts book is not fully edited or completely formatted, but you'll get access to new versions as they are created.

Many organizations are discovering the immense ROI available by virtualizing business critical applications. Microsoft has recently released new versions of many of its most popular and widely used enterprise applications, including Exchange, SQL Server, and Windows Server itself. Meanwhile, VMware has released a powerful new version of its enterprise virtualization platform, vSphere 5.1. Together, these technologies offer powerful new opportunities for cost-effective virtualization, and for migration towards cost-effective private cloud architectures. But successfully integrating them requires deep knowledge. Bridging the gap between Microsoft and VMware worlds, this guide brings together all the knowledge, best practices, and techniques you'll need.

Two leading experts in virtualizing Microsoft business-critical applications on VMware demonstrate how to optimize performance and availability, and what you must do to ensure full support by both Microsoft and VMware. From sizing to architecture to monitoring metrics, they present start-to-finish coverage of virtualizing:

Windows Server 2012 Active Directory Domain Controllers Windows Server 2012 Failover Clusters Exchange Server 2013 SQL Server 2012 SharePoint 2013

For each, example configurations are provided, along with explanations and descriptions of new application features and their relationship to virtualization, as well as tips, tricks, and insights from the authors' own experience. Throughout, diagrams and figures illustrate key points and compare feature sets, and many references to relevant white papers and Knowledge Base articles are also provided.

Virtualizing Microsoft Business Critical Applications on VMware vSphere 5 - Rough Cuts by Matt Liebowitz

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VXLAN Series – How VTEP Learns and Creates Forwarding Table – Part 5

VXLAN Series – How VTEP Learns and Creates Forwarding Table – Part 5
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In this post I am going to describe how VTEPs learn about the virtual machines connected to the logical Layer 2 networks. The learning process is quite similar to a transparent bridge function. As transparent bridges learn based on the packets received on the bridge ports, the VTEP also learn based on the inner and outer header of the packets received.

Let's take an example to illustrate the VTEP learning process.

Example Deployment with Two Hosts

As shown in the diagram above there are two Hosts (Host1, Host 2) on which VTEPs are configured, and each host has one virtual machine connected to logical layer 2 network, identified as VXLAN 5001. Both the virtual machines are powered on and both VTEPs have joined the multicast group 239.1.1.100. Each VTEP has its own forwarding table, which is initially empty as shown in the diagram below.

Initial State of the Forwarding Table

How do the forwarding tables get populated?

We will take an example of virtual machine on Host 1 trying to communicate with the virtual machine on the Host 2. First, an ARP request is sent from the virtual machine MAC1 to find the MAC address of the virtual machine on Host 2. The ARP request is a broadcast packet.

Host 2 VTEP – Forwarding table entry

The diagram above shows the packet flow:

Virtual machine on Host1 sends ARP packet with Destination MAC as "FFFFFFFFFFF" VTEP on Host 1 encapsulates the Ethernet broadcast packet into a UDP header with Multicast address "239.1.1.100" as the destination IP address and VTEP address "10.20.10.10" as the Source IP address. The physical network delivers the multicast packet to the hosts that joined the multicast group address "239.1.1.10". The VTEP on Host 2 receives the encapsulated packet. Based on the outer and inner header, it makes an entry in the forwarding table that shows the mapping of the virtual machine MAC address and the VTEP. In this example, the virtual machine MAC1 running on Host 1 is associated with VTEP IP "10.20.10.10". VTEP also checks the segment ID or VXLAN logical network ID (5001) in the external header to decide if the packet has to be delivered on the host or not. The packet is de-encapsulated and delivered to the virtual machine connected on that logical network VXLAN 5001.

The entry in the forwarding table of Host 2 VTEP is used during lookup process. The packet flow shown in the diagram below explains the forwarding table lookup for a unicast packet sent from a virtual machine on Host2.

