Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

Publications

I created this page as a home everything I have officially published. This includes white papers and books.

My papers

My Books

Please note, as an Amazon Associate I earn from below qualifying purchases.

VMware vSAN 6.7 U1 Deep Dive

VMware’s vSAN has rapidly proven itself in environments ranging from hospitals to oil rigs to e-commerce platforms and is one of the top three players in the hyperconverged space. Along the way, it has matured to offer unsurpassed features for data integrity, availability, and space efficiency. vSAN 6.7 U1 has radically simplified IT operations and supports the transition to hyperconverged infrastructures (HCI).

The authors of the vSAN Deep Dive have thoroughly updated their definitive guide to this transformative technology. Writing for vSphere administrators, architects, and consultants, Cormac Hogan, and Duncan Epping explain what vSAN is, how it has evolved, what it now offers, and how to gain maximum value from it. The book offers expert insight into preparation, installation, configuration, policies, provisioning, clusters, architecture, and more. You’ll also find practical guidance for using all data services, stretched clusters, and two node configurations.

VMware vSphere 6.7 Clustering Deep Dive

The VMware vSphere 6.7 Clustering Deep Dive is the long-awaited follow-up to best seller vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deep Dive and zooms in on the critical components of every VMware based infrastructure. It provides the knowledge and expertise needed to create a cloud infrastructure based on the solid foundation of vSphere HA, vSphere DRS, vSphere Storage DRS, Storage I/O Control and Network I/O Control. It explains the concepts and mechanisms behind these features that enables you to make well-educated decisions. The book contains a stretched cluster use case section that contains all necessary settings for creating a fully-functional stretched cluster and reviews all failure scenarios and their effect on the existing workload.

This book takes you into the trenches of HA, DRS, Storage DRS, SIOC and NIOC and gives you the tools to understand and implement, e.g., HA admission control policies, DRS resource pools, Datastore Clusters, network resource pools, and resource allocation settings. Each section contains basic design principles that can be used for designing, implementing or improving VMware infrastructures.

Essential Virtual SAN – Second Edition
essential virtual san second edition

Fully updated for the newest versions of VMware Virtual SAN, this guide show how to scale VMware’s fully distributed storage architecture to meet any enterprise storage requirement. World-class Virtual SAN experts Cormac Hogan and Duncan Epping thoroughly explain how Virtual SAN integrates into vSphere 6.x and enables the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC). You’ll learn how to take full advantage of Virtual SAN, and get up-to-the-minute insider guidance for architecture, implementation, and management.

Writing for administrators, consultants, and architects, Hogan and Epping show how Virtual SAN implements both object-based storage and a policy platform that simplifies VM storage placement. You’ll discover how the latest versions of Virtual SAN and vSphere combine to dramatically improve resiliency, scale-out storage functionality, and control over QoS. This edition’s extensive new coverage includes:

  • All new VMware Virtual SAN functionality and updates since the first edition
  • An entirely new chapter on stretched clustering and ROBO configurations
  • New discussions of the VM file format, de-deduplication, compression, checksums, encryption, and the Health UI
  • Advanced techniques for delivering enterprise-grade storage capabilities with Virtual SAN

Both an up-to-the-minute reference and hands-on tutorial, Essential Virtual SAN, Second Edition uses realistic examples to demonstrate Virtual SAN’s most powerful capabilities. You’ll learn how to plan, architect, and deploy Virtual SAN successfully, avoid gotchas, troubleshoot problems, and make the most of virtualized storage as you move towards the Software Defined Data Center.

Essential Virtual SAN

Understand and implement VMware Virtual SAN: the heart of tomorrow’s Software-Defined Datacenter (SDDC)

VMware’s breakthrough Software-Defined Datacenter (SDDC) initiative can help you virtualize your entire datacenter: compute, storage, networks, and associated services. Central to SDDC is VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN): a fully distributed storage architecture seamlessly integrated into the hypervisor and capable of scaling to meet any enterprise storage requirement.

Now, the leaders of VMware’s wildly popular Virtual SAN previews have written the first authoritative guide to this pivotal technology. You’ll learn what Virtual SAN is, exactly what it offers, how to implement it, and how to maximize its value.

Writing for administrators, consultants, and architects, Cormac Hogan and Duncan Epping show how Virtual SAN implements both object-based storage and a policy platform that simplifies VM storage placement. You’ll learn how Virtual SAN and vSphere work together to dramatically improve resiliency, scale-out storage functionality, and control over QoS.

Both an up-to-the-minute reference and hands-on tutorial, Essential Virtual SAN uses realistic examples to demonstrate Virtual SAN’s most powerful capabilities. You’ll learn how to plan, architect, and deploy Virtual SAN successfully, avoid gotchas, and troubleshoot problems once you’re up and running.

