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Chris Hall

Principal Technical Consultant

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Chris Hall Nutanix Certified Master - Multicloud Infrastructure 6 Chris Hall VMware vExpert 2024 Nutanix Certified Professional - Cloud Integration Chris Hall Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Infrastructure 6 Chris Hall Nutanix Certified Professional - Unified Storage 6 Chris Hall VMware vExpert 2023 Chris Hall VMware vExpert 2022

NSX-T Logo In this post we will configure our first NSX-T site, the imaginatively named, Site A.

This is where the “rubber meets the road”. In this post not only will we deploy an NSX-T manager appliance, we will hook it into vSphere and complete the configuration required to prepare the site so that it can be ‘paired’ with Site B in preparation to run stretched layer 2 networks across both sites Site A and Site B.

This post is part 2 of a multipart series. Find the other parts here:

As a reminder, in this series we will be building the following lab:

NSX-T Test Lab(Click image to zoom in)

Overview

Site A Build

OVA Deployment + Licencing

See NSX-T Download to get your very own copy of NSX-T and an evaluation licence too!

For brevity I’m not going to cover the deployment of the NSX-T manager OVA here, suffice to say that the following options should be selected when deploying the NSX-T OVA:

  • VM Name = NSXT-SITE-A
  • VM Size = Small
  • Hostname = nsxt-site-a
  • Role = NSX Manager
  • IP = 192.168.10.16
  • Mask = 255.255.255.0
  • Gateway / DNS / NTP = 192.168.10.1
  • Enable SSH + SSH root login = ticked

See Site A IP Allocation

Site A Transport Zones

See Transport Zone for further details.

After logging into NSX-T manager, select System > Fabric > Transport Zones > Add Zone and create two zones, one overlay zone named Site-A-Overlay-Transport-Zone:

Site A Overlay TZ

And one VLAN transport zone named Site-A-VLAN-Transport-Zone:

Site A VLAN TZ

When complete you should have the following:

Site A TZs

Next, lets create our uplink profiles. See Uplink Profile for further details.

Select System > Fabric > Profiles > Uplink Profiles > Add Profile.

Name the profile Site-A-Host-Uplink-Profile and scroll down to Teamings. Leave the teaming policy as Failover Order and name the Active Uplinks Uplink-1,Uplink-2. As per Site A VLANs and Subnets, set the Transport VLAN to 11. As we are using a VDS, there is no need to set an MTU:

Site A Host Uplink Profile

Select Add Profile again and lets create a profile named Site-A-Edge-Uplink-Profile.

Scroll down to Teamings. Set the teaming policy to Load Balance Source and name the Active Uplinks Uplink-1,Uplink-2. As per Site A VLANs and Subnets, set the Transport VLAN to 11:

Site A Edge Uplink Profile

When complete you should have the following:

Site A Uplink Profiles

Site A TEP Pool

Next, lets create our Tunnel End Point (TEP) pool. As per NSX-T Edge TEP networking options (83743) we will create a single TEP pool for use by both our edges and hosts.

A Tunnel End Point is the IP address of a transport node (Edge node or Host) used for Geneve encapsulation within a location.

Select System > Networking > IP Address Pools > Add IP Address Pool.

Name the Pool Site-A-TEP-Pool, click Set > Add Subnet > IP Ranges.

As per Site A IP Allocation, set the IP range to 192.168.11.2-192.168.11.254, the CIDR to 192.168.11.0/24, the Gateway IP to 192.168.11.1 and click Add:

Site A TEP Subnet

Click Apply and Save. When complete you should have the following:

Site A TEP Pool

Attach vCenter

Next, lets attach our Site A vCenter.

Select System > Compute Managers > Add Compute Manager, complete the wizard, click Add and accept the thumbprint when prompted:

Site A vCenter 1 Site A vCenter 2

When complete you should have the following:

Site A vCenter

Create Transport Node Profile

Next, lets create our Transport Node profile. See Transport Node Profile for further details.

Select System > Fabric > Profiles > Transport Node Profiles > Add Profile.

Name the profile Site-A-Transport-Node-Profile.

Select VDS and Standard.

Select VC-SITE-A and SITE-A-DSWITCH.

