A nested VCF lab joins its NSX overlay to the rest of the network with one BGP session between a gateway running FRR and an NSX Tier-0 — two completely different systems that have to agree exactly, kept in sync from a single design-document table.
Standing up step-ca as a private certificate authority for a nested VMware Cloud Foundation lab — what a private CA actually is, why issuing certificates is the easy part, and how automation distributes trust to everything that has to believe them.
How a markdown table in a TOGAF design document became the single source of truth for an entire VMware Cloud Foundation lab — no config files needed.
Beyond Infrastructure as Code: Design as source of truth, AI reasoning about failures, human design authority, closed-loop learning. A new paradigm where systems maintain themselves.
How VMware Cloud Foundation turns IEC 62443 zones, IEC 62351 crypto requirements, and Enhanced CAF obligations into operational infrastructure — NSX for the network fabric, vDefend for firewalling and threat detection, Avi for load balancing and TLS offload, Live Site Recovery for DR, and Advanced Cyber Compliance for cyber recovery.
IEC 62443 zones and conduits replace the air gap — and IEC 62351 gives them something to be made of. Applied to a composite UK transmission substation, with the regulatory framework that makes the work obligatory.
How the IT/OT air gap dissolved over thirty years — from the Purdue Model through Stuxnet to virtualised SCADA — and what the attackers found when they got through.
How IEC 61850 replaces copper trunks with Ethernet — merging units, process buses, zero-recovery-time redundancy, and the virtualisation debate that's splitting the industry into camps.
Why every grid operator on the planet faces the same problem — sites that outlive their equipment, equipment that outlives the software protecting it, and a three-millisecond deadline that hasn't changed since the 1960s.