I often get hit up about various campaigns of stuff like, “Hey check this thing out! Share it with your readers” yada yada yada. However.. this is actually pretty cool. Solarwinds is getting behind all of the Star Wars hype and has some pretty cool looking shirts available, so in this case.. I am sharing it with ya’ll :)
Some of you may remember the whole, Whoa! When the Photon Platform was announced at VMworld, in addition to PhotonOS and Lightwave open sourced earlier this year?!
Well, in carrying that fashion even further as of TODAY OMG TODAY!!! Photon Controller has joined the ranks of being Open Sourced!
So what does this mean?! Well, if you’re doing some mad hardcore Kubernetes, Cloud Foundry, Docker or Mesos work in your environment you can exploit and expand upon that with the whole Photon Suite, now further exploiting the Photon Controller!
To steal some of the mad slides on this for some architectural vision, feel free to have a lookie loo here! (Oh and lets ignore for a moment where it says CONFIDENTIAL… Hopefully that doesn’t apply anymore since this is officially out of Embargo… :))
For those of you who are VMware centric but are like ‘wtf does this mean?!’ we were initially discussing what each of these things mean and trying to convert it into VMware Data Center type terminology, so hopefully this is accurate, feel free to correct if you disagree!
Think of Photon Machine being kind of like ESXi – So the Hypervisor Element.
Think of Photon OS being like your Operating System which is where your “vm” or Code will operate. e.g., Your Windows or Linux server, except it will be where your code basis runs.
Think of Photon Controller being your VMware vCenter server.
With all that said… Head on over to the Getting Started Guide link to actually get started! It will take you to an annoying document which will require lots of ‘steps’ for you to follow to get it working. They don’t advise you ‘roll your own’ and instead follow the ‘instructions’ because those guide you to where it will work. But hey, I can hope they’ll package this up as an OVA or something sooner than later, because cmon, AUTOMATION CALLED AND WAS LIKE WTF. :)
Nonetheless, get out there, get your Photon on, it’s getting easier and easier to do every day!
Oh, well hey there! OMG ITS VMWORLD! Hey guys! I bet you’re wondering WTF I’m talking about! It’s okay. Some of you were expecting this, or are saying, “Finally… I mean, Cisco has validated Designs, and they’ve been doing those technical design guides for DECADES…” But I digress… I mean because VMware hasn’t been half shabby with their NUMEROUS whitepapers on every single topic under the sun for application supportability, capability, design, you name it!
OMG SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!
Alright, alright calm down…
The VMware Validated Designs now provide a Blue print for the whole data center instead of merely being an infinite series of reference architecture, Best Practices, and Guides based upon products in a bubble!
How does this differ from a validated architecture like VSPEX?
How this differs from a validated architecture is that an architecture will often be presented as ‘IM A VENDOR BUY MY STUFF’ whereas a design basically sets the table that, “Here’s a design… buy whoseever stuff or whatever things you want! (obviously ensure its on the HCL :))” I hear this come up a lot with friends, partners, colleagues, customers and the best initial comparison I can think of comes to having a house built, a design truly becomes the blueprint for your home. You pay an architect to produce that and you can then take that deliverable anywhere and have it be built, whereas in the technical sense an validated architecture is like track housing. You can have it look and feel any way you want, as long as its one of these THREE options. So you can pick and choose which framework or model works best for you, they’re not mutually exclusive and you can layer the capabilities of one atop the other. Also consider, HEY you can use this to apply the principles to your existing implementation to see what you might do to improve it!
OMG ARE YOU SAYING ITS WIN WIN?! Yes. I am. But I won’t use those words. You chose to use them. :)
Today there are a few VMware Validated Designs which have been released (with more to come)
What’s cool about the Walkthroughs is that it breaks down various business and technical elements of the VMware portfolio AND has direct links to take you to the hands on labs, so a little for the business and a little for the technical! It’s a nice bit of fun all packaged up together! :)
So I’m sitting there… having moved our SIP Gateway and VoIP Phone system behind the Firewall and then OMG ITS NOT WORKING! I mean, it is, and by it is, I mean, no. It isn’t working. :) Lo and behold technically OMG THE SOLUTION IS DISABLE SIP! Well, that sounds pretty ridiculous… But I guess it turns out that the system has a native SIP handler and knows better than we do! Well, you’re wrong. You don’t know better than we do, unless ‘knowing better’ means breaking my SIP traffic!
