DavidRing.ie

Part1: https://davidring.ie/2022/11/11/vcf-on-vxrail-4-5-walkthrough-part1-bring-up/

This is the second in a series of posts covering VCF 4.5 On VxRail 7.0.400. The following detailed post provides an example walkthrough covering the process of:

• Deploying a NSX Edge Cluster for MGMT WLD
• Deploying Application Virtual Networks(AVN)s for MGMT WLD

Prior to VCF 4.3 Application Virtual Networks(AVN)s including the NSX Edge Cluster and NSX network segments were deployed and configured during bring-up by Cloud Builder. Example of this process can be seen here in this example VCF 4.2 bring-up:

VCF On VxRAIL 4.2 – Walkthrough (Part1: Bring-Up)

This deployment method is now changed since VCF 4.3 as per Release Notes Extract:

‘Flexibility in Application Virtual Networks (AVN):  Application Virtual Networks(AVN)s, which include the NSX Edge Cluster and NSX network segments, are no longer deployed and configured during bring-up. Instead they are implemented as a Day-N operations in SDDC Manager, providing greater flexibility.’

Application Virtual Networks (AVNs) are a requirement in order to support the deployment of the vRealize Suite set of products. AVNs are dependent on NSX edge gateways having being deployed in the management WLD as a pre-requisite. The following steps detail how to deploy an NSX Edge cluster followed by deploying AVNs leveraging SDDC Manager automation. Required details for the deployment include the usual:

• DNS entries
• FQDN
• IP Addresses
• BGP autonomous system number (ASN)
• BGP passwords

SDDC MANAGER AUTOMATED NSX-T EDGE DEPLOYMENT STEPS

Please reference the VMware prerequisites Before you deploy an NSX Edge cluster:

Prerequisites for an NSX Edge Cluster

Note re. Stretched Cluster: You cannot deploy an NSX Edge cluster on a vSphere cluster that is stretched. You can stretch an L2 uniform vSphere cluster that hosts an NSX Edge cluster.

Go to SDDC Manager UI Select Inventory > Workload Domains Click on the name of the Management domain. Select Actions > Add Edge Cluster:

On completion we can view the newly deployed and configured NSX Edge Cluster from vCenter & NSX UI & Dell Switch CLI.

Useful switch cli examples:

• show running-config bgp
• show ip bgp summary
• show ip bgp
• show ip bgp neighbors
• show ip bgp neighbors 192.1.6.1
• show ip bgp neighbors 192.1.6.1 advertised-routes

AVNs FOR MGMT DEPLOYMENT STEPS

Go to SDDC Manager UI Select Inventory > Workload Domains. Click on the name of the Management domain Select Actions > Add AVNs:

On completion we can view the newly deployed and configured AVNs from both the vCenter & SDDC Manager UI:

NSX-T Edge Network Topology

The following depicts the architectural view from within NSX Manager for the Edge solution. The Tier-0 gateway provides routing to the external network while the Tier-1 connected to Tier-0 provides the N/S comms for the internal network:

Using PowerVCF to retrieve the configuration details:

In Part 3 I will walkthrough the deployment of vRealize Lifecycle Manager (VRSLCM).

Note: this is an example for reference only please use the VxRail installation procedures provided by Dell EMC.

USEFUL REFERENCES

Part 1: Cloud Foundation on VxRail-Understanding NSX-T Deployment in the Management Domain

Part 2 (Video): Cloud Foundation on VxRail-Understanding NSX-T Deployment in the Management Domain.

Thanks for reading!