Host 2 VTEP – Forwarding table Lookup

Virtual Machine MAC2 on Host 2 responds to the ARP request by sending a unicast packet with Destination Ethernet MAC address as MAC1. After receiving the unicast packet, the VTEP on Host 2 performs a lookup in the forwarding table and gets a match for the destination MAC address "MAC1". The VTEP now knows that to deliver the packet to virtual machine MAC1 it has to send it to VTEP with IP address "10.20.10.10". The VTEP creates unicast packet with destination IP address as "10.20.10.10" and sends it out.

The Host1 VTEP receives the unicast packet and it also learns about the location of the virtual machine MAC2 as shown in the diagram below.

Host 1 VTEP – Forwarding table entry

The packet is delivered to Host1 The VTEP on Host 2 receives the encapsulated packet. Based on the outer and inner header, it makes an entry in the forwarding table that shows the mapping of the virtual machine MAC address and the VTEP. In this example, the virtual machine MAC2 running on Host 2 is associated with VTEP IP "10.20.10.11". VTEP also checks the segment ID or VXLAN logical network ID (5001) in the external header to decide if the packet has to be delivered on the host or not. The packet is de-encapsulated and delivered to the virtual machine connected on that logical network VXLAN 5001.

As you can see the forwarding table entries are populated based on the inner and outer header fields of the encapsulated packet. Similar to the transparent bridge the forwarding table entries are removed after aging timer expires. One of the common questions I get is what happens after a virtual machine is vMotioned.

In the next few posts I will cover how the forwarding table entries get modified after vMotion of a virtual machine from one host to another.

Here are the links to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Get notification of these blogs postings and more VMware Networking information by following me on Twitter:  @VMWNetworking

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New Technical White Paper - How To Troubleshoot vSphere 5.x Performance Issues Using vCenter Operations

Performance problems can arise in any computing environment. Complex application behaviors, changing demands, and shared infrastructure can lead to problems arising in previously stable environments. Troubleshooting performance problems requires an understanding of the interactions between the software and hardware components of a computing environment.

Moving to a virtualized computing environment adds new software layers and new types of interactions that must be considered when troubleshooting performance problems. Proper performance troubleshooting requires that you start with a broad view of the computing environment and systematically narrow the scope of the investigation as you eliminate possible sources of problems.

Troubleshooting efforts that start with a narrowly conceived idea of the source of a problem often get bogged down in detailed analysis of one component, when the actual source of the problem is elsewhere in the infrastructure. In order to quickly isolate the source of performance problems, you need to adhere to a logical troubleshooting methodology that avoids preconceptions about the source of the problems. 

Often,though, many environments are susceptible to the same performance issues, so this document is focused on addressing the most common performance issues VMware sees in the field and how these issues can be diagnosed using the VMware vCenter Operations Manager suite.

vCenter Operations Manager is a complex tool and can be leveraged many different ways. This guide will focus on the Virtual Machine object primarily as a starting point for learning to leverage the vCenter Operations Manager tool.

How To Troubleshoot vSphere 5.x Performance Issues Using vCenter Operations by Mark Achtemichuk and Hemant Gaidhani

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Horizon Workspace - Home Lab FAIL

As I am in training this week, I decided to deploy VMware Horizon Workspace in the background while I watched the WebEx presentations.

 

After hours of waiting and watching the blue screen say “success” (I have a slow home lab, this deployment takes a LONG time) I get the following error:

 

Guess it’s time to hit the support forums to see if this is an easy fix or not L

 

If (and when) I get a successful deployment of Workspace I will post some more info on the deployment and configuration steps.

vBeers – Manitoba – Wednesday June 5, 2013

After the MB VMUG event, come join us for open discussion about virtualization over drinks.  We see a wide range of people from different companies coming out to discuss what they are currently doing and looking for information about what others have done in the past.

Location: Elephant & Castle  http://www.elephantcastle.com/winnipeg
Address: 350 Saint Mary Ave @DeltaHotel  http://goo.gl/maps/3auS7
Date: June 5, 2013
Time: 4:00 PM

The MB VMUG June Event will be held 8:30 – 4:00 at the Delta Hotel, registration is available at:

http://www.vmug.com/e/in/eid=915&source=5

If you can't make it out make it out during the day, please feel free to join us at night.