Add both Site-A-Overlay-Transport-Zone and Site-A-VLAN-Transport-Zone transport zones

Select Site-A-Host-Uplink-Profile

Select Use IP Pool and Site-A-TEP-Pool

Finally, select Uplink1 and Uplink 2

Trans Profile 1 Trans Profile 2

When complete you should have the following:

Site A Trans Profiles

Prepare Host

Next we need to apply our configuration to our compute node cluster.

Select System > Fabric > Nodes. In the drop down, select VC-SITE-A.

Next select SITE-A-CLUSTER and Configure NSX.

Select Site-A-Transport-Node-Profile and click Apply:

Cluster Install

Allow time for the host preparation to complete:

Cluster Install in Progress

Check TEP Connectivity

Make a note of the Host’s assigned TEP IP address:

Find host TEP IP

Open a SSH connect to the lab router and lets see if we can ping the Host TEP IP over VLAN 11:

Ping Host TEP IP

Yep, looks good.

Create Trunk VLAN Segment

So that we may also put our Edge TEPs onto VLAN 11, we need to create a VLAN Trunk segment within NSX-T.

Select System > Networking > Segments > Add Segment.

Name the Segment Site-A-Trunk, Connected Gateway to None, Transport Zone to Site-A-VLAN-Transport-Zone and enter VLAN of 0-4094:

Site A Trunk

Click Save when complete and No to continuing configuration. When complete:

Site A Segments

The trunk segment should be visible in vCenter:

Site A Trunk vCenter

Create Site A Edge Node

As this edge node is purely for our lab, lets size it accordingly.

Select System > Fabric > Nodes > Edge Transport Nodes > Add Edge Node.

Name the node ESG-SITE-A, FQDN to esg-site-a.lab. Set Form Factor to Small

Set CPU Reservation priority to Normal and Memory Reservation to 0:

Edge Config 1 Edge Config 2

Click Next. Complete credentials and enable SSH logins:

Edge Config 3

Click Next. Select vCenter, Cluster and Datastore:

Edge Config 4

Click Next. As per Site A IP Allocation, assign static IP of 192.168.10.22/24 and gateway of 192.168.10.1.

Click Select Interface and select Site-A-Management:

Edge Config 5

Click Save and set DNS search domain to lab, DNS and NTP servers to 192.168.10.1:

Edge Config 6

Click Next. Name the switch N-VDS-1.

Add both Site-A-Overlay-Transport-Zone and Site-A-VLAN-Transport-Zone transport zones.

Set Uplink profile to Site-A-Edge-Uplink-Profile.

Select Use IP Pool and Site-A-TEP-Pool.

Finally, Set Uplink-1 and Uplink-2 to Type VLAN Segment and Site-A-Trunk:

Edge Config 7

Click Save and confirm configuration matches below:

Edge Config 8 Edge Config 9

Finally, click Finish.

Allow time (circa 5 to 10 minutes) for the edge node to be deployed and configured:

Edge Deploy

Upon successful completion of initial configuration, the edge should have been deployed, configured and received two TEP IP addresses:

Edge Deploy Complete

Lets open an SSH connect to the lab router and lets see if we can ping the Edge TEP IPs over VLAN 11:

Edge TEP Ping

Yep, they look good.

Create Site A Edge Cluster

Select System > Fabric > Nodes > Edge Clusters > Add Edge Cluster.

Name the cluster Site-A-Edge-Cluster and use the arrow to move ESG-SITE-A from the Available box to the Selected box:

Edge Cluster Config

Click Add. Upon completion the following should be seen:

Site A Edge Cluster

Conclusion and Wrap Up

We made it!

In this post we deployed NSX-T into and configured our first site (the imaginatively named) Site A ready to receive NSX-T federation, and some overlay configuration.

Whilst we don’t yet have all the configuration in place in Site A to produce a half a working cross site NSX-T federated setup, we are well on the way.

We still have to create our Global Tier 0 and Tier 1 Logical routers before we can hook any VMs into our NSX-T build. We will look at that in a later part of this series.

This was part 2 of a multipart series. Find the other parts here:

Look out for future parts coming soon!

-Chris