• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

  • Home
  • Unexplored Territory Podcast
  • HA Deepdive
  • ESXTOP
  • Stickers/Shirts
  • Privacy Policy
  • About
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Unexplored

#113 – Procuring hardware for a vSAN based VCF infrastructure – featuring John Nicholson!

Duncan Epping · Mar 2, 2026 · Leave a Comment

I’ve been on the Virtually Speaking podcast several times, so it was time to invite one of the hosts to the Unexplored Territory Podcast and discuss his favorite topic, hardware configurations, and the bill of materials! John Nicholson goes over all the ins and outs of procuring new hardware and talks about ordering components for existing hardware. We discuss NICs, Switches, Ready Node configurations, Emulated Ready Node configurations, NVMe devices, and much more.

Especially in todays world of ever increasing memory prices, and difficulty to procure hardware, the suggestions John makes around re-using existing hardware with vSAN ESA are very valid. Also, the use of Memory Tiering is definitely something every customer should consider. But before I share all the nuggets, just listen to the episode on Spotify (bit.ly/4r66flp), Apple (apple.co/4raF5Kj), the embedded player below, or watch it on Youtube.

During the discussion, various blogs and videos were mentioned, make sure to check those as well!

  • The 2026 Structural Supply Crisis: Why VMware Cloud Foundation Is The Answer to the 2026 Hardware Crunch – https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2026/02/25/the-2026-structural-supply-crisis-why-vmware-cloud-foundation-is-the-answer-to-the-2026-hardware-crunch/
  • Expanded Compatibility Guide for vSAN ESA https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2023/07/26/expanded-hardware-compatibility-for-vsan-express-storage-architecture/
  • What can you change on a Ready Node? https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2023/07/27/yes-you-can-change-things-on-a-vsan-esa-readynode/
  • Brandon Frost on the vSpeaking Podcasthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjen1ER8ASc
  • Brandon Frost’s Explore Sessionhttps://www.vmware.com/explore/video-library/video/6360757998112

Unexplored Territory: recovering from a ransomware attack /w Sazzala Reddy!

Duncan Epping · Nov 1, 2021 ·

There we go, episode 002 of the Unexplored Territory Podcast was just published. In this episode we talk to Sazzala Reddy. Sazzala is a Chief Technologist at VMware who joined via the Datrium acquisition, where he was the CTO. Before founding Datrium, he was at Dell/EMC, where he came in via the DataDomain acquisition. I think it is fair to say that Sazzala has a heavy data/storage DNA. We discuss Sazzala’s career path, why better is sometimes worse, and we extensively discuss VCDR and the new cloud file system that is being developed. I think it is a very interesting episode and would encourage everyone to give it a listen!

Make sure to follow Sazzala on twitter (https://twitter.com/sazzala) and read his blog post on the VCDR filesystem: https://bit.ly/3CiQoav.

Listen now via Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2ZOziDx, Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3BEkFja, Google: https://bit.ly/3Cy3ssF, Overcast: https://overcast.fm/+zyG9k_hks, Website: https://bit.ly/3w70FnV.

Primary Sidebar

About the Author

Duncan Epping is a Chief Technologist and Distinguished Engineering Architect at Broadcom. Besides writing on Yellow-Bricks, Duncan is the co-author of the vSAN Deep Dive and the vSphere Clustering Deep Dive book series. Duncan is also the host of the Unexplored Territory Podcast.

Follow Us

  • X
  • Spotify
  • RSS Feed
  • LinkedIn

Recommended Book(s)

Also visit!

For the Dutch-speaking audience, make sure to visit RunNerd.nl to follow my running adventure, read shoe/gear/race reviews, and more!

Do you like Hardcore-Punk music? Follow my Spotify Playlist!

Do you like 80s music? I got you covered!

Copyright Yellow-Bricks.com © 2026 · Log in