Monthly Archives: July 2018

Learning HCX-Part 7: HCX Migration Methods

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In last post of this series we deployed the Cloud Gateway and the Layer 2 Concentrator virtual appliances. Next is to explore various migration methods to migrate workloads from on-prem datacenter to the cloud.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Introduction to HCX

2: HCX Enterprise Deployment & Configuration

3: HCX Cloud Deployment & Configuration

4: HCX Site Pairing

5: Configuring Interconnect Networks

6: Deploying Fleet Appliances

HCX enables bidirectional virtual machine mobility. Virtual Machines can be migrated to/from an HCX-enabled target site. The migration capability for both live (Powered-on) and cold (Powered-off) virtual machines. Following are the migration methods supported by HCX:

HCX No-Downtime aka Cross-Cloud vMotion

In HCX No-Downtime method, running VM’s are migrated from on-premise to cloud datacenter with absolutely no downtime. This migration is very similar to native vSphere vMotion migration.

If you are like me, you may be thinking that vMotion is performed between 2 hosts in same cluster or across cluster, but with HCX we have on-prem and cloud and there is no connection between Esxi hosts of on-prem and Esxi hosts running in cloud, then how are we able to vMotion to cloud?… Read More

Cleanup HCX Deployment

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In this post we will learn about how to do cleanup of a HCX deployment in a right way. 

Below are the high level steps for HCX cleanup.

1: Unstretch a Layer 2 Network : Unstretching a Layer 2 network is necessary before removing the associated L2C appliance. Steps given below

  • Login to vCenter Web Client and click on HCX plugin and navigate to Interconnect > Extended Networks tab.
  • Select the network you want to remove and click the X button and hit OK to confirm.

2: Delete the L2C virtual appliance: To delete the L2C appliance, go to interconnects > HCX Components > Network Extension Service tab and select the appliance and click on Remove. 

Click on Yes to confirm deletion of appliance.

You will see a message for appliance removal has started. Be patient, it takes 2-3 minutes to remove appliance from both on-prem and cloud side.

3: Delete Cloud Gateway appliance: From the HCX Components tab, select the CGW appliance and click on Remove.… Read More

Learning HCX-Part 6: Deploying Fleet Appliances

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In last post of this series we did the fleet configuration so that we can deploy the fleet appliances. In this post we will discuss about the fleet appliances and will deploy them.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Introduction to HCX

2: HCX Enterprise Deployment & Configuration

3: HCX Cloud Deployment & Configuration

4: HCX Site Pairing

5: Configuring Interconnect Networks

There are 3 appliances that you can deploy in your HCX environment:

Cloud Gateway (CGW): The CGW appliance is responsible for creating encrypted tunnel between on-premise and HCX-Cloud for vMotion and Replication traffic. CGW deployment is kicked from on-prem and its deployed as virtual machine in both on-prem and cloud side.

CGW constitutes the migration path for vMotion and replication traffic and it is done via establishing a secure connection between the 2 CGW vm’s deployed in on-prem and cloud side respectively.… Read More

Learning HCX-Part 5: Configuring Interconnect Networks

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In last post of this series we paired HCX Enterprise with the HCX Cloud appliance. Now the next task is to deploy the fleet appliances, but before doing any deployment we have to configure the networks for interconnects i.e fleet configuration.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Introduction to HCX

2: HCX Enterprise Deployment & Configuration

3: HCX Cloud Deployment & Configuration

4: HCX Site Pairing

Basically we are defining a pool of IP’s which interconnect appliances will use when we start deploying them. High level steps of fleet config are summarized as below.

Login to hcx cloud using the public url (https://hcx-cloud-public-fqdn) and navigate to Administration > Deployment Containers.

Deployment containers dictates where your fleet appliances will be sitting post deployment. Click on Add button to specify a new container.

Provide a name for the container and select the vCenter server with which your HCX-Cloud appliance is registered.… Read More