Installing & Configuring vRealize Suite Life Cycle Manager 2.0

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vRealize Suite Life Cycle Manager 2.0 was released in September 2018 and with this release a lot of new features were added. Please refer to this post to learn What’s new in vRLCM 2.0.

What is vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager?

vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager automates install, configuration, upgrade, patch, configuration management, drift remediation and health from within a single pane of glass, and automates Day 0 to Day 2 operations of the entire vRealize Suite, enabling simplified operational experience for customers.

In this post I will walk through the important configuration steps that needs to be in place before you can start consuming vRLCM to automate your stuffs.

vRLCM Deployment and Configuration

Deployment of vRLCM appliance is very straightforward like any other VMware va based deployment.

Once the vRLCM appliance is deployed and boots up, connect to the appliance by typing https://<vrlcm-fqdn>/vrlcm

Initial login credentials are: admin@localhost/vmware

Post login you need to change the root password of the vRLCM appliance.… Read More

vRA 7.4 Distributed Install: Part 4: vRA Distributed Install

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In last post of this series , I talked about how to configure NSX based load balancer for vRA environment. In this post I will walk through vRA appliance deployment.

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

1: Introduction & Reference Architecture

2: Lab Setup

3: Load Balancer Configuration

Download vRA 7.4 appliance and deploy 2 instances of vRA VM’s.

Once both the appliance boots up, connect to the vami of first appliance by typing https://<vra1-fqdn>:5480/

At first login, the deployment wizard will automatically launch in the UI. Hit Next to continue.

Accept EULA and hit Next.

For distributed install, select the type as Enterprise deployment model.

Installation wizard provides recommendation for minimum number of vm’s needed for each service.

If you are planning to include IaaS along with vRA then make sure Install Infrastructure as a Service box is selected.… Read More

vRA 7.4 Distributed Install: Part 3: Load Balancer Configuration

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In last post of this series, I talked about my lab setup. In this post I will walk through the load balancer configuration that needs to be in place for supporting the distributed install.

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

1: Introduction & Reference Architecture

2: Lab Setup

Although it’s not mandatory to have the load balancer configured when kicking the distributed install, as we can configure it post vRA deployment, but it is recommended to configure this before attempting the install.

I am using NSX 6.4 in my lab for load balancer. You can choose the supported load balancer of your choice.

I deployed a dedicated Edge GW (size=large) and attached my dvPortgroup named “Production” as uplink. I also added 3 IP’s on the uplink interface (one primary and 2 secondary ip) which will be used during VIP configuration.… Read More

vRA 7.4 Distributed Install: Part 2-Lab Setup

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In last post of this series, I talked about high level overview of vRA distributed installation. In this post I will be discussing about my lab setup.

Management Cluster

In my management cluster I have vSphere 6.5 installed and vCenter is deployed with embedded psc. I have total of 5 hosts in my management cluster.

Host Details:

VM/Appliance Details:

  • 2x vRealize Automation 7.4 Appliances
  • 2x Windows Servers for IaaS Web
  • 2x Windows Servers for the Management Service (Active / Passive)
  • 2x Windows Servers for the DEMs/Agents

Windows Template Specifications

I deployed each of the windows vm using a template which was configured as per below:

1: Static IP set and windows domain joined. 

2: JRE 1.8 installed (you don’t need the full JDK).

3: vRA service account created and added to local administrator group. 

4: vRA service account granted Log on as service rights.

Path: Administrative Tools → Local Security Policy → Expand ‘Local Policy’ → Click on ‘User Rights Assignment’ → Right-click ‘Log on as a service’ → Properties → Click on the ‘Add User or Group’

5: MSTDC configured as shown below

Path: Start → Administrative Tools → Component Services → Computers → My Computer → Distributed Transaction Coordinator → Local DTC → Right Click → Properties → Security

Note: Few articles/video which I followed, recommends to use “No Authentication Required” option selected, but in my case vRA prerequisite check was failing because of this and setup recommended to use “Mutual Authentication“option.… Read More

VRA 7.4 Distributed Install: Part 1-Introduction

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vRA 7.x brought a lot of enhancements with it and one of the major enhancement was the simplicity of deploying the setup which was very complex till version 6.x. 

The second major enhancement was to cut the overall footprint of vRA. For VRA 6.x implementation, we needed at least 8 VA’s to form the core services (excluding the IaaS components). This limitation is no more with 7.x implementation.

Now a single pair of VRA VA’s forms the core services. In a distributed install, the load balanced VA’s delivers vRA’s framework services, Identity Manager, Database, vRO, and RabbitMQ. All these services are clustered and sits behind a single load balance VIP and a single SSL cert.

