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.

 

Step by Step vCenter Deployment 7.x.

Pre-requisites for deployment of vCenter.

1.Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) resolution should be in place with forward and reverse DNS       A records added.

2.vCenter Server 7.0 can only be deployed to, and manage, ESXi hosts v6.5 or later. There is no direct upgrade path for hosts running ESXi v5.5 or 6.0 to v7.0.

3.The ESXi host and all vSphere components should be configured to use Network Time Protocol (NTP.

4.You can use the see the VMware Product Interoperability Matrices.

5.The vCenter Server Appliance requires the following compute specifications, this includes vSphere Lifecycle Manager running as a service on the appliance.

6.Firewall ports should be opened as per the Required Ports for vCenter Server.

Procedure for the installation:

Download and mount the ISO on your computer, then browse to the corresponding directory for your operating system and open the installer file. In my case \vcsa-ui-installer\win32.

 1.Run the installer.exe

2.Once you will run the installer.exe you will get 4 options.

►Install: This option you have to choose when you are going to install new vCenter.

►Upgrade: You have to choose the upgrade option when you are going to upgrade 

   from previous version to latest version. But before that follow the upgrade path as per 

   VMware Product Interoperability Matrices.

►Migrate: This option is applicable when you are going to migrate from windows to 

   appliance vCenter.

►Restore: When you want to restore from previous version of vCenter you have to 

   choose this option.

3. As we are going to install new vCenter choose install option.

4. From 7.0 version external psc with vCenter is depreciated.

5. To Deploy vCenter server Click Next on screen.

6. Accept the license agreement and Click Next .

7. Next screen we need to provide ESXi host on which the vCenter server will deploy,Also                          provide username: root and password : ######

8. You will Get certificate warning, Click Yes to continue.

9. Provie vCenter name and root password which needs to be at least 8 characters, with a number,              uppercase and lowercase letters, and a special character. Click Next to continue.

 

10. Select the deployment size of vCenter server as per you workload requirement. Click Next.

11. Provide Datastore where vCenter server is going to deploy. if you are existing datastore you can choose that datastore.

12. Enter the network settings to be applied to the appliance, including IPv4, DNS, and network adapter settings, then click Next.

13. Once you will provide all IP details Click on Next and you vCenter Deployment will start.

14. It will take 20-25 minute to complete Stage 1 deployment process once it will complete click on

      continue and you can proceed with Stage 2.

Stage 2 Installation

1. Stage 2 will allow to setup VCSA and SSO configuration.

2. Click Next to being vCenter appliance setup. Click Next to Introduction page and provide NTP server details .Make Sure NTP server is configured correctly as part of Pre-requisite.

3.Next page need to configure SSO configuration and password for vSphere.local.
Note : If you want to join current vCenter to existing vCenter choose existing SSO domain 

and provide details existing SSO domain.

4.Click Next and check the box to join VMware customer Experience Improvement program.



5. Last you should review all details provided for VCSA setup and Click Finish.

6.Once you will Click on Finish. vCenter Setup process will start.



7.Once Setup VCSA process will complete we will be able to access vCenter from Browser

   https://<FQDN_vCenter-Name>.

Update VCF and SDDC componets .

 

Update VCF and SDDC Components.

Procedure:

1.Navigate to Inventory and Click on Workload Domain.

2.First MGMT domain need to update. Click On MGMT Domain.

  



3.Once you will Click on MGMT domain, it will show you different options like summary, services, update/patches, update history, host, cluster security.

Summary: You will be able to see version details of all components like VCF, vCenter, NSX and Hosts.

Hosts: Once you will click on Hosts Tab you will be able to see all assigned hosts in domains.

Cluster: In Cluster details you will be able to see all cluster running in domain.

Security: Once you will click on security tab then you will be able to see certificate details for all components.

Update and patches: when you click on Update and patches, you will be able to see Pre-check option in right side.

4.First click on Pre-check, Once pre-check will be green for all components you are good to proceed with update VCF and other components.

 



5. You will be able to see schedule update /update click on update. After that it will start updating VCF to target version.

 


6.Once VCF will be updated to target version you can update the other components as per VCF upgrade sequence in similar fashion.

7.It will populate the next components update option.

Thank You .

