One Node (ESXi) Management Domain Deployment in VMware Cloud Foundation

Manish Jha

Those who are familiar with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) are aware that deploying the management domain requires a minimum of 4 ESXi hosts. In a production environment, this is not a problem, but in resource-crunched Lab/PoC environments, it is very difficult to deploy the full-fledged management domain.

In this blog post, I am going to demonstrate how to deploy a VCF management domain with just a single ESXi host in a nested lab. This tidbit will be very helpful for the folks who want to test VCF but don’t have adequate resources available in the lab.

I am following VCF 5.1.1 BOM for my deployment. I will cover resource requirements as well as touch base on the nested ESXi configuration. Let’s get started!!!

Nested ESXi Configuration

1: Resource Allocation

The nested ESXi was deployed with 96 GB Memory and 14 CPUs, 2 network adapters, and 1000 GB SSD storage. Although 96 GB is a bit less especially if you plan to deploy NSX Edges later after the SDDC bringup.… Read More

Upgrade VCD Data Solutions Extension from 1.3 to 1.4

Manish Jha

In my first post of the VCD Data Solution Extension (DSE) series, I discussed the architecture and installation workflow of DSE 1.3. The second post of the series covered the steps of deploying DSE in an airgap environment.

DSE 1.4.0 introduced exciting new features, especially around backup and restoring database instances. You can read the DSE 1.4.0 release notes for the full list of the new features.

In this post, I will walk through the steps of upgrading DSE from 1.3.0 to 1.4.0. The following steps explain the DSE upgrade workflow.  

Step 1: Download the DSE 1.4 Installation File

Download the DSE 1.4.0 installation binary from here

Step 2: Upgrade DSE Add-On

Login to the VCD provider portal, and navigate to More > Solution Add-On Management page. Click on the upload button to upload the DSE 1.4.0 iso file.

Click on the Browse File button, locate the iso file, and click on the Upload button.… Read More

Install VCD Data Solutions Extension in an Airgap Environment

Manish Jha

In my last post of the VCD series, I discussed the installation & Configuration of VCD Data Solutions Extensions. In this post, I will walk through configuring the same in an airgap environment.

In an airgap environment, artifacts are stored in an internal registry such as Harbor, Jfrog, etc. To install data solutions extension in the airgap environment, you must first relocate the artifacts from the VMware public registry to your internal registry.

Step 1: Relocate Artifacts

To relocate the artifacts, you can install a Linux machine with imgpkg and doker utilities.

Run the following commands to relocate artifacts:

… Read More

Install & Configure VMware Cloud Director Extension for VMware Data Solutions 1.3

Manish Jha

What is VCD Data Solution?

The VMware Cloud Director Extension for VMware Data Solutions is a plug-in for VCD that allows cloud providers to offer on-demand caching, messaging, and database software services at scale and thus expand their multi-tenant cloud infrastructure platform. The VCD Data Solutions include services such as VMware SQL with MySQL, VMware SQL with PostgreSQL, and RabbitMQ.

These services are deployed on top of the Kubernetes clusters deployed using Container Service Extension. Tenants can install Grafana and Prometheus in their Kubernetes clusters to perform data analytics, monitor a service’s health, and take action if an issue occurs.

In this post, I will walk through the steps of installing & Configuring VCD Data Solution Extension version 1.3

How does the Data Solutions Extension work?

The Data Solution Extension works in conjunction with Container Service Extensions 4.0 or later. It enables providers to publish data and messaging services to their tenants, who can then use them to build new or update current applications.… Read More

Simplify Your Application Deployments with VCD Content Hub

Manish Jha

Introduction

Over the last few years, VCD has evolved as a true developer ready cloud. To start with, VCD enabled Service Providers to offer multi-tenant/multi-cluster Kubernetes as-a-Service through Container Service Extension and lately enabled integration with Tanzu Mission Control to simplify the Kubernetes management and visibility across environments through a single pane of glass.

Software as a Service (SaaS) has emerged as a game-changer, offering a flexible and scalable approach to software delivery that aligns perfectly with the demands of modern businesses. To cater to this need, VCD integrates with the App Launchpad service that offers a self-service portal to tenants to deploy and manage their applications easily. It allows users to deploy and manage applications on top of the infrastructure provisioned through the VCD portal and provides a user-friendly interface for application provisioning. 

