HCX Integration With VMware Cloud Director 10x -

Table of Contents

This blog post provides an overview of the HCX installation and configuration workflow for VMware Cloud Director.

The diagram below, taken from VMware’s official docs, shows the high-level architecture of HCX for VCD-based clouds.

HCX Cloud System & Network Requirements

Before starting the HCX Cloud installation, ensure that you’ve met all the system and network port/protocol requirements. These are documented here

Firewall Requirements

The site’s WAN firewall must allow inbound HTTPS connections destined for the HCX Cloud. HCX Cloud will make outbound HTTPS requests.
The HCX Cloud site firewall also needs to allow inbound UDP-500 and UDP-4500 connections destined for the HCX appliances.
All other flows allow HCX to integrate with VMware SDDC components; typically, these are not firewalled within the datacenter

The below diagram shows ports that must be allowed in the firewall for a successful HCX cloud deployment in the destination environment.

VMware Cloud Director Prerequisites

Make sure the following is already configured in VCD:

1: VCD Public Address is set, and the load balancer cert is imported (for multi-cell deployment).

2: RabbitMQ is installed and configured in VCD.

HCX Cloud Manager Deployment & Configuration

Deploy the HCX Cloud appliance using the standard OVA deployment process.

Once the HCX Manager OVA is deployed and the appliance boots up, connect to the HCX Appliance Management UI by opening https://<hcx-cloud-fqdn>:9443

Authenticate using the admin credentials set during the OVA deployment.

Import VCD Certificate

The VCD certificate must be imported into HCX Manager before VCD is integrated into HCX.

Navigate to Administration > Certificate > Trusted CA Certificate, and click Import.

Select the option ‘URL’ and enter the VCD public IP address, then click Apply.

The certificate is now imported.

Register VCD in HCX

On the HCX Instance type page, select VCD and click Continue.

Hostname: Provide the VCD public address.
Username/Password: Authenticate using a VCD System Administrator account.

The vCenter server registered in VCD is automatically detected. You only need to supply VC credentials here.

Perform the same for the NSX-T instance.

Import the NSX certificate to continue.

AMQP settings are automatically imported from VCD. You must enter the RMQ user password and click Continue.

Note: Ensure that “Non-blocking AMQP Notifications” is enabled in VCD for this to function correctly.

Review the configuration summary and click the Restart button to complete the configuration. The HCX services will restart.

After the HCX services are restarted, the dashboard shows the health of the configured components.

HCX Interconnect Configuration

Connect to HCX Manager Cloud UI by typing https://<hcx-cloud-fqdn>/hybridity/ui/hcx-client/index.html and logging in with VCD system admin credentials.

Navigate to the Interconnect tab and, under Multi-Site Service Mesh, select Network Profiles. Click Create Network Profiles.

Specify network profiles for Interconnect Management, vMotion, Uplink, and Replication traffic (optional).

Here are the 3 profiles that I have created in my lab. I’m using the management network profile for IX replication traffic also.

Switch to the Compute Profiles tab and click on Create Compute Profile.

A Compute Profile contains the compute, storage, and network settings that HCX will use to deploy the Interconnect appliances when a Service Mesh is created.

Specify the compute profile name and click Continue.

Select the services that you need to include in the compute profile.

Select the Service Cluster/Resource Pool/Datastore/Folder, etc., where the IX appliance will be deployed during service mesh creation.

Select the network profile for IX appliance management, vMotion & uplink connection.

Select the VDS/TZ that will be used for L2 extension.

Review connection rules. This will give you a fair idea of which network ports need to be enabled in the firewall.

Click on Finish to complete the Compute Profile creation wizard.

The compute profile is now created.

Configure HCX Connector (On-Prem)

Once you have created Network & Compute Profiles, you can proceed with HCX Connector deployment & configuration in your on-prem datacenter. Deployment steps are pretty much the same as HCX Cloud Manager deployment, and I have written a post on the same here.

Once the HCX Connector’s initial configuration is completed, login to the vCenter Web Client and switch to the HCX context.

Go to the Site Pairing tab and click on “Connect To Remote Site.”

Since the target site is a VCD cloud, the Remote HCX URL will be in the format https://hcx-cloud-fqdn>/cloud/org/tenant-org-name>, and credentials will be the org admins.