Look forward to seeing you there.

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Cisco Winnipeg Event: Help Securely Virtualize Your Data Center - June 11, 2013

Transforming the data center to a virtualized and private cloud environment is one of the biggest trends in IT today. This trend has a huge impact on how we work and conduct business. This new environment transforms the IT services model, business models, and new data center architecture but also offers numerous business advantages.

This trend is causing an architecture evolution in which new security risks and concerns are growing. These challenges are complex because they involve not only technology issues but also substantial process changes caused by new business computing models.

Please join us for this ½ day event to discuss what your security concerns are to making a data center transition to virtualization or the cloud as security should be viewed as a way to gain potential business benefits while eliminating the fear of threats, and not as a hindrance or added cost.

Topics to be covered will include:

•             A deep dive into Cisco's datacenter Validated design, with an emphasis on augmenting your current Datacenter design and enhancing your virtualized security.

•             Data center security solutions that will help the infrastructure evolve with customer needs from the physical data center to the private cloud

We look forward to seeing you there.

 

When:

June 11, 2013

 

Where:

Winnipeg Delta Winnipeg Hotel

350 St Mary Avenue

Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 3J2 Canada

 

Agenda:

12:00 noon - 1:00 p.m. - Registration and Lunch

1:00 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. - Welcome/Opening

1:15 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. - Security in the Virtualized Data Center

2:15 p.m. - 2:35 p.m. - Break

2:35 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. - Complete Data Center Security with Cisco

4:30 p.m. - Adjourn

 

Register at:

http://goo.gl/kiXiA

 

Booting up 500 desktops on 11 spindles in under 6mins

This is an old article I found but I think it does a great job explaining how to use EMC's Fast and Fast Cache, well worth the read if you are looking at deploying VMware View.

http://www.vtexan.com/2012/01/05/booting-up-500-desktops-on-11-spindles-in-under-6mins/

Big thanks to the vTexan<http://www.vtexan.com/author/vTexan/> for this oldie by goodie :)

BlackBerry Messenger announced for Android!

Today at BlackBerry Live 2013, the quintessential BlackBerry Messenger was announced as coming to Android this summer! It's going to be totally free, which is a welcome surprise. 

CEO Thorsten Heins announced his company's goal to make BBM the standard in cross-platform messaging and that they'll be bringing their long-standing device-exclusive service to iOS and Android. In the long run, they intend to include advanced features like groups, screen sharing, and the recently-announced Channels to the other platforms. Keep an eye out for this one in Google Play over the next couple of months, and expect it to displace a lot of the current messaging platforms out there. 

Any of you guys know folks that still use BBM? Any ex-BlackBerry-owners that miss BBM

BlackBerry Messenger announced for Android! http://www.androidcentral.com/blackberry-messenger-announced-android

Free e-learning course - vCloud Automation Center: Fundamentals

VMware vCloud Automation Center (also known as vCAC) is comprised of three modules: Virtual Resource Manager (VRM), External Cloud Manager (ECM) and Physical Resource Manager (PRM).

Together, these modules provide an enterprise-wide system for provisioning virtual, cloud and physical machines and for comprehensively managing the machine lifecycle from user request and administrative approval through decommissioning and resource reclamation, while dramatically improving resource cost control and management.

Built-in customization and extensibility features also make vCloud Automation Center a highly flexible means for customizing machine configurations as needed and integrating machine provisioning and management with other enterprise-critical systems.

This free eLearning course covers the main features, components, architecture, and configuration of vCloud Automation Center v5.1.

