Learn in order

Guides

Unlike the blog — where posts stand alone — guides are series meant to be read in order. Each series targets a specific experience level, so you can start where you actually are instead of where documentation assumes you are.

Beginner friendly

Start here if the topic is new to you — no prior experience assumed, jargon explained as it appears.

vSAN for Dummies

5 parts

A from-zero guide to VMware vSAN for people who have never touched hyperconverged infrastructure. Five parts, from 'what even is HCI' to running a cluster with confidence — building, breaking and operating it yourself.

  1. vSAN for Dummies, Part 1: What vSAN Actually Is (No Buzzwords)
  2. vSAN for Dummies, Part 2: How a vSAN Cluster Comes Together
  3. vSAN for Dummies, Part 3: Failures, Quorum, and Rebuilds
  4. vSAN for Dummies, Part 4: Policies Beyond Mirroring (and Where Your Capacity Goes)
  5. vSAN for Dummies, Part 5: Running It for Real

NSX for Dummies

5 parts

A from-zero guide to VMware NSX for people who know what a VLAN is and nothing else. Part 1 builds the one mental model — overlay networking — that makes everything NSX does afterwards feel obvious.

  1. NSX for Dummies, Part 1: Networks Made of Software (Explained Without the Fog)
  2. NSX for Dummies, Part 2: How an NSX Overlay Fits Together
  3. NSX for Dummies, Part 3: Gateways, Edges, and the Route Out
  4. NSX for Dummies, Part 4: vDefend and the Security Layer Inside NSX
  5. NSX for Dummies, Part 5: Day-Two Operations Without the Panic

Advanced

Deep dives for people who design and troubleshoot these systems for a living.

ESXi Scheduler Deep Dives

1 part

An advanced series on how ESXi actually schedules CPU. Part 1: why %RDY beats every other counter, what co-scheduling really costs wide VMs, and how to read esxtop like the scheduler sees it.

  1. The ESXi CPU Scheduler, Part 1: Ready Time Is the Only Metric That Matters