I think we all know port 443 and the SSL (Secure Socket Layer) protocol that goes with it right? When securing our inbound (incoming) as well outbound (outgoing) network traffic we have to deal with things like certificates, public and private key’s, certificate authorities (CA), and so on and so forth. This can be confusing. Where do certificates get applied, what is a CA, what types of certificates are there and which ones do we use? Also, once applied, how does the NetScaler actually know who it is communicating with and how is traffic secured? Using the NetScaler to offload SSL you say? Let’s have a look.
Block vs file level storage, VMware VMFS, NTFS and some of the protocols involved.
During the past few months I have spend a considerable amount of time looking at various storage related topics. Among others I discussed Web Scale technology as part of converged and software defined architectures, with Nutanix being one of the main vendors, next I also took a, somewhat, deeper dive into the wondrous world of IOPS where I talked about some of their characteristics and ways to potentially enhance performance and the end user experience, which are still two of the main concerns when dealing with these bad boys. Throughout this article I want to take a closer look at some of the differences between block vs file level storage, the accompanying file systems, the different protocols used, potential block sizes and some of the characteristics of VMware VMFS in particular.
Last week Nutanix opened their Dutch HQ and I was there, here are my thoughts.
Last week, Wednesday the 19th of February 2014 to be exact, I was invited for the ‘grand’ opening of the new Dutch Nutanix headquarters in Hoofddorp, near Amsterdam. Before the partner reception took off and everybody arrived we had a private get together which lasted around an hour and a half or so. Of course I wasn’t alone, a group of 10 to 12 technicians, bloggers and pre-sales engineers (Nutanix employees excluded) gathered to hear what Dheeraj Pandey (founder and CEO), Howard Ting (Vice President of product and marketing) and Mark Fisher (senior director, demand generation marketing) had to say. It turned out to be a very interesting and informative conversation.