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Provisioning NSX Load Balancers with Registration in NIOS
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Provisioning NSX Load Balancers with Registration in NIOS

Owned by Panna .
Last updated: Nov 01, 2017

If you load balance your application traffic by using the VMware NSX platform with vRealize Automation, you can provision NSX load balancers, and the NSX Edge will get IP addresses for external and internal interfaces from NIOS. The internal interface IP is the router DHCP option. The external interface is assigned from NIOS.

This topic explains how to perform a sample NSX provisioning use case.

Prerequisites:

  • You have deployed the Infoblox IPAM Plug-In for VMware as described in Deploying Infoblox IPAM Plug-In for VMware.
  • You have the VMware NSX platform integrated with your VMware environment.
  • Everything is configured correctly with respect to NSX. This includes:
    • A pre-configured transport zone for NSX. The transport zone is a logical switch span across which the NSX is extended, for example, a datacenter or a set of clusters.
    • Logical switches
  • You have pre-configured an IPv4 network on NIOS and set up IPv4 DHCP options for the network. The DHCP options should include the router IP address. This is the virtual IP that will be assigned to the load balancer through the network profile in vRA.

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To provision NSX load balancers with registration in NIOS, do the following:

  1. Set up the network profile to use with NSX
  2. Make an IP reservation in the DHCP range
  3. Create a blueprint
  4. Create an NSX provisioning service in vRA Catalog
  5. Provision NSX VMs
  6. Scale the NSX deployment out and in

Setting Up a Network Profile

To set up a network profile:

  1. In vRealize Automation, go to Infrastructure –> Reservations –> Network Profiles –> New –> External.
  2. On the General tab, specify the necessary details. For IPAM endpoint, select the pre-configured NIOS endpoint.
  3. On the Network Ranges tab, select the address space (network view on NIOS) and the network range. The router IP address (i.e. load balancer’s virtual IP) is obtained from the DHCP options of the range.
  4. Click Apply, and then OK.

 Making a Reservation of the IP Address

To make a reservation:

  1. In vRealize Automation, go to Infrastructure –> Reservations –> Reservations –> New –> vSphere.
  2. On the General tab, complete the necessary fields.
  3. On the Resources tab, complete the necessary fields.
  4. On the Network tab, select the check box for the web switch and select the previously configured NSX network profile. This reserves the IP address of the Load Balancer.
  5. In the Advanced Settings for the network, select the pre-configured transport zone.
  6. Click OK.

Creating a Blueprint for the NSX Load  Balancer

To create a blueprint:

  1. In vRealize Automation, click Design –> Blueprints.
  2. Click New.
  3. On the General tab, specify the necessary information.
  4. On the NSX Settings tab, specify the transport zone.
  5. Click OK.
  6. In the Categories pane, select Machine Types and drag-and-drop the vSphere Machine component onto the design canvas.
  7. On the General tab for the machine, complete the necessary information, including the maximum number of instances of the NSX machines.
  8. On the Build Information tab, select to clone the machines and specify the necessary information.
  9. Click Save.
  10. In the Categories pane, select Network & Security and drag-and-drop the Existing Network component onto the design canvas.
  11. On the General tab for the network, click the three dots button for Existing network, select the NSX network profile, and click OK.
  12. Click the vSphere Machine component in the design canvas.

  13. On the Network tab, click New.

  14. Select the NSX network added earlier and click OK.

  15. From Categories –> Network & Security, select On-Demand Load Balancer and drag-and-drop it onto the design canvas.

  16. On the General tab for the load balancer, specify the necessary information, including the above vSphere machine in the Member field, the predefined NSX items in Member network and VIP network, and the required protocols in Virtual servers.

    Leave the IP address blank as it is taken from NIOS when the machine is provisioned.

  17. Click the vSphere Machine component in the design canvas.

  18. On the Properties tab, click Add to add a property group.Select the Infoblox property group, for example, Infoblox-Default, and click OK.

  19. Click Finish.
    The created blueprint appears in the list of blueprints.

  20. Select the created blueprint and click Publish.

The new blueprint is published in vRealize Automation. Once the blueprint is published, create an NSX provisioning service in vRA Catalog. After that, you can provision NSX machines and scale out the NSX deployment.

Provisioning NSX Virtual Machines

To provision NSX virtual machines:

  1. In vRealize Automation, go to the Catalog tab.
  2. Click Request for the NSX service.
  3. In the NSX deployment details, specify general details. In this sample case, set the number of deployments to 1.
  4. Select the vSphere machine.
  5. On the General tab, specify the required details. In this sample case, set the number of the web machine instances to 2 in the Instances field.
  6. Click Submit, and then click OK.

Now if you go to the Requests tab in vRA, you can see the details of the NSX machines provisioning execution.

In vRealize Orchestrator, you can notice that three instances of the Allocate workflow are executed, which corresponds to the NSX load balancer and the two web machines. The IP addresses allocation took place through NIOS.

In NIOS Grid Manager, go to Data Management –> IPAM –> network used for IP address provisioning and notice that the IP addresses are allocated to the corresponding machines. On the DNS –> Zones tab in the Grid Manager, notice that the corresponding DNS records are created.

In vSphere Client, you can check that the load balancer machine and the two web machines are spun and have the IP addresses allocated.

Scaling the NSX Deployment

When the load on the VMs increases, you can scale out the NSX deployment to provision more VMs that will load balance the traffic.

To scale out the NSX deployment:

  1. In vRealize Automation, go to Items –> Deployments.
  2. Select the NSX load balancer.
  3. In the Actions pane, click Scale Out.

  4. In the Properties tab, select Machines.

  5. In the New Total column, set the number of machines to 3.

  6. Click Save.

Now in vRealize Orchestrator, notice that a third Allocate workflow is executed. In NIOS Grid Manager, an IP address is allocated to the third machine. In vSphere Client, the machine is powered on. When the machine is no longer needed, you can scale it in.

To scale in the NSX deployment:

  1. In vRealize Automation, go to Items –> Deployments.
  2. Select the NSX load balancer.
  3. In the Actions pane, click Scale In.
  4. In the Properties tab, select Machines.
  5. In the New Total column, set the number of machines back to 2.
  6. Click Save.

Notice in vRealize Orchestrator that the Release workflow is executed. In NIOS Grid Manager, notice that the IP address of the VM was reclaimed. In the NSX deployment in vRA, notice that the VM is destroyed.

When you destroy the entire NSX deployment item as described in Provisioning and De-provisioning VMs with Registration in NIOS, you can notice in vRealize Orchestrator that thee Release workflows are executed, which corresponds to the NSX load balancer and the two VMs. In NIOS Grid Manager, the IP addresses are released back to the pool.