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NSX ALB

NSX-ALB Integration in VMware Cloud Director 10.3 with Terraform

In an earlier article, I've explained how to integrate VMware NSX-T Advanced Loadbalancer (formerly known as AVI) into VMware Cloud Director. Today, I want to show how to automate those steps with Terraform. Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as code software tool created by HashiCorp. The following steps are part of the automated configuration:

  • Create vCenter Content Library for SE Images
  • Create Service Engine Management Network with DHCP in NSX-T
  • Create NSX-T Cloud in NSX-ALB
  • Create Service Engine Group in NSX-ALB
  • Add NSX-ALB Controller to VMware Cloud Director
  • Import NSX-T Cloud to VMware Cloud Director
  • Import Service Engine Group to VMware Cloud Director

Read More »NSX-ALB Integration in VMware Cloud Director 10.3 with Terraform

SSL Load Balancer in VMware Cloud Director with NSX-ALB (AVI)

With the NSX Advanced Load Balancer integration in Cloud Director 10.2 or later, you can enable SSL offloading to secure your customer's websites. This article explains how to request a Let's Encrypt certificate, import it to VMware Cloud Director and enable SSL offloading in NSX-ALB. This allows tenants to publish websites in a secure manner.

Read More »SSL Load Balancer in VMware Cloud Director with NSX-ALB (AVI)

Shared Service Engine Groups in VMware Cloud Director with NSX Advanced Load Balancer

In the Getting Started with NSX Advanced Load Balancer Integration in VMware Cloud Director 10.3 Guide, I've explained how to enable "Load Balancing as a Service" in VCD with dedicated Service Engines. With this Service Engine deployment model, each Edge Gateway is statically assigned to a dedicated NSX-ALB Service Engine Group. That means, for each EGW you create in VCD, you have to create a Service Engine Groups, which consists of multiple Service Engines (Virtual Machines).

Service Engine Groups can also be deployed in a shared model. Shared Service Engine groups can be assigned to multiple Edge Gateways. In this deployment model, a single Service Engine (Virtual Machine) can handle traffic for multiple customers. For obvious security reasons, and to prevent problems with overlapping networks, VRFs are used inside the SE to fully separate the data traffic.

This article explains how to use Shared Service Engine Groups in VMware Cloud Director 10.3.

Read More »Shared Service Engine Groups in VMware Cloud Director with NSX Advanced Load Balancer

Getting Started with NSX Advanced Load Balancer Integration in VMware Cloud Director 10.3

When you are using NSX-T as network backend for VMware Cloud Director, you can't use the Native Load Balancer included in NSX-T. Since Cloud Director 10.2, the NSX Advanced Loadbalancer (ALB), previously known as AVI Vantage Platform, has been integrated to allow customers to create Self-Service Load Balancers.

This article explains all steps required to integrate NSX ALB into VMware Cloud Director.

Read More »Getting Started with NSX Advanced Load Balancer Integration in VMware Cloud Director 10.3