I am a big advocate of not using the default SSL certs on any VMware products and I prefer using Signed certs from my CA server on my lab components. I have my CA server running in Windows Server 2012.

Earlier in my lab I had replaced the vSphere (Esxi + vCenter) SSL certs and if you want to know how to do it, you can read them from below links:

1: Replacing Esxi SSL Certificates

2: Replacing vCenter Server SSL Certs

If you are like me and new to replacing SSL certs and looking for how to setup a CA server, you can read it from Here for a step by step installation/configuration of CA server.

1: Introduction to VMware NSX

2: Installing and Configuring NSX Manager

3: Deploying NSX Controllers

4: Preparing Esxi Hosts and Cluster

5: Configure VXLAN on the ESXi Hosts

6: Logical Switching

7: Distributed Logical Router Tidbits

8: Installing Distributed Logical Router

9: NSX Edge Services Gateway

10: Upgrade NSX Manager From 6.2 to 6.2.4

All right lets dive into lab and look into how to replace the default SSL certs of VMware NSX.… Read More

This week I was trying my hands on upgrading NSX to version 6.2.4 which was released earlier this year in August.

I had no experience earlier with upgrading NSX manager and associated components, so I spent a lot of time in reading blogs and watching videos on how to perform the upgrade.

Before starting with upgrade process please consult the NSX 6.2.4 Release Notes and also follow VMware KB-2144295 which explains recommended minimum versions for VMware NSX for vSphere, ESXi, vCenter Server and Guest Introspection Driver (GID).

To keep track of latest versions you can use vTracker or the Latest Versions page hosted on www.virten.net

You can follow the below upgrade matrix to find out the upgrade path available in your environment.

While going through the blogs on how to start upgrading NSX to 6.2.4, I came across screenshot of a cool table which Anthony has posted on his Blog.… Read More

Yesterday I was working on Edge Services Gateway in my Lab and deployed the edge gateway in HA mode. Soon after the deployment when I checked the HA status from vCenter, it reported status as Down

To counter any UI bug which might be reporting HA status as down (as this was a brand new deployment), I decided to check the HA status by logging onto edge vm’s directly.

On checking for the HA status on the VM, below message was displayed

Highavalibity healthcheck server is stopped

I did a search on google for this message and didn’t get much results. Then I checked the Admin guide for NSX and came to know the fact that you should have at least one vNIC configured as High availability traffic flows on one of the internal interface.

By design the edge High Availability Service will only kick in once the first Internal vNIC has been added and configured. … Read More

In last 2 post of the series we discussed about Distributed Logical Router. Moving forward in NSX learning series, we will look into what is Edge Service Gateway and will discuss on when to use edge gateway. We will look into deploying ESG and configuring it and then finally some touch down points on monitoring Edge gateways.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series, you can read them from below links:

1: Introduction to VMware NSX

2: Installing and Configuring NSX Manager

3: Deploying NSX Controllers

4: Preparing Esxi Hosts and Cluster

5: Configure VXLAN on the ESXi Hosts

6: Logical Switching

7: Distributed Logical Router Tidbits

8: Installing Distributed Logical Router

In VMware NSX for vSphere there are two different types of NSX routers which can be deployed in virtual network infrastructure.

1. The NSX Edge Services Router (ESR)
2. The NSX Distributed Logical Router (DLR)

Both the ESR and DLR can run dynamic routing protocols, or not.… Read More

In last post of this series we discussed about distributed logical router and went through some important terms and terminologies. In this post we will jump into lab and will deploy logical distributed router.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series, you can read them from below links:

1: Introduction to VMware NSX

2: Installing and Configuring NSX Manager

3: Deploying NSX Controllers

4: Preparing Esxi Hosts and Cluster

5: Configure VXLAN on the ESXi Hosts

6: Logical Switching

7: Distributed Logical Router Tidbits

Before jumping into deploying distributed router, I want to stress on the fact that your logical switches be ready. What i mean here since you wanna test routing between 2 or more different subnets, you should have logical switches ready in place and should have some live VM’s attached to it.

In my lab I have 3 logical switches created for this purpose.

