Configure Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX)-Part 2

Configure HCX Hybrid Cloud Extension services -Site Pairing ,Compute Profile ,Network Prodile and Service Mesh.

Site Pairing:

A Site Pair establishes the connection needed for management, authentication, and orchestration of HCX services across a source and destination environment.

In HCX Connector to HCX Cloud deployments, the HCX Connector is deployed at the legacy or source vSphere environment. The HCX Connector creates a unidirectional site pairing to an HCX Cloud system. In this type of site pairing, all HCX Service Mesh connections, Migration and Network Extension operations, including reverse migrations, are always initiated from the HCX Connector at the source.

In HCX cloud-to-cloud deployments, site pairing can be unidirectional or bidirectional:

In unidirectional site pairing, the HCX Cloud containing the virtual machine inventory and networks (similar to HCX Connectors) will site pair to the destination HCX Cloud.

In bidirectional site pairing, the HCX Cloud systems are site paired with each other, share a common Service Mesh, and can initiate Migration and Network Extension operations from either HCX Cloud system.

Let us discuss about different network use by HCX service.

1.Management Network:

The HCX Interconnect appliances use this network to communicate with management systems like the HCX Manager, vCenter Server, ESXi Management, NSX Manager, DNS, NTP.

2.Uplink Network:

The HCX Interconnect appliances use this network for WAN communications, like TX/RX of transport packets.

3.vMotion Network:

The HCX Interconnect appliances use this network for the traffic exclusive to vMotion protocol operations.

4.vSphere Replication Network:

The HCX Interconnect appliances use this network for the traffic exclusive to vSphere Replication.

5.Guest Network for OS Assisted Migration

The Sentinel Gateway appliances use this vSphere network to connect with non-vSphere virtual machines.

Network Profile:

The Network Profile is an abstraction of a Distributed Port group, Standard Port group, or NSX Logical Switch, and the Layer 3 properties of that network.

We can create a different network profile based on below use case.

1.Use case 1: if customer wants to use Shared Management, Replication, and Uplink with Dedicated vMotion

2.Use case 2: If customer configured Dedicated Replication Network and want to use dedicated network profile for replication network.

3.Use case 3: If customer configured Dedicated Uplink Network and they want to use dedicated network profile for uplink.

4. Use case 4: Network profile for OS Assisted Migration Using Guest Network.

5.Use Case 5: If customer wants to use OS Assisted Migration Using Management Network

Configure Site Pairing:

1.Login to source vCenter using administrator@vsphere.local and click on Menu.

2.From the Drop-down menu click on HCX .

3.Once you will click on HCX, it will redirect on HCX dashboard, where we need to configure the rest of configuration like site pairing, network profile, service mesh and other services.

Before configuring site, pairing and network profile let discuss about the Site pairing and network profile service mesh.

4.Navigate to Site Pairing and click on connect to remote site:

5.Once you will click on Connect to Remote site, you need to provide Remote HCX Url (https://hcx_fqdn), Username (administrator@vsphere.local) and Password XXXX.

6.Once the connection will establish with remote HCX you will able to see source HCX and destination HCX are in connected state.

7.Now navigate to Interconnect from Left side bar and click on Interconnect .

8.This step in most important step where I am going to create Network profile which i explained you in with different use Case

9.Click on Network Profile and Create Network Profile in this page.

10.Once you will click on create network profile, you need to provide below details .

10.1.Select the vSwitch, vDS, or NSX network (not mandatory for HCX Connector) that you will use for this Network Profile. In this case, it is a vDS.

10.2.Add the IP Pool addresses for for the HCX Management. Uplink, vMotion and Replication. We will need one IP address per Appliance. Since we are only deploying one, then one IP Address. But you can add here a full IP Pool range. HCX will use the necessary IP addresses, and I will add two here.

10.3.In my Lab i am going to user this network profile for MGMT, vMotion and vSphere Replication and HCX uplink.

If you have dedicated network as I explained in above, use case you can create separate Network profile for HCX traffic.