Downloading Online Bundles and Update SDDC Components:

You can download the Bundles when SDDC is connected, also you can use the Bundle Transfer Utility to download the bundles to local system and transfer to SDDC appliance.

Let More discuss on Bundle Types:

1.Install Bundles:

Install Bundle includes software binaries to install VI workload domain (vCenter Server and NSX-T Data Center), we can download the install bundle using same process and upgrade bundles.

2.Async Patch Bundles:

For Critical patch bundle you can use the Async patch bundles it will be applicable for SDDC components NSX-T Manager, vCenter server and ESXi).

Download Bundles from SDDC manager:

First you have to connect SDDC Depot using your VMware Customer connect account.

Procedure:

1. Login to SDDC Manager from Web browser in GUI mode.

2.Navigate to Administrator from Left side of page.

3.Go to Repository Setting and Click on Authenticate.

4.Now you must provide VMware Customer username and Password. 

5.Click Authorize.

Note: Once you will connected to VMware Depot, after some time you will be able to see bundles.

1. In Navigation pane, Go to Administrator the click on Repository setting.

2.Click on Bundle on Left side of Page.
   Here you can see Available Bundles which you can download.

  

3.Once you will click Download Now for an immediate download.

   OR

3. You can also schedule Download bundle as per your preference Date and Time.

4. To see download history you can go to Lifecycle Management then Bundle Management.

5.Go to Download History.

   

If you want to use Proxy server, Configure Proxy server to Download Bundles.

1.Take ssh session of SDDC manager appliance as vcf user .

2.using su – switch to root user.

3.copy path /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-app/conf/

4.vi application-prod. properties file.

5.Add the below line at last of file.

lcm.depot.adapter.proxyEnabled=true

lcm.depot.adapter.proxyHost=proxy IP address

lcm.depot.adapter.proxyPort=proxy port

6.wq! to save file and exit .

7.Restart LCM service using below command.

Systemctl restart lcm.

Hope this blog will help you . In My Next Blog we will see how you update and VCF and other components of SDDC .

Create Network Pool In VMware Cloud Foundation

Create Network Pool In SDDC:

To commission and use ESXi hosts the workload domain, you create a network pool in SDDC Manager to assign IP addresses to the vMotion and vSAN VMkernel ports.

Procedure:

1. Login to SDDC Manager in Web Browser using the user interface.

2. Navigate to Administration > Network settings and click Create network pool.



 3.Click on Create Network Pool .



4.Once you will click on Create Network pool, you must provide below details.



5.Once you check the vSAN Box ,we must fill the vSAN Network Information.



6. In similar way you must provide vMotion Network Information as per the enviorment.



7.Click on ADD and Save from right corner of screen.
8.Network pool will create for new workload domain and can utilize for new ESXi Host
commissioning.

VMware Cloud Foundation

 

VMware Cloud Foundation -

Manage password for VCF components using different option ?

Basically, in VMware Cloud foundation (VCF), You specify the passwords for your VMware Cloud Foundation system's internal accounts as part of the bring-up procedure.

Let Discuss about the different password option which we got in SDDC (Software Defined Data Center) and what are the use case to use that option.

Rotate Password: As a security measure, you can rotate passwords for the logical and physical entities on all racks in your system. The process of password rotation generates randomized passwords for the selected accounts.

Here Selected accounts means for which account you are going to change the password                          like root, backup, admin.

2.      Update Password: You can manually change password for anaccount (root,backup,admin).In Rotate   password system generate random password for you and update.

Note: From VCF 4.1 VMware introduce one addition option is Remediate Password .

3.      Remediate Passwords: This option you can use when any account password is expires and you must reset the password for that component. In this case first you have to reset and then go with remediate password. Password remediation update password in SDDC manager database and workflow of cloud foundation.

   How to use any of the above option in your environment?

1.      Log in to SDDC console from browser.

2.      Once you logged in to SDDC GUI console from browser, On Left Side you will able to see security option.

3.       Click on Security and go to Password Management.

       

4.    On Right Hand-Side you next to component you can choose for which component you want to

 Change password like ESxi, vCenter,PSC.

5.   Once you will choose the component you can apply any of the option to manage password (Rotate, Update and Remediate)

 

Note: Remediate is not visible in above screenshot as my lab environment is on VCF 3.10 but you will be able to see after 4.1.

 

 

Thank you .