  • Authors: Cormac Hogan, Duncan Epping
  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: VMware Press (August, 2014)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 013385499X
  • Amazon: Kindle
  • Pearson: ebook/paper

vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive

VMware vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive is the follow-up to best seller vSphere 5.0 Clustering Deepdive and zooms in on three key components of every VMware based infrastructure and. It provides the knowledge and expertise needed to create a cloud infrastructure based on the solid foundation of vSphere HA, vSphere DRS and vSphere Storage DRS. It explains the concepts and mechanisms behind HA, DRS and Storage DRS which will enable you to make well educated decisions. Besides a brand new stretched cluster use case section it includes a fully rewritten Storage DRS section, and new details on both vSphere HA and vSphere DRS.

This book will take you in to the trenches of HA, DRS and Storage DRS and will give you the tools to understand and implement e.g. HA admission control policies, DRS resource pools, Datastore Clusters and resource allocation settings. Each section contains basic design principles that can be used for designing, implementing or improving VMware infrastructures.

  • Authors: Duncan Epping, Frank Denneman
  • Paperback: 415 pages
  • Publisher: CreateSpace (August, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1478183411
  • Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
  • Kindle – $ 4.99 (price might vary based on location)
  • Black & White Paper – 24.95

vSphere 5 Clustering Technical Deepdive

VMware vSphere 5.0 Clustering Technical Deepdive zooms in on three key components of every VMware based infrastructure and is by no means a “how to” guide. It covers the basic steps needed to create a vSphere HA and vSphere DRS cluster and to implement vSphere Storage DRS. Even more important, it explains the concepts and mechanisms behind HA, DRS and Storage DRS which will enable you to make well educated decisions. This book will take you in to the trenches of HA, DRS and Storage DRS and will give you the tools to understand and implement e.g. HA admission control policies, DRS resource pools, Datastore Clusters and resource allocation settings. On top of that each section contains basic design principles that can be used for designing, implementing or improving VMware infrastructures and fundamental supporting features like (Storage) vMotion, Storage I/O Control and much more are described in detail for the very first time.

Cloud Computing with VMware vCloud Director

Book #24, Cloud Computing with VMware vCloud Director, by John Arrasjid, Duncan Epping, Steve Kaplan Ben Lin, Michael Haines and Raman Veeramraju. This Short Topics book provides use cases, design considerations, and technology guidance to answer your questions about cloud computing. The primary intended audience is those interested in learning about VMware cloud computing products and solutions, but content on third-party technologies is also included where appropriate. Without diving overly deeply into specific design patterns, it provides insight into the tools to fit your design criteria and it explains the concepts used by vCloud ranging from Organization Virtual Datacenters to External Networks. The book includes a 17″x38″ poster with a deepdive on vCloud Director networking.

  • Authors: John Arrasjid, Duncan Epping, Steve Kaplan, Ben Lin, Michael Haines and Raman Veeramraju
  • Paperback: 136 pages
  • Publisher: Sage/Usenix (May, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-13: 978-1-931971-83-6
  • Buy Now | eBook (Kindle)

vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical Deepdive

VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical Deepdive zooms in on two key components of every VMware based infrastructure and is by no means a “how to” guide. It covers the basic steps needed to create a VMware HA and DRS cluster, but even more important explains the concepts and mechanisms behind HA and DRS which will enable you to make well educated decisions. This book will take you in to the trenches of HA and DRS and will give you the tools to understand and implement e.g. HA admission control policies, DRS resource pools and host affinity rules. On top of that each section contains basic design principles that can be used for designing, implementing or improving VMware infrastructures.

  • Authors: Duncan Epping, Frank Denneman
  • Paperback: 222 pages
  • Publisher: CreateSpace (December 2, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1456301446
  • Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
  • Buy now (For Europe, comcol.nl is a good alternative!)
  • Kindle version!

vSphere Quick Start Guide

vSphere 4.0 Quick Start Guide continues from an idea started several years ago by a few engineers. The idea was simple, provide an easy to use reference guide for all level administrators, consultants and architects. Recently VMware introduced many new features in vSphere 4.0 and with this handy pocket guide you will learn about each of these new features. With each chapter, the pages in this essential guide will answer common questions while giving you unprecedented insight into: Expert tips & tricks Pitfalls to avoid RemoteCLI & PowerCLI (PowerShell) scripts Configuration how to’s Virtualization best practices

  • Authors: Bernie Baker, Thomas Bryant, Duncan Epping, Dave Mishchenko, Stuart Radnidge, Alan Renouf
  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (November 20, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1439263450
  • Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
  • Buy now

Foundation for Cloud Computing with VMware vSphere 4

Book #21, Foundation for Cloud Computing with VMware vSphere 4, by John Arrasjid, Duncan Epping, and Steve Kaplan. Virtualization is recognized as a foundation for Cloud Computing. This book is an overview of the VMware technologies and how they can support the various services and management pieces required for Cloud architecture. Without diving overly deeply into specific design patterns, it provides insight into the tools to fit your design criteria.

  • Authors: John Arrasjid, Duncan Epping, Steve Kaplan
  • Paperback: 120 pages
  • Publisher: Sage/Usenix (November 20, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-13: 978-1-931971-72-0 –
  • Buy now