In last post of this series we did the fleet configuration so that we can deploy the fleet appliances. In this post we will discuss about the fleet appliances and will deploy them.

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

1: Introduction to HCX

2: HCX Enterprise Deployment & Configuration

3: HCX Cloud Deployment & Configuration

4: HCX Site Pairing

5: Configuring Interconnect Networks

There are 3 appliances that you can deploy in your HCX environment:

Cloud Gateway (CGW): The CGW appliance is responsible for creating encrypted tunnel between on-premise and HCX-Cloud for vMotion and Replication traffic. CGW deployment is kicked from on-prem and its deployed as virtual machine in both on-prem and cloud side.

CGW constitutes the migration path for vMotion and replication traffic and it is done via establishing a secure connection between the 2 CGW vm’s deployed in on-prem and cloud side respectively.… Read More

In last post of this series we paired HCX Enterprise with the HCX Cloud appliance. Now the next task is to deploy the fleet appliances, but before doing any deployment we have to configure the networks for interconnects i.e fleet configuration.

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

1: Introduction to HCX

2: HCX Enterprise Deployment & Configuration

3: HCX Cloud Deployment & Configuration

4: HCX Site Pairing

Basically we are defining a pool of IP’s which interconnect appliances will use when we start deploying them. High level steps of fleet config are summarized as below.

Login to hcx cloud using the public url (https://hcx-cloud-public-fqdn) and navigate to Administration > Deployment Containers.

Deployment containers dictates where your fleet appliances will be sitting post deployment. Click on Add button to specify a new container.

Provide a name for the container and select the vCenter server with which your HCX-Cloud appliance is registered.… Read More

In this post we will be pairing the HCX-Enterprise appliance with the HCX-Cloud to start consuming HCX features.

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

1: Introduction to HCX

2: HCX Enterprise Deployment & Configuration

3: HCX Cloud Deployment & Configuration

Site pairing task is straight forward and it should compelte without any issue if all your configuration is correct. However In my lab I was getting an error “untrusted ssl connection” when trying to do site pairing.

If you are testing HCX in your lab environment, then for fixing this issue please read this article

 To pair HCX-Enterprise with HCX-Cloud, login to your on-premise vCenter Web Client and click on HCX plugin and go to Site Pairings tab.

Click on Register new connection.

Specify the public url of your HCX cloud appliance (we configured this while deploying the hcx cloud)

Specify the vCenter administrator user name.… Read More

In last post of HCX series, we deployed HCX Cloud appliance and performed basic configuration. The next step was to pair the HCX Enterprise appliance to the HCX Cloud so that we can start consuming HCX features. 

When I tried pairing the on-prem HCX to HCX Cloud, I was getting ssl connection error and site pairing task was failing.

I was pretty sure that this is happening because of untrusted ssl certs in my lab and I was thinking that may be I need to replace the self-signed certs with the CA signed certs. 

I quickly checked on this error with one of our staff engineer from hybridity team and he helped me with actual steps for fixing this issue. These are the high level steps you need to perform when you face this issue.

1: Generate Private and Public cert file on HCX Cloud appliance.

In the last post of this series, we deployed the HCX Enterprise appliance on-premise and connected it to the vCenter server, NSX manager, and PSC. In this post, I will demonstrate the deployment of the HCX cloud appliance on the cloud side and walk through the basic configuration steps.

I don’t have a true cloud site, but I have 2 vCenter servers in 2 locations. Site A is where I deployed HCX Enterprise, and Site B is where I am deploying the HCX Cloud appliance. I am treating Site B as a cloud location for now.

HCX Cloud deployment is very similar to HCX Enterprise deployment and follows VMware’s standard OVF deployment procedure.

1: Once the appliance is deployed and powered on, login to the appliance by typing https://hcxcloud-fqdn:9443 and using admin as the username and password set during deployment.

2: If you have your license key handy, then activate the appliance, or you can do this later as well.… Read More

In the first post of this series, we learned about the basics of HCX and discussed that HCX is available in 2 versions, i.e., HCX Enterprise (for On-Prem) and HCX Cloud (for cloud providers).

In this post, we will learn how to deploy the HCX Enterprise appliance on-premises and touch down on the basic configuration. 

The deployment of the HCX Enterprise appliance is very similar to the standard OVF deployment of any VMware product, and nothing fancy is there. The below slide shows the walk-through steps for deploying the appliance. 

Note: Make sure to deploy the appliance as “Thick provisioned, lazy zeroed.”

By default, the HCX ENT appliance is deployed with 12 GB of RAM, 4 vCPUs, and 60 GB of HDD.

Once the appliance boots up, login to the appliance by typing https://hcx-fqdn:9443 and using admin as the username and password set during deployment.

You need to have your HCX license key handy for activating the appliance.… Read More

VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension (previously known as HCX technologies) was announced by VMware last year during VMworld 2017 Europe, and it aimed at the following use cases:

• Simplified Data Center Migration: Seamless migration of applications from on-premise to cloud. 
• Infrastructure Hybridity: Hybrid Cloud Extension enables seamless cloud onboarding.
• Disaster Recovery: In the event of a disaster, Hybrid Cloud Extension recovers the networking layer. Traffic routes are maintained as before the disaster, resulting in high-speed disaster recovery with low downtime.
• Multi-Cloud Application Support: Hybrid Cloud Extension enables application components to exist in the multi-cloud world. 

So what exactly is the VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension?

VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension is a SaaS offering that provides application mobility and infrastructure hybridity across different vSphere versions, both on-premises and in the cloud.

To learn more about HCX, please see the VMware HCX FAQ section.

VMware journey from HCM to HCX

Before the HCX solution, VMware offered a similar product named “Hybrid Cloud Manager (HCM)” to support their vCloud Air service.… Read More