My HCI Lab with Nutanix Community Edition: Part 2: Lab Setup

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we discussed about what Nutanix CE is what does it offer and we talked about limitation of the product. In this post I will walk through my lab setup which I used to deploy the Nutanix CE.

Recommended Hardware

Before planning your deployment, make sure to refer to below spreadsheet which lists all necessary piece of hardware you need to have in place. 

Nutanix CE-HW Specs.png

In my lab, I don’t have a dedicated hardware server for deployment, so I went ahead with Nested virtualization technique. But if you are interested in deploying CE on dedicated piece of hardware then I would recommend reading this article.

Step 1: Download Nutanix CE bits

Before starting deployment, you need to first register register yourself on Nutanix Next Community . Fill in all the needed details and hit submit.

nutanix-next-registration.PNG

You will get an email with download links and Getting Started docs. … Read More

My HCI Lab with Nutanix Community Edition: Part 1: Introduction

Manish Jha

Till the time I was working majorly on VMware products, I thought there can’t be a better piece of technology than this. But since the time I started learning Nutanix, my thoughts changed and I must admit that I am in awe of this product.

To learn any new product, home lab is the best place where you can learn things from scratch. Since I don’t have dedicated hardware pieces to deploy Nutanix, I tried my hands on Nutanix Community Edition.

In this post I will outline some basic considerations which you should keep in mind when when planning to go with Nutanix CE and will walk through the steps needed to create lab. Also I will discuss possibilities and limits of using this product.

What is Nutanix Community Edition (CE) ?

Nutanix Community Edition is the free version of Nutanix OS which can be used to test drive main features of Nutanix.… Read More

Learning vRNI 3.9: Part 3:User Management in vRNI

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we learnt how to change default retention period for events etc in vRNI. In this post we will learn how about user management.

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

1: Adding Data Sources in vRNI

2: Changing Default Data Management Policy

Default installation of vRNI allows you to login with admin@local user and this user can add new users (local and LDAP) and configure memberships and other settings of existing users. In this post we will learn how to add a local and LDAP user to vRNI.

Adding Local User

For security reasons, you might want to delete the default local user and specify a new one as per your organization access standard. To add a new local user login to vRNI and navigate to Home > Settings > User Management > Local Users and click on Add New User.… Read More

Learning vRNI 3.9: Part 2:Changing Default Data Management Policy

Manish Jha

By default the data retention policy in vRNI is one month. However if you have an enterprise license, then you can change this policy.  The data is divided into the following categories:

vrni-data retention

We can change the value of any category and can set it to maximum value specified in above table.

To change the default data retention policy, login to vRNI and navigate to Home > Settings > Data Management. 

Click on configure button to change the values.

vrni-dm-1

From the drop down menu, select the new value for each category which you want to change and hit submit button.

vrni-dm-2

And that’s it. Easy peasy task isn’t it 😉

I hope you find this post informational. Feel free to share this on social media if it is worth sharing. 

Learning vRNI 3.9: Part 1:Adding Data Sources in vRNI

Manish Jha

By default when vRNI 3.9 is installed, it starts in the NSX assessment mode and in this mode you will only see option to add vCenter server as data source.

vrni-ds-1

If you click on Add Data Source, the only option available to you is to add vCenter, Infoblox and Netflow Collector.

vrni-ds-2

In order to add different data sources like NSX Manager or Cisco devices, you need to change the evaluation license and then click on “Switch to Full Product Evaluation” button available in the bottom right corner of vRNI homepage.

Once you have switched to full evaluation mode, you can add various data sources to analyze traffic flow, and generate reports. 

To add a new data source, go to settings page from gear icon menu and navigate to Accounts and Data Sources option.

vrni-ds-4

Click on Add Source button.

vrni-ds-5

Now you will see plenty of options available to be added as data source.… Read More

vCloud Extender-Part 4: Cloud Provider Registration and VM Migration

Manish Jha

In last post of this series, I covered the steps needed to configure on-prem environment to connect it to a cloud provider site. In this post I will demonstrate how to register cloud provider and initiate vm migration using vCloud Extender.

1: Introduction to vCloud Extender

2: vCloud Extender-Cloud Provider Setup

3: vCloud Extender-Tenant (On-Premise) Setup

Lets start with Cloud Provider registration.