Note : In deployments where ESXi servers use a dedicated Provisioning vmkernel for NFC traffic, the HCX continues to route Cold and vMotion NFC traffic through the Management interface.

11.Once First network profile if create in same manner you can create other network profile .

12.Next we are going to create a Compute Profile. From same page navigate to Compute Profile and Create Network profile.

Compute Profile :

1.Create Compute Profile, Give the Name of Compute Profile and Next.

2.In Next screen choose the HCX service which you want to use for your environment and Click continue.

3.Now we must choose the cluster where you want to use the HCX service if you want to use for all cluster the you can go with datacenter .

4.Next we must choose deployment resource like cluster datastore and folder where you want to deploy the HCX service appliance.

5.Now we must choose port group for each type of traffic. If we have MGMT port group which you are using for MGMT, vMotion, replication, uplink then choose same MGMT network profile in each type of traffic.

If you have dedicated port groups for different type of traffic, then choose separate network profile or use case for MGMT, vMotion, replication, uplink.

In my Lab environment I have only MGMT port group which we can used for vMotion and other traffic.

6.Select port for Management network profile and click continue.

7.Choose port group for uplink network, using which interconnect appliance can communicate with peer appliance.

8.Select vMotion Network profile, as I told mentioned that i am going to use MGMT network profile for all type of traffic.

9.Now select network profile for vSphere replication.

10.Review the topology for all connection and click continue.

If you are using dedicated port group for different type of traffic then make sure firewall rules are allowed to these connections.

11.Once you will review the configuration, Click on Finish to create compute profile.

You have to repeat all above steps to create network profile ,compute profile on destination or (Cloud side ).

Service Mesh:

Service Mesh initiates the deployment of HCX Interconnect virtual appliance on both sites and it will add to connected site pair that has valid compute profile created on both sites

1.Same page where we added network profile and compute profile ,Click on Service Mesh.

2. Select the source and destination sites, if you have two or more that then click on arrow to see the other sites details. Click continue.

3.Select the Compute profile in source and destination where virtual machine can use HCX services.

4.Select the service which we need to activate in your environment.

5.Select the uplink network profile to connect the HCX interconnect appliance. As we already create MGMT network profile and want to use for uplink we will select the same .

You can also change and override if wanted to change network profile for uplink network. Click continue.

6.Advacenced configuration will give you option to create a multiple transport tunnel to establish path diversity to the target.

In my Lab its is not given me option as they are not licensed with this HCX installation.

7.Review the topology and if everything looks good, Click Continue.

8.Provide the name of service mesh and Click Finish for the deployment.

9.Once we will finish the deployment of Interconnect appliance and other appliance start on source and destination.

10. Once all tasks will complete you can see on appliance that service mesh is created, and all appliance deployed.

11.Expand appliance and service mesh you will be able to see that tunnel status is up.

Hope my Blog will help to configure HCX in your client enviorment .

VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX)

Extend Your On-Premises Environments to the Cloud using HCX.

VMware HCX is an application mobility platform that is designed for simplifying application migration, workload rebalancing, and business continuity across data centers and clouds. You can schedule and migrate thousands of vSphere virtual machines within and across data centers without requiring a reboot.

Below are the few HCX Use Cases.

· Application migration

· Change platforms or upgrade vSphere versions.

· Workload rebalancing

· Business continuity and protection

Let's Discuss HCX Components :

In the HCX site-to-site architecture, there is notion of an HCX source and an HCX destination environment. Depending on the environment, there is a specific HCX installer: HCX Connector or HCX Cloud.

 HCX Connector Appliance: HCX connector is always deployed as the source.

 HCX Cloud Appliance: HCX cloud is generally deployed at destination. the cloud Provider deploy

 HCX cloud but in can be use as the source in cloud-cloud deployment.

HCX-Interconnect Appliance: HCX interconnect appliance deploy on both source and destination side, and it will create tunnel to perform replication and vMotion-based migration.