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2347-Free-e-learning-course-vCloud-Automation-Center-Fundamentals.html



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The vCloud Suite Digest (Apr, 2013) with Pang Chen and Mike Laverick - VMware vSphere Blog

With contributions from: Massimo Re Ferre, Eric Fulton, Tomas Fojta, Ray Budavari, Jesse Schachter, Kyle Smith, Francois Misiak, Benham Chia, Ranga Maddipudi, Trevor Gerdes and Ben Byer

We hope you enjoy this month's vCloud Suite Digest. This is where we take some questions that we get and disseminate the answers in the hopes that it will help someone else who might have a similar question. This month, we have some great tidbits on guest OS clustering, elastic VDCs, and networking among other things. Enjoy!

vCloud Director
Guest OS Clustering
Backstory:

For some time vSphere has supported clustering technologies within the Guest Operating System, of which Microsoft Clustering Service (MSCS) is perhaps the most well known. In the early days of ESX 2.x we used to get students to set up a NodeA/NodeB cluster-in-a-box configuration. The recommendation since the rise of VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) is to use "anti-affinity" rules to ensure that NodeA and NodeB never reside on the same physical vSphere Host.

Q. Does vCloud Director (vCD) 5.1 support clustering within a guest OS?

A. It is OS-dependent. For example, you can create MS SQL Server failover cluster databases with vCD VMs using Windows 2008 R2. With that said, you should also note that there is a built-in method to ensure the VMs are running on different hosts other than deploying into different Provider vDCs. As each Provider vDC generally points to a different cluster – this should be enough to guarantee separation. Alternatively, you could use vCO or similar to apply anti-affinity rules once the VMs are deployed.

vApp with VMs Spanning Clusters
Backstory:

Since vCloud Director 5.1 it has been possible to add multiple VMware HA/DRS clusters into the same Provider vDC. Such a configuration is often referred to as an "Elastic vDC" as the compute resources of a single cluster do not limit it. It's recommend (although not required) to use the VXLAN feature with an elastic vDC as this allows the administrator to configure networks that span domains.

Q. Can we define a vApp that has VMs that span clusters? With vCD, can a vApp's network span multiple clusters?

A. Deploying a vApp in an elastic VDC may deploy VMs belonging to the same vApp in multiple clusters. This is not user-controlled, however. A vApp Network can span multiple clusters and even Layer 3 domains if a VXLAN-backed network pool is used.

An admin can define elastic VDCs and span clusters, and vApp networks can span clusters, but both of these are on the back end—transparent, not accessible, and not even knowable to an Organization user defining a vApp. These rules also apply to every vApp in the Org vDC.

Whether what one creates spans or not is a happy accident based on settings and deploy-time distribution of resources, rather than a purposeful action on the vApp itself – even if the admin has defined everything such that it CAN span, there's still nothing that is going to guarantee that it WILL, except for one approach that uses visibility to the storage to control where the VMs are placed – In this case you would create two storage tiers: cluster1 and cluster2 and assign to each cluster datastores (not shared between clusters). The user has control over which VM within the vApps uses which tier, and the placement engine takes care of the rest.

IP Masquerade in vCD 5.x

Q. In vCD 1.x there was an IP masquerade setting, but this seems to have disappeared in vCD 5.1. How do I achieve the equivalent functionality in vCD 5.1?

A. The behavior was changed in vCD 5.1. See KB article 2036040<http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2036040>. Essentially, IP masquerade has been superseded by a new approach that improves the capabilities of vCloud Director. Now whenever a VM is created, its "internal" IP address is supplemented by an "external" IP address. This "external" IP addressed is allocated from a sub-allocation IP address range. You can see this mapping from the "Virtual Machines" tab of a vApp.

[http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2013/05/1.png]<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2013/05/1.png>A combination of Source and Destination NAT rules (together with a firewall rule) allows you to grant VMs within the vApp access to the outside world, or to allow inbound access from the outside world.

Changes in Networking in an Upgrade from vCD 1.5 to 5.1

Q. When upgrading from vCD 1.5 to 5.1, what happens to an org network used in vCD 1.5 ?

A. Isolated and direct org networks get converted into an org VDC network. Routed org networks get converted into a gateway with two interfaces and an org VDC network.

Increasing vCD Cell Performance

Q. I am running vCloud Director 5.1 with 12GB systems RAM and increased JVM heap size per the best practices guide to 3GB and found the vCD cell response very good. Will increasing the memory size to 8GB help even more?