Lets jump into lab now.… Read More

In last post of this series we discussed about Logical Switching and understood when do we use logical switching. Also we deployed our first logical switch and moved a VM over to the newly created switch.

In this post we will discuss about Distributed Logical Router and look at the terms and terminology associated with it. We will not be diving into lab in this post as I intend to this in next post of this series

If you have missed earlier posts of this series, you can read them from below links:

1: Introduction to VMware NSX

2: Installing and Configuring NSX Manager

3: Deploying NSX Controllers

4: Preparing Esxi Hosts and Cluster

5: Configure VXLAN on the ESXi Hosts

6: Logical Switching

Overview

Physical Routers are the building block of any network infrastructure. They are essential for building a working network topology. As we know Routers comes into picture when we need communication between 2 different subnets.… Read More

In last post of this series we briefly looked what is VXLAN (In actual it’s an ocean of knowledge in itself) and also we configured VXLAN on our cluster/hosts.

In this post we will be talking about Logical switching and we will see how to create that and will cover prerequisites part as well.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series, you can read them from below links:

1: Introduction to VMware NSX

2: Installing and Configuring NSX Manager

3: Deploying NSX Controllers

4: Preparing Esxi Hosts and Cluster

5: Configure VXLAN on the ESXi Hosts

Let’s start with introduction to Logical Switching.

What is Logical Switching?

Functionality of a Logical switch is very similar to that of a physical switch i.e they allow isolation of applications and tenants for security purpose. A logical switch when deployed, creates a broadcast domain to allow isolation of the VM’s running in infrastructure.… Read More

In last post of this series we saw how to prepare Esxi host and Cluster for NSX. In this post we will be talking little bit about VXLAN, what are its benefits and how to configure VXLAN on Esxi hosts.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series you can read them from here:

1: Introduction to VMware NSX

2: Installing and Configuring NSX Manager

3: Deploying NSX Controllers

4: Preparing Esxi Hosts and Cluster

Lets start our discussion with what is VXLAN.

Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) is an encapsulation protocol for running an overlay network on existing Layer 3 infrastructure. An overlay network is a virtual network that is built on top of existing network Layer 2 and Layer 3 technologies to support elastic compute architectures.

In VXLAN the original layer 2 frame is encapsulated in a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packet and delivered over a transport network. This technology provides the ability to extend layer 2 networks across layer 3 boundaries and consume capacity across clusters.… Read More

In previous posts of this series, we talked about NSX Manager and NSX Controllers Deployment and also validated NSX Control Cluster status.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series you can read them from here:

1: Introduction to VMware NSX

2: Installing and Configuring NSX Manager

3: Deploying NSX Controllers

In this post we are going to learn about how to prepare Clusters and Esxi Hosts for NSX.

At this point we have NSX manager and controllers ready and established connection between control and management plane. Next step is to prepare cluster and Esxi hosts.

NSX installs three vSphere Installation Bundles (VIB) that enable NSX functionality to the host. One VIB enables the layer 2 VXLAN functionality, 2nd VIB enables the distributed router, and the 3rd VIB enables the distributed firewall. After adding the VIBs to a distributed switch, that distributed switch is called VMware NSX Virtual Switch.

Login to vCenter Server using vSphere Web Client and Navigate to Networking & Security > Installation > Host Preparation.… Read More

In last 2 posts of this series we understood what NSX is and how to install/configure NSX manager.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series, you can read them from below links:

1: Introduction to VMware NSX

2: Installing and Configuring NSX Manager

In this post we will be talking about NSX controllers. Before diving into lab, we will first discuss a little bit theory about NSX controllers and its importance.

NSX Controllers

NSX controllers are the control plane for NSX. They are deployed in a cluster arrangement, so as you deploy these, you can add more controllers for better performance and high availability so that if you loose one of em, you do not loose control functionality. These are important, if you loose enough of these, things stop working.

NSX controllers stores following tables:

1: MAC Table
2: ARP Table
3: VTEP Table

NSX controllers considerations:

1: Deployed in odd numbers

Controllers uses a cluster and uses a voting quorum.… Read More