That said, there are a few other blogs where I found answers which helped lead to this solution (included below) but you know me.. I like to make sure I have a source to refer back to things and of course to share my experience on the matter, thus here it is! :)
Step One: Disable SIP Helper!
config system settings
set sip-helper disable
set sip-nat-trace disable
REBOOT THE DEVICE!!! (You may want to wait on rebooting until AFTER you do the next few steps!)
Step Two: Delete the SIP Helper
config system session-helper
show (Look for the SIP helper, often object 12)
delete # (whatever number the SIP helper was)
Step Three: Disable RTP Processing
config voip profile
edit default
config sip
set rtp disable
And there you have it! If you did the steps in reverse and then rebooted, your Fortigate should no longer be preventing your SIP traffic from working! That is also of course ensuring you’re sending all of the right ports through in your firewall rules… that’s up to you to check with your respective VoIP vendor to make sure you have the full compliment of ports, policies, etc!
So that got it all started… OMG A CONTEST! Well, not even so much as a contest, as it was a raw and heated COMPETITION! What it’d entail initially was submitting an abstract. And from the Abstract alone you’d be informed whether you’d even be entitled to be ALLOWED to enter the competition. In my case, my abstract was accepted, awesome. But then it came down to, “Hey, it’s time to submit your paper!” Well, so there I was… writing my paper, and write it I did! One thing in particular which was *very* cool, is the fact that the “Judges” of the papers have no idea who the authors are. No, it’s not like they’re secluded and don’t stay in touch with industry, quite the opposite… They’re SHIELDED from who the submitters are, any type of information is shielded from them, and instead they’re judging the papers based upon the content and not the character of the authors!
Which ultimately is what brought me to this years 2015 EMC World! I had been informed that I was a “finalist” which means, I’d be 1st, 2nd, 3rd or one of the Best of Tracks… All very secretive, all I knew was, “I WAS IN” I just didn’t know what position or place!
That is when it all fell into place! My name called, giving me the absolute honor of “Best of IT Transformation” it was an absolute blast to all happen at once! Due to the power of… VideoLinkFail you can skip ahead to 16:45 and get to my part of the video :) Otherwise watch it all the way through, it gives an interesting take and shares information on the EMC Proven Education Ecosystem!
That wasn’t even the half of it though! When I wasn’t on stage wearing horribly uncomfortably shoes (which looked great mind you!) and receiving an award… LOOK AT THAT THING! ITS 8LBS OF CRYSTAL!
I was spending the bulk of my time ON CAMERA giving individual interviews or group interviews or this and that!
But some of you are saying, “You know what? I don’t give a damn about any of that! Show me the money! err, Paper, I MEAN THE PAPER!”
That’s cool, totally respect that… :) Well, here are some links and copies of the paper!
Because I’m obviously a marketing whore (go me, right! :)) There’s also the Xiologix branded version which I actually like how it is formatted better… (Primarily because… I formatted it to make sure data presents on pages the way I prefer from having written a thing or two here and there!) so here are some links to BOTH versions! <3
Read Xiologix Version: Ten ways to reduce cost while modernizing your IT
Read EMC Version: Ten ways to reduce cost while modernizing your IT
To follow-up on updates to this presentation and other information around be sure to check out the updated page at our Xiologix site where we’re keeping it updated and current! Christopher Kusek earns EMC 2015 Knowledge Sharing Award!
Also there is a Presentation version of this paper which has been delivered to standing room only audiences across the Pacific Northwest (also regular sitting rooms of folks :)) So if you’re interested definitely reach out <3 :)
