Saturday, September 8, 2012

VCD operations on vCenter

Things to do on vSPhere with respect to VCD:-
  • Increase the port from 128 to 4096 this will require a reboot.
  • Use ephemeral binding so that ports are crated and destroyed when not needed.
  • ephemeral binding "ephemeral-no binding on switch " should be manually set if you are using port group backed , for Vlan backed this is automatically set by VCD.
When a vAPP is powered on
  1. vCenter server creates a port group for its vAPP networks.
  2. vShield Edge device is deployed
  3. vApp is connected to its assigned network.

VCD Network Pools

Network pool :-
A Network pool is a predefined collection of vsphere network resources that can be used by
vcloud director to dynamically create a limited number of organization and app networks.

Network pool consists of : Vlan ID,Port groups,virtual network switches and VCDNI networks
  1. Each  Org vDC can only be assigned one network pool
  2. single network pool can be used by mutiple organization vDCs
  3. single organization can have multiple organization vDCs and connect to multiple networks pools.
 Network pool  must be one of below :-
  1. VLAN backed :-No special MTU (max transfer Unit) settings rout able.v Cloud director creates port groups in vcenter.Vlan trunking must be enabled.Planned VCD VLAN-IDs should be pre-programmed into the physical network switch 
  2. VCD-NI backed:-very secure VLAN ID not an issue.MAC to MAC encapsulation.MTU should be increased by 24 bytes for VCD-NI-backed network pools.MTU setting on the physical switch should match virtual switch MTU settings.MTU settings on network pool configuration should also match
  3. port-group backed --should preexist
    MTU setting on the physical switch should match virtual switch MTU settings 
External networks do not use network pools because external networks are created by the provider .

Monday, August 27, 2012

vCloud Director Networking


vCloud Director Networking
1.       External Networks
2.       Organization Networks
3.       vAPP Networks.
Organization networks and vAPP networks can be configured in one of three different configurations
·         Direct-Connected to higher network level
·         NAT-Connected to higher network level
·         Internal only (no connections to higher networks )
vCloud Director can provide dynamic networks to customers without damaging the stability of corporate IT network systems.
“Network team need a constant stable network in contrast customer needs rapid changing networks.”
External Networks :-
·         External Networks are use to provide a connection outside the cloud usually to the internet.
·         External Networks  are built off of vSphere port groups
·         Organization networks can connect to external networks  directly or routed using vShield.
·         Several external networks can co-exist on the same physical LAN when separated by VLANs.
·         External networks are logical, differentiated networks based on vShere port groups.
·         External network need not have connection to the internet; it is external to vCloud orgs.
·         External networks can be used for VPN, Connection to backup servers and MPLS to connect sites at different locations.
Organization Networks:-
·         Direct –Connected
·         NAT-Connected
·         Internal
“Do not confuse external organization networks with external (provider) networks .An external organization network provides network services for only one organization. An external network that is created at the provider level is one which uses vSphere port groups and provides connectivity for multiple organizations.”
Organization administrators cannot create organization networks. vCloud Administrators has to provide external address to be used with IP forwarding.
vAPP neteworks:
Fenced network is a method of configuring vAPP networks .fenced networks allow two identical vAPPs to run with the same internal networks addresses.

Charge Back


Charge Back :
  •  Data collectors in charge back 
  •  Chargeback Data Collector (Polls vCenter) 
  •  vCloud Data Collector (Polls vCloud Director
  • VSM Data Collector (Polls vShield)

VMware vShield Manager


VMware vShield Manager:-
Deploys and manages Vmware vShield Edge devices on to vSphere resources  as requested by vCloud Director.Connects to vCenter via VIM API for vShield Edge deployment Manages configurations via VIX API. 
  •             Linux based virtual appliance 
  •        Runs Management interface 
  •            Aggregates usage data for vCenter Chargeback
  •       One per attached vCenter Server

·         VShield Edge:-
  •  Firewall and router device that provides network and security services.
  •  Deployed automatically by vCloud Director via vShield Manager 
  •  Deployed to vSphere hosts as virtual appliances.

vCloud Director uses VMware vShield Edge appliances to enforce multitenancy .vShield edge provides NAT,DHCP,Firewall,port farwarding and IP masquerading services.vCloud Director works with vShield Manager to deploy a vShield Edge device as part of network creation process. vShield edge appliances run on vSphere hosts.They are deployed automatically by vCLoud Director thorough vShield Manager o vCloud resource clusters.

vCloud API


vCloud API:

vCloud API is not a replacement to VIM API.VIM API focuses on providing programmatic control for the creation and configuration of virtual resources based on physical resoruces.VIM API is a virtualization API ,the vCloud API is a pure-virtual API.

 User API:-Perform tasks in and control what can be done through the vCloud Director Consumer portal.

Administrative API:-Perform tasks in and control what can be done via the vCloud Director administrator portal.specific to vCloud Director

Extensions :-vSphere Operations

vCloud Director Components

vCloud Director Components :-
  1.  One or more vCloud Director cells
  2.  Load balancer if you are using multiple cells
  3.  Shared database for the cells
  4. NFS server for staging
  5. LDAP
  6. SMTP server
  7.  vCloud  API
  8. vCenter - vCloud agent on each ESXi host.
  9. vShield Manager
  10.  vCD Web Console
Scaling vCLoud Director to large environments is supported by installing multiple vCloud Director cells.Cell activities are coordinated through a shared database.One cell is designated as the coordinated cell all other cells are designated slave cells.The coordinated cell designates which services run on the slave cells this is all done automatically by vCloud Director. 

Multiple cells require load balancing to manage heavy usage of Web and remote consoles. Options are through DNS or third party load balancing product.

Cell manages connectivity to the cloud and provides both API and UI end points or clients.
Pop-out RFB based web consoles for virtual machines are encrypted by vmware for security reasons.(similar to VNC but vmware did not use VNC code but it own code)

vCloud Director


Cloud Computing:-
Cloud Computing is an approach to computing that leverages the efficient pooling of on-demand, self-managed virtual infrastructure that is consumed as a service.
Points to ponder:-
  1. vShield Manager server provides networking  services to vCloud Director. vShield Manager is a software firewall.
  2. vCloud Director  requires access to vCenter ,vShield Manager  & one or more ESXi hosts
  3. Organization is composed of vApps,users and groups, organization vDCs and catalogs
  4. Do not turnoff DRS  on vCLoud  Director .
  5.  vCloud Connector  is a virtual appliance that installs in vsphere  and handles all the business logic of dealing with other clouds . A vCC plugin to vCenter helps bring VM’s from outside.
  6. Never make changes to lower end  like vCenter when you are managing with vCloud Director