Educational Episodes: Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI)

By default, if you want to deploy a VM on Azure with Terraform, you must give the username and password in clear in the variable file (see my previous article). But a solution exists, to secure all this. Just use an Azure Keyvault.

Currently, we are speaking a lot about IaC, Infrastructure as Code. That gives you the opportunity, to deploy an infrastructure, from 0, with code, without being a great developer (I assure you, me and the code, it’s not a great love story).

Microsoft Hyper-V 2019 Free version release can come off as deja vu because it would appear that this product has already been released and there is nothing new for you to hear about. There is a truth to it, but the previous version was taken down, so this is the new one. Therefore, both the prior users and those who want to try it might want to take a look at its features, pros and cons, and handy tips!

It is not enough to build a functioning hyperconverged infrastructure because any IT environment needs to be constantly in check. Testing cluster performance is a necessity that requires the most serious approach. Hot news for VMware vSAN users is that they do not have to spend all that time and effort anymore since this efficient utility allows automating testing process carried out with such benchmark tools as VDbench or Fio.

Microsoft Azure users have no problem with connecting their VMs, except that its protection prospects in terms of public IP use could have been better, so the use of VPN is strongly advised, if not required. All this hussle ends with Azure Bastion, new Azure feature allowing to create RDP or SSH session from the Azure Portal, thereby relieving the users from the need to use a public IP address.

The Remote Desktop Services (RDS) is genuinely one of the best options there are for remote access to applications and desktops. The deployment of RDS, however, can be quite a pickle, which is why the release of a new Windows template for full RDS farm deployment is hot news. This template has everything you need. RD gateway, RD Broker, RD Licensing, – you name it, it’s got it.

Everybody who knows the difference between a standard web framework and a microframework realizes that you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. What the latter wins by simplicity and speed it compensates with the lack of functionality. However, if you value a lightweight framework more than everything else, Flask microframework written in Python is your go-to choice.

VMware provides its clients with multiple useful features and tools, one of them being vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA). It is a preconfigured Linux virtual machine, designed specifically for the running VMware vCenter Server. Admittedly, that makes your life a lot easier, which is why you would not want to lose a connection to a virtual machine. However, that is what happens when your VMware hypervisor is configured with a Distributed Switch (dvSwitch).

In this post, I’d like to discuss data consistency – an important thing when it comes to backups. If data is consistent, it can be used across your environment, so you can spin up applications faster after restoring from such backup. Actually, it’s why I think this topic to be so important even now.