Last year I did a VRA 7.3 simple install in my lab and blogged about it. Did not got chance to play around the distributed install, so this time I decided to complete this unfinished business.… Read More

AHV Networking: Part 4: Configuring OVS For Best Performance

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There is no dedicated storage network needed with Nutanix as AHV leverages the data network as the backplane for storage. In AHV based deployments, CVM, Hypervisor and Guest VMs connect with physical network via Open vSwitch (OVS). 

An instance of OVS is present on each AHV host and all instances of OVS in a cluster forms a single logical switch (somewhat similar to VMware vDS concept).

In a default AHV installation, all the interfaces present in the NX node are grouped together in a single bond called bro-up. A typical NX node ships with 2×10 GB and 2×1 GB interface. 

The following diagram illustrates the networking configuration of a single host immediately after imaging.

Although the above configuration works just fine in most of the cases, as a best practice Nutanix recommends to separate the 10G and 1G interfaces into separate bonds to ensure that CVM and user VM traffic always traverse the fastest possible link. … Read More

AHV Networking: Part 3: Change OVS Bond Mode

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In last post of AHV Networking series, we learnt the basics of the various bond modes that are available with OVS in AHV. In this post we will learn how to change the bond mode configuration.

Lets jump into lab and start firing some commands.

1: Verify current bond mode.

SSH to any of the AHV host in cluster and run command: ovs-appctl bond/show

This command shows the current bond mode that is configured and the member interfaces that are present in the bond.

Alternatively you can connect to a CVM and run command: allssh ssh root@192.168.5.1 ovs-vsctl show to fetch more information about a bond. 

2: Change Bond Mode from Active/Backup to Balance-SLB

To change bond from active/backup to balance-slb, we can use the allssh command to update bond configuration on all AHV host (that are part of a cluster) in one shot. Command to do this is : allssh ssh root@192.168.5.1ovs-vsctl set port br0-up bond_mode=balance-slb

3: Verify that bond mode has changed

Command: allssh ssh root@192.168.5.1ovs-vsctl show

4: Change Rebalance Interval

In balance-slb mode, default rebalance interval is 10 secs which is too short.… Read More

AHV Networking: Part 2: Understanding OVS Bond Mode

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In last post of this series we learnt few basics of AHV networking. In this post we will learn about network load balancing in Nutanix.

Nutanix networking is based on OVS and the networks are configured via Prism/ACLI. OVS supports 3 bond modes for network load balancing. 

1: Active/Backup

By default the bond mode is in Active/backup mode when AHV is installed. In this mode VM traffic is sent only over one of the physical uplink and rest all uplinks are in passive mode and they become active only when the active uplinks fails.

With a typical NX node you will see 2×10 GB and 2×1 GB NICs and all of them are aggregated together in a bond called bond0(Older AOS)/br0-up (new AOS).

In this mode the maximum throughput of all VMs running on a Nutanix node is limited to 10 Gbps. Active/backup mode is easiest one to configure and there is no additional configuration needed on the upstream switches.… Read More

AHV Networking: Part 1: Basics

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AHV Networking Overview

AHV uses Open vSwitch (OVS) to connect the CVM, the hypervisor, and guest VMs to each other and to the physical network on each node. When we install AHV, an instance of OVS is created on that host and all instance of OVS across a cluster combines to form a single logical switch.

What is Open vSwitch (OVS)

OVS is an open source software switch implemented in the Linux kernel and designed to work in a multiserver virtualization environment. OVS is a layer-2 learning switch that maintains a MAC address table.

OVS have virtual ports to which the hypervisor host, CVM’s  and the user VMs connect. To learn more about OVS, please refer this article

Below diagram shows high level overview of OVS architecture in general.

Before moving forward in this article, lets revisit few important terminology related to OVS.

  • Bridges: It is a virtual switch which manages traffic between physical and virtual network interfaces.
… Read More

Unregistering a Cluster from Prism Central

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Once a cluster have been registered to Prism central, unregistering it via Prism UI is no longer available. This option was removed to reduce the risk of accidentally unregistering a cluster because several features require Prism Central to run your clusters.

If a cluster is unregistered from Prism Central, not only will these features not be available but the configuration for them may also be erased.

Unregistering a cluster can be done via CLI. Please follow below steps for removing a cluster from PC.

Note: The below steps assumes that you have not configured Nutanix Calm, Self Service Portal and Micro-segmentation etc in your Prism central. If these are configured then please follow KB 4944 for unregistration process.

1: Log on to any Controller vm of the registered cluster and verify cluster is healthy by running command: cluster status

2: Enable “remove-from-multicluster” option in the nCLI by running cmd: ncli -h true

3: Unregister the cluster from Prism Central by running command: 

$ multicluster remove-from-multicluster external-ip-address-or-svm-ips=pc-name-or-ip username=pc-username password=pc-password force=true

Cluster unregistration take a minute or so.… Read More