The main challenge with App Launchpad was the need for administrators to handle catalog items individually, resulting in increased overhead.… Read More

Integrate VMware Cloud Director 10.5.x with OKTA IDP

Manish Jha

Introduction to OIDC & OAuth 2.0

OpenID Connect (OIDC) is an identity authentication protocol that extends open authorization (OAuth) 2.0 to standardize the process for authenticating and authorizing users. The OAuth 2.0 protocol enables a third-party application (called a client) to access resources from a resource server (such as an API) on behalf of a user (referred to as a resource owner). The user provides the client with a limited access token, which it can use to request resources from the resource server.

The OAuth 2.0 protocol provides security through scoped access tokens, and OIDC provides user authentication and single sign-on (SSO) functionality. The access token issued by an authorization server verifies the identity and consent of the user. 

VMware Cloud Director can be integrated with an external OIDC provider to import users/groups created in the upstream IDP.  The Service Provider imports users/groups in VCD and associates them with appropriate roles.… Read More

How to Delete MQTT Enabled App Launchpad in VCD

Manish Jha

Starting with VCD 10.2 and App Launchpad 2.0.0.1, it is possible to deploy App Launchpad using MQTT for communication with VCD.

VCD 10.5 introduced a new feature called Content Hub as a replacement for App Launchpad. Service providers running VCD 10.5.x are encouraged to provide container/vm applications to tenants by integrating Content Hub with VMware MarketPlace and Helm repositories.

In this post, I will demonstrate how you can delete MQTT enabled App Launchpad extension from VCD.

Step 1: List Installed Extensions

The GET call returns a json in response listing all installed extensions and its ID. From the extensions list filter the ID of the App Launchpad extension.… Read More

How to Delete Legacy App Launchpad (AMQP Enabled) from VCD

Manish Jha

App Launchpad is a VMware Cloud Director service extension that service providers can use to create and publish catalogs of deployment-ready applications. Tenant users can then deploy the applications with a single click.

  • App Launchpad supports applications from the Bitnami applications catalog that are available in the VMware Cloud Marketplace. 
  • You can create catalogs of your custom, in-house applications and configure App Launchpad to work with these catalogs.

The older versions of the App Launchpad (<=2.0), use AMQP to communicate with VCD. Starting with App Launchpad v2.0.0.1, the MQTT protocol is also supported.  

If you are using AMQP for the App Launchpad and running version > 2.0.0, you can reconfigure App Launchpad to use the MQTT protocol. 

You have to first delete AMQP enabled App Launchpad before you can reconfigure it to use MQTT. 

Step 1: Find App Launchpad Extension ID

… Read More

Delete AMQP Broker Settings in VCD

Manish Jha

The older versions of VMware Cloud Director used AMQP protocol to exchange messages (such as system notifications or any other update) with another VCD cell. Starting with VCD 10.1, MQTT  replaced AMQP. To learn more about how VCD used MQTT, see product documentation.

If you have an environment that still uses AMQP (e.g., VCD upgraded from version <=10.1) and wants to replace it with MQTT, you must first delete the AMQP broker settings from VCD. Unfortunately, it is not currently feasible to delete the settings from the GUI and must be done through APIs.

In the VCD GUI, you only see 2 options for the AMQP broker: Edit settings and Test AMQP config. There is no delete option.

In this post, I will show what APIs you need to delete AMQP broker settings.

Step 1: Get AMQP Broker Configuration

Note: The below APIs are applicable for VCD 10.5.1. If you are running an older version of VCD, check the supported API versions that you can use.… Read More

Error Publishing TMC Self-Managed to Tenants in VCD

Manish Jha

Welcome to yet another troubleshooting post for tmc self-managed operation in VCD. In the last post, I discussed the tmc self-managed deployment issue and how I fixed it. In this post, I will discuss another issue that I encountered with the solution. 

After successfully deploying TMC Self-Managed, you must publish the solution to tenants so that they can attach their TKG clusters to TMC. When the publishing operation is performed, the TMC Self-Managed Add-On solution creates a temporary VM known as the solution agent vm, which is subsequently destroyed once the task is complete.

In my lab, the publishing task was completed for a couple of tenants and later when I tried publishing it to another tenant, the task got stuck (VCD was acting cranky at that time).

This behavior is encountered when the solutions process in the VCD cell gets killed or there is network interruption between the cell and the VCD public address during the operation execution.
… Read More