vSphere with Tanzu using NSX-T - Part3 - Edge Cluster

In the previous post, we went through basic NSX-T configurations. The next step is to deploy Edge VMs and create an Edge cluster. Before creating Edge VMs, we need to create two trunk port groups on the VDS using the VCSA web UI. Uplinks of the Edge VMs will be connected to these two trunk port groups.

• Create 2 trunk port groups on the VDS.
• "Trunk01-NSXT-Edge"
• "Trunk02-NSXT-Edge"

• Add Edge Transport Nodes.
• Create two Edge VMs "edge-01, edge-02".
• Click ADD EDGE VM, follow the wizard, and provide all the details.

• Click Finish. Follow the same process and deploy one more Edge VM.

• The next step is to create an Edge Cluster "edge-cluster-01" and add the two Edge VMs to it.

The NSX-T Edge Cluster is now ready. Next, we have to add a Tier-0 Gateway and configure BGP peering with the router or L3 TOR switches. This will be covered in the next part. Hope it was useful. Cheers!

Related posts

Part1: Prerequisites
Part2: Configure NSX-T

vSphere with Tanzu using NSX-T - Part2 - Configure NSX

In this post, we will take a look at the different configuration steps that are required before enabling workload management to establish connectivity to the supervisor cluster, supervisor namespaces, and all objects that run inside the namespaces, such as vSphere pods, and Tanzu Kubernetes Clusters. 

At this point, I assume that the vSAN cluster is up and NSX-T 3.0 is installed. NSX-T appliance is connected to the same management network where the VCSA and ESXi nodes are connected. In my case, it will be through VLAN 41. Note that all the ESXi nodes of the vSAN cluster are connected to one vSphere Distributed Switch and has two uplinks from each node that connects to TOR A and TOR B.

NSX-T configurations

• Add Compute Managers. I've added the vCenter server here.

• Add Uplink Profiles.
• Create a host uplink profile "nsx-uplink-profile-lbsrc" (this is for host TEP using VLAN 52).
• Create an edge uplink profile "nsx-edge-uplink-profile-lbsrc" (this is for edge TEP using VLAN 53).

• Add Transport Zones.
• Create an overlay transport zone "tz-overlay".
• Create a VLAN transport zone "edge-vlan-tz".

• Add IP Address Pools.
• Create an IP address pool for host TEPs "TEP-Pool-01" (this is for host TEP using VLAN 52).
• Create an IP address pool for edge TEPs "Edge-TEP-Pool-01" (this is for Edge TEP using VLAN 53).

• Add Transport Node Profiles.

• Configure Host Transport Nodes. Select the required cluster and click configure NSX to convert all the ESXi nodes as transport nodes.

The next step is to deploy Edge VMs (Edge Transport Nodes) and create a Edge Cluster. We will cover it in the next part. Hope it was useful. Cheers!

Related posts

Part1 - Prerequisites

References

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/vmware-vsphere-with-tanzu/GUID-8D0E905F-9ABB-4CFB-A206-C027F847FAAC.html

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/vmware-vsphere-with-tanzu/GUID-B156CDA6-B056-4D1C-BBC5-07D1A701E402.html

vSphere with Tanzu using NSX-T - Part1 - Prerequisites

In this blog series, I would like to share my experience deploying vSphere with Tanzu using NSX-T 3.0 networking. Following is a very high-level workflow of setting up the environment from scratch:

Software versions used for this study:

• vSphere 7 U1
• NSX-T 3.0.1.1

If you are using VCF, some of the deployment steps mentioned above are already automated. But, VCF is not in the scope of this blog series, and this post is aimed at explaining the workflow and background configurations that are required to prepare the environment before enabling workload management. This will be useful to understand the backend configuration tasks and logical workflow and will be helpful in case of troubleshooting too. In my lab, I have 4 Dell EMC PowerEdge rack servers connected to 2 TOR switches with 2 uplinks from each server. This is a consolidated architecture where both management components and application workload run on the same 4 node vSAN cluster. I am using ESXi 7 U1 and VCSA 7 U1. Here, the TORs are acting as L3 switches and we are doing BGP peering between TOR switches and NSX-T T0 Gateway which will be explained in a later part of this blog series.

Network connectivity

IP address schema and VLANs

I will not be covering how to create VLANs, configuring switch ports, deploying a vSAN cluster, etc. I assume that the network switches are correctly configured and the vSAN cluster is up and running. The next step is to deploy an NSX-T 3.0 appliance. You can either deploy it as a single node or in HA using 3 NSX-T appliances. In my lab, I have only one NSX-T 3.0 instance. Following are some of the reference material to deploy NSX-T 3.0:

https://vmarena.com/how-to-install-nsx-t-3-0-data-center-appliance-step-by-step/

https://www.vstellar.com/2020/08/05/nsx-t-3-0-seriespart-1-management-control-plane-setup/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S3cuN4h2qE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa9rE3_7AcA

In the next part I will walk you through the NSX-T configuration tasks. Hope it was useful. Cheers!

References

https://shuttletitan.com/nsx-t/nsx-t-installation-series/journey-to-nsx-t-vcp-nv-and-beyond-nsx-t-installation-series/

https://vxplanet.com/2020/04/25/nsx-t-3-0-edge-cluster-automated-deployment-and-architecture-in-vcf-4-0-part-1/

https://www.udemy.com/course/vmware-nsxt-fundamentals/