Login to On-prem vCenter server webclient and click on vCloud Extender plugin and navigate to Provider Clouds tab. Click on Add a Provider Cloud button.

sp-1

Specify Cloud Provider name and Provider Cloud URL. This should be in format https://provider-url/cloud/org/tenant-org-name.

Also specify the vCD Extender cloud service URL. This URL we configured in post 2 of this series.

Clicking on Test button verifies that if the supplied info is correct and the on-prem vCenter can connect to cloud environment successfully. Once test is passed, click on Add button to save the configuration.… Read More

vCloud Extender-Part 3: Tenant (On-Premise) Setup

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we covered the deployment/configuration steps in the cloud provider side. In this post we will learn about how to configure the on-premise (tenant) environment.

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

1: Introduction to vCloud Extender

2: vCloud Extender-Cloud Provider Setup

To connect the Tenant environment with the cloud provider, we need to deploy an instance of vCloud Extender in the on-premise. Deployment is more or less same like service provider side, but with difference that we select deployment type as “cx-connector” a shown in below screenshot.

CX-Tenant-Setup (1)

Once appliance is deployed and boots up, it will give you URL for the further configuration of appliance.

CX-Tenant-Setup (2)

Connect to https://CX-Appliance-FQDN/ui/mgmt and login with user administrator and password set during deployment of appliance.

CX-Tenant-Setup (3)

On the home page click on Setup Wizard button to start configuring the appliance.… Read More

vCloud Extender-Part 2: Service Provider Setup

Manish Jha

In last post of this series, I discussed about vCloud Extender architecture and its capabilities. In this post I will walk through steps of configuring vCloud Extender in cloud provider side.

vCloud Extender is deployed as ova and deployment steps are straight forward as shown in below slide show. Just make sure to select deployment type as “cx-cloud-service” on customization template page.

Once appliance is deployed and boots up, it will show the browser link to access the appliance for further configuration.

vcd-ext12

Connect to appliance by typing https://appliance-fqdn/ui/mgmt and login with administrator user and password set during deployment.

vcd-ext13

Click on Setup Wizard to start configuring the cx-cloud-service appliance.

vcd-ext14

Register appliance with your management vCenter. If your environment have PSC external to VC, then use PSC IP/FQDN for lookupservice url.

vcd-ext15

Next is to register cx-cloud appliance with the vCloud director. Enter your vCD details and administrator credentials.

Note: No need to append @system with the username.… Read More

vCloud Extender-Part 1:Introduction

Manish Jha

What is VMware vCloud Extender?

VMware vCloud Director Extender creates a hybrid cloud environment between an end-user on-premise data center, and a multi-tenant vCloud Director environment. vCloud Extender is replacement for vCloud Connector and this product was released soon after vCloud Director 9.0 was announced. 

What does vCloud Extender offers?

vCloud Extender allows customers to migrate workloads from On-prem vSphere environment to a vCloud Director based Public Cloud. The two migration methods that are available with vCloud Extender are the cold and warm migration and I will talk about these methods in detail in upcoming post of this series.

One more exciting feature that vCloud Extender offers is to stretch an on-prem Layer 2 network to cloud. This feature helps customer to achieve their “Cloud Migration” objective without much hassle as you no longer need to Re-IP workloads that are migrating to cloud. 

You do not need to have on-prem deployment of NSX to stretch a layer 2 network to cloud but without on-prem NSX, you are limited to extending only vLANs to VXLAN on the cloud side.… Read More

vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR-Part 4: Testing DR Operations

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we paired the two vCloud based cloud instances. Now its turn to test the DR capabilities offered by vCAV-C2C.

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

1: Introduction to vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR

2: vCAV-C2C-POC Deployment

3: Site Pairing

To start testing DR operations, connect to https://VCAV-FQDN:8443 and login with tenant credentials (uname@orgname) and navigate to Paired Clouds.

By default your Site-B will show as unauthenticated. Click on the gear button to enter credentials.

c2c-rep1

Enter Org name of Site-B and the Org User credentials. Click on Authenticate.

c2c-rep2

Now both sites will show as authenticated.

c2c-rep3

Perform the same operation by connecting to VCAV appliance of Site-B and adding Org/User details of Site B and make sure both sites are showing as authenticated.

c2c-rep4

Once both sites are authenticated, navigate to DR-Workloads tab and click on Discovery

c2c-rep5

Select source site from where replication will be initiated.… Read More