Automated NSX-T Edge Cluster Deployment in VCF 4.0 |

NSX-T integration with VCF is there for quite some time. Till VCF 3.9, SDDC Manager was not deploying NSX-T edge cluster in workload domains as part of VI WLD creation. Process of edge cluster deployment was manual and very well documented Here

Also this article by Cormac Hogan is worth checking to understand things in greater details.

In VCF 4.0, edge cluster deployment task is automated and can be kicked directly from SDDC Manager itself. No more juggling around configuring various things in NSX-T.

Below are high level steps for Automated Edge Cluster Deployment in VCF 4.0.

Step 1: Login to SDDC Manager and navigate to Workload Domains tab and click on environment where you want to deploy NSX-T Edge Cluster.

Form Actions Menu, click on Add Edge Cluster

Step 2: A list of prerequisites will pop up. Make sure your infrastructure has met all these requirements before moving ahead.

Word of caution here, make sure VLAN used for Host and Edge TEP’s are different. Don’t use same VLAN for TEP’s. Also make sure you have already configured BGP on your ToR switches and added neighbors (edges to be deloyed).

Once you have verified all prerequisites have met, select all check boxes and click on Begin button.

Step 3: Under General settngs, provide name for your edge cluster and fill up other details. Important setting is ASN value. Make sure to use same ASN value which you have configured on your ToR while setting up BGP neighbors for this edge cluster.

Hit Next after filling up required fields.

Step 4: Select appropriate use case for your Edge Cluster.

I did not explored what is custom use case meant here. So i just selected Workload Management and proceeded. Also since I am using BGP in my lab, I selected EBGP here.

Step 5: On Edge node page, provide Management IP, Edge TEP ip etc. All fields are self explanatory here.

If your VI WLD has more than one cluster, then select the cluster where edge nodes will be deployed.

Also select the cluster type. In my case my WLD is backed by L2 network and is homegenous, I selected L2 uniform here.

Configure Edge Uplink settings as per your environment.

Same for edge second uplink.

Once you have configured both uplinks, click on Add Edge Node button to save the settings.

Repeat Step 3-5 to add an additional edge node.

On summary page, review the deployment summary and hit Next.

Before starting edge deployment, SDDC Manager verifies the input which we have provided earlier to make sure edge deployment task do not fail because of any infra/network issue.

Once validation is passed, click on Finish button to start edge cluster deployment.

Behind the scene tasks

During edge cluster creation, you will see following tasks being carried out by sddc manager at vSphere/NSX lavel.

1: Two trunk port groups to be used for Edge uplinks are created.

2: The two edge nodes will be deployed under a resource pool created by sddc manager. This resource pool have proper reservations/shares etc configured to ensures edge nodes will get correct amount of resources in case of contention.