A. More memory does not necessarily mean better performance. You should profile your vCD cells to determine what, if any, bottlenecks exist. If you really want to optimize the memory and garbage collection options, see our white papers on Enterprise Java Applications on vSphere:

vCloud Director Licensing: Partially Powered-on vApps
BackStory:

A partially powered-on vApp is where the vApp contains some VMs which are powered on, and others which are powered off. The vApp in vCloud Director is given a process ID, just like a VM. So it is possible to a vApp that is "powered on" when none of the VMs are actually powered on within it. If this happen then you would power off the vApp as normal.

[http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2013/05/2.png]<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2013/05/2.png>Q. If I have some VMs in a vApp powered off, how does this count in licensing?

A. vCD is licensed at the VM level, counting the number of powered-on VMs. However, note that vCD itself does not enforce licensing based on the number of powered-on VMs – ensuring compliance is a manual process.

vCloud Network and Security (vCNS)
VPN Support

Q. Do we have a list of supported/non-supported third-party VPN products for vCNS?

A. VMware has tested our IPsec site-to-site VPN feature with Juniper and Cisco products, and this should work without any issues. Since IPsec is an open specification/protocol suite (IETF standard<http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/ipsec/>) we should be able to interoperate with any IPsec solution (of course there are limitations), but the typical deployments will work just fine.

The limitation of IPsec, which is also one of its core strengths, is its extensibility. Although nearly all products/solutions support the same base set of authentication and encryption algorithms, third-party vendors are free to add new algorithms as they come along.

vCNS Edge Gateway High Availability
BackStory:

vCNS introduced a new high-availability option for the Edge Gateway that can be enabled when it is being created – or enabled afterwards. This option can be enabled in vCloud Director on the properties of any "Edge Gateway" under the General tab; alternatively, if you want to use this feature without vCloud Director, consult the blogpost (see below) for a step-by-step guide to configuring with vCNS Manager.

[http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2013/05/3.png]<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2013/05/3.png>Q. Where can I find an example illustrating how to set up the high availability features of vCNS Edge 5.1?

A. See: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2013/03/vcloud-networking-and-security-5-1-edge-gateway-high-availability.html

vCNS Edge Storage Placement
Backstory:

When you create a new Organization Network or vApp Network it is likely that an Edge Gateway will be deployed by vCloud Director. Using your default "Storage Profile" configured for the Organization, the new Edge Gateway appliance will deployed. This is done when the Organization Virtual Datacenter is defined and is referred to as the "Default Instantiation Profile".

[http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2013/05/41.png]<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2013/05/41.png>Q. In vCD, can we influence placement of the vShield Edge appliances?

A. The Edge will get placed in any valid datastore for the VDC, just like a regular VM, but there is no way to choose which datastore it will get placed in. If you are using storage profiles, then you can enable/disable storage profiles at the org VDC level to help control placement.

Q. How can I move an already-deployed Edge?

A. Reset the network to force the Edge to re-deploy.

Edge Gateway and Physical Servers
Backstory:

The Edge Gateway is NAT, VPN, Load-balancer, DHCP and Firewall all in one, and primarily acts as gateway device for VMs. As you would expect much of the automation is delivered to virtual machines, but it is possible to configure it for physical devices, too.

Q. Is there a licensing model for vCNS to protect physical servers with an Edge firewall?

A. VMware does not license for physical machines, only protected virtual machines. So any physical devices are protected for free.

Q. How would this be set up?

A. The portgroup being protected by the edge device would just be backed by VLAN in the physical world. The traffic patterns are essentially the same traffic patterns (in terms of tracing packets up and down through the switching fabric) that we see with a very typical firewall-on-a-stick deployment having the firewall attached to distribution layer multilayer switch. The only difference is that the firewall-on-a-stick is now the Edge device, but the same number of traffic hops through the physical network.

________________________________

Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2013/05/the-vcloud-suite-digest-apr-2013-with-pang-chen-and-mike-laverick.html