VCD Object Storage Extension-Part 1: Introduction & Architecture

Manish Jha

Recently, I got the chance to work on setting up Cloudian Object Storage for VMware Cloud Director and present some use cases of using object storage in conjunction with VCD. This blog series is aimed at jotting down all my learnings and mistakes that I encountered during setup.

In the first part of this series, let’s just understand what a VCD object storage extension solution is and how it works.

What is VCD Object Storage Extension?

VCD has evolved amazingly over the last couple of years, and many features, such as Container Service Extension, Data Protection (Veeam and Rubrik) integration, etc., were introduced.

The new addition to this portfolio was Object Storage which has become one of the key pillars of a modern cloud platform. Object Storage can now coexist with typical block storage or vSAN implementation with VCD. Tenants can use object storage to store cold data like vApp templates, media files, DB backups, etc.… Read More

How to Reuse VCF Cloud Builder For Another Bringup

Manish Jha

Those who are working on VCF are aware of the fact that, after a successful bringup, the only option you get is to launch SDDC Manager. There is no option in UI to go back to cloud builder initial screen where you can upload configuration workbook xls/json to start a fresh bringup.

sddc-bringup

One work around to this problem is to take snapshot of cloud builder before bringup and revert snapshot after succesful bringup to start again.

But this task seems very tedious to me. If you are running a huge infrastructure and performs bringup almost every day, this will not be an ideal situation.

In this post I will explain how to get rid of this annoying problem.

This can be achieved by running an internal one liner API call on cloud builder vm as root user.

Just refresh the cloud builder ui after running above API call and job done. … Read More

How To Verify if SDDC Bringup is AVN Enabled in VCF?

Manish Jha

Recently I saw an interesting thread on slack where one of the consultant was seeing deploy button grayed out for VRSLCM deployment. Consultant was not aware if the management domain bringup was AVN enabled or not. 

AVN was first introduced in VCF 3.9 and it enabled deploying vRealize components on logical segments instead of VLAN backed portgroup. AVN brought many enhancements with Cloud Foundation. Please read this Article to know more about AVN.

Since AVN enablement is optional and you can chose not to use it during SDDC bringup This is controlled via a parameter in VCF configuration workbook and ca be enabled later also.

vcf-avn

Now the question is how to verify whether or not a SDDC bringup is AVN enabled bringup. There are couple of ways to verify this.

1: Through PowerVCF

PowerVCF is a PowerShell module to interact with SDDC Manager and the VCF stack. If you have PowerVCF is installed, you can connect to sddc-manager using below command:

# Connect-VCFManager <sddc-manager-fqdn> <sso-credentials>

and then run command: Get-VCFApplicationVirtualNetwork

… Read More

Deploying vSphere with Kubernetes via VCF 4.0

Manish Jha

In this post I will walk through how to deploy a Kubernetes cluster in a workload domain in VCF. This is  a new feature that is introduced in VCF 4.0. vSphere with Kubernetes is also known as Project Pacific and Cormac Hogan did a great job in explaining nuances of Kubernetes in his Article

Before deploying a Kubernetes cluster, there are few prerequisites that must be met:

1: A NSX-T backed workload domain deployed.

2: Dedicated Edge Cluster deployed for workload domain. I have covered steps of deploying edge cluster Here

3: All Esxi hosts that are part of workload domain are licensed with “VMware vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus with Add-on for Kubernetes” license.

4: Subnets for Kubernetes cluster egress/ingress traffic created on your ToR.

Once above prerequisites, we are good to go with deployment. Let’s jump into lab and walk through deployment steps.

To deploy Kubernetes cluster, login to SDDC Manager and navigate to Home > Solutions.… Read More

How To Safely Remove Edge Cluster from Workload Domain in VCF

Manish Jha

Recently I deployed an edge cluster in my lab for NSX-T based workload domain. In VCF 4.0, a new feature was added for automated deployment of edge cluster. If you haven’t tried this yet, you can follow my previous Post to learn more about this.

My edge cluster encountered some routing issues because of incorrect BGP information passed during edge cluster deployment workflow and I was looking for how to remove it cleanly from sddc manager. 

While searching on internet, I came across VMware KB-78635 which lists the instructions of doing so. In this post I will walk through steps from the above KB.

Edge Cluster removal workflow is not baked into sddc manager yet and is carried out by python scripts provided by VMware. May be in next release of VCF, we will see this option added to sddc manager 😉

Edge cluster python script is named “edge_cluster_cleaner” and you will find this script as tar file in attachment section of KB-78635.… Read More

Automated NSX-T Edge Cluster Deployment in VCF 4.0

Manish Jha

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 

WLD-EC02

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.… Read More

Change NSX-T Deployment Form Factor in VCF

Manish Jha

Recently while playing with VCF, I noticed one annoying thing about NSX-T deployment for workload domain. By default NSX-T managers are deployed in large form factor with 48 GB of memory and all 48 GB reserved.

Also SDDC Manager checks for 144 GB of free memory at custer level where NSX-T managers will be deployed.

For production environments this setup works fine as we have plenty of resources, but for Lab/POC purpose 48 GB per node seems too big in my opinion (I am open to discussion on this)

In this post we will learn how to deploy NSX-T for workload domains with custom size. 

NSX-T deployment form factor can be controlled via /opt/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/config/application-prod.properties file. To use custom form factor, login to sddc manager as root user and edit this file to add below properties:

… Read More

How to Install App Launchpad for VMware Cloud Director

Manish Jha

App launchpad is one of the newest features that enhance the capabilities of VMware Cloud Director. This functionality will make life easier for tenants by allowing them to run applications with a few clicks.

In this post, I will walk through the steps of installing & configuring VMware App Launchpad. But before we dive into the lab, let’s understand the basics of App Launchpad.

VMware App Launchpad Introduction

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 is 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.

App Launchpad Architecture

The below image taken from VMware documentation illustrates the high-level architecture of App Launchpad.… Read More

What’s New in VMware Cloud Director 10.1

Manish Jha

With the release of v10.1 yesterday, vCloud Director has been rebranded to VMware Cloud Director. In this post I will cover what does Cloud Director brings to the table.

1: vCloud Director Rebranding: Upon logging into Cloud Director UI, you will no longer see the ‘v’ of vCloud Director. vCD  has been rebranded to VMware Cloud Director.

vmware cloud director

2: RIP Flex UI: Flex UI is no longer available in Cloud Director. In vCD 10.0, flex UI was disabled by default and if needed, it can be enabled back with cell-management-tool utility.

Note: Although the same command works in 10.1 also as shown below

But even after running this command, if you try to login to flash client, you will see a page not found error.… Read More

VMware Cloud Director-What’s New-NSX-T UI Enhancements

Manish Jha

With the release of VMware Cloud Director (Previously vCloud Director), a lot of NSX-T related UI enhancements are added. In this post I will walk through some of them.

Dedicated External Networks

With Cloud Director 10.1, an edge gateway can be provisioned with a dedicated external network. In this configuration, there is a one-to-one relationship between the external network and the edge gateway, and no other edge gateways can connect to this external network.

Note: Provider creates a T0 gateway within NSX-T and add it to Cloud Director as an external network. Once T0 is added, provider could convert an existing org gateway (T1) to this new dedicated T0, or create a new org gateway with Dedicated External Network option selected.

vCD-NSX-06

BGP and Route Advertisement

BGP peering  & Route Advertisement functionalities are added on Edge Gateway UI.

Route Advertisement

You can decide which of the network subnets that are attached to org gateway will be advertised to the dedicated external network.… Read More