HCX Network Extension: HCX network appliance is also deploy on both side source and destination. It provides layer 2 connectivity between sites .NE Appliance provide capability to extend your layer2 network so you can use same IP and MAC address during virtual machine migration.

HCX WAN Optimization Appliance: HCX WAN Optimization improves performance characteristics of the private lines or Internet paths by applying WAN optimization techniques like the data de-duplication and line conditioning.

HCX OS Assisted migration: Using HCX OS Assisted migration (OSAM) service we can migrate non -vSphere virtual machine from On-Prem to Cloud. OSAM service has 2 components. HCX Sentinel Gateway on source side and HCX Sentinel Receiver on destination side

HCX Sentinel software that is installed on each virtual machine to be migrated, a Sentinel Gateway (SGW) appliance for connecting and forwarding guest workloads in the source environment, and a Sentinel Data Receiver (SDR) in the destination environment.

Installation of HCX:

Deployment of VMware HCX appliance using OVA is like other OVA deployments.

1- First you have download the HCX Could OVA from VMware Portal.

2-   Once OVA downloaded in your local machine. Login to vCenter using administrator@vsphere.local account.

3-   Go to the cluster and right click ,you will get option Deploy OVF Template.

4-   Once you will Click on Deploy OVF template, you will get two options.

4.1-Using URL (if you have internet connectivity from vCenter and required port is open you can provide direct link from the place you can downloaded HCX cloud OVA).

4.2- In second option you can downloaded offline and copy to your local machine.

5- In My case if have downloaded OVA to my local machine and will choose local machine option and upload OVA file, Click Next .

6-Provide virtual machine name and Click Next.

7.On next screen choose compute resource where you want to deploy HCX appliance. Click Next.

8. Review the initial deployment details of the HCX appliance and NEXT.

9. Accept the EULA for the deployment.

10. Select the datastore where you want to deploy the VMware HCX appliances.

11.Select network port group to connect the VMware HCX appliance.

12. In this step Customize template make sure provide all the details are correct. Here you need to ensure you populate the credentials you want to configure, network address, DNS lookups, static routes, enable SSH and other options.

13. Review all the information and complete the installation.

Setup HCX Appliance configuration: 

1.Once you deploy the VMware HCX appliance, you will need to go through the VMware HCX appliances configuration. Power on the appliance and allow it to boot up and services to start.

2.Once all the services will up, Login to HCX cloud appliance using url with port 9443 <https://hcx FQDN :9443)

3.Enter License Key, here you can provide NSX-T license Key also and click on Activate.

4.Once HCX will activate it will move to Next screen and ask for Datacenter Location.

5.Click on Continue, after providing Datacenter location.

6.In Next screen it will auto-populate system name, Verify System name and Click Continue.

7. Select the instance type of your VMware HCX appliances,If you want to configure with Cloud Director you can choose Cloud Director. In my case I am going to configure with vSphere.

8.Provide vCenter server details and NSX manager to connect with HCX appliance.

9. Connect VMware HCX to your vCenter Server and NSX Manager appliances. Here you enter the URL for vCenter Server and the NSX Manager along with credentials to connect.

10. Accept The certificate warning .

11. Next you have to Configure SSO. If you configuration screen is logout by any reason, you can again login to HCX url using port 0443. E.g <https://hcx-cloud fqdn:9443 )

12. Go to configuration page click on SSO from left side and provide SSO/PSC details.

13. You can also configure public url, Go to Configuration and click on public url in my case as I am using lab environment so going to use local url only.

14.Once you will configure everything in HCX-Cloud appliance you can restart the appliance.

15.Last once the appliance will come up after reboot Login to HCX-Cloud Appliance using FQDN or IP but without port 9443. E.g https://hcx-fqdn or ip.

16. You have to follow the same steps and Deploy HCX connector on other location or Datacenter.


Hope My Blog will help you to deploy HCX appliance in your  environment.

In Next Section, we will take look how to configure Site pairing, Compute profile and Deploy Interconnect appliance.