In this blog post we are going show how to configure a Highly Available (HA) Cloud Proxy in VMware Cloud Assembly. Same setup can be used to configure a Cloud Accounts for Disaster Recovery (DR) / Hotspare scenarios.
- Introduction
- UC01: Configuring HA Cloud Proxy
- UC02: Configuring DR vSphere Cloud Account
- UC03: Configuring HA Cloud Proxy and DR vCenter Cloud Account
- Final Step
Update Log:
Introduction
Cloud Assembly does not offer a native way to configure a Cloud Proxy for high availability nor an obvious way to configure Cloud Account for DR/Hotspare. We are going to examine the following use cases:
- UC01: Configuring a HA Cloud Proxy for a single vCenter Cloud Account
- UC02: Configuring an DR vSphere Cloud Account.
- UC03: Configuring HA Cloud Proxy and a DR vSphere Cloud Account. (UC01+UC02)
UC01: Configuring HA Cloud Proxy
Let’s see how we can achieve the first use case.
In this case we have a single vCenter server. Because Cloud Assembly will not let me add the same vCenter twice as a Cloud Account with the same name, I had to create an alias record for the same vCenter and NSX-T Endpoint.
So we end up with:
- DNS: vcsa-01a.corp.local and vcsa-01a-hotspare.corp.local, nsxmgr-01a.corp.local, nsxmgr-01a-hotspare.corp.local.
- All vCenter DNS records point to the same vCenter and all NSX records point to the same NSX Manager
- 2 Cloud Accounts. Each of which connected to the same vCenter and NSX Manager (different DNS’s) via different Cloud Proxy.
- For each NetworkA, StorageA and ImageA profile created for CloudAccountA we have the same created for CloudAccountB. These all point to the same networks, datastores and images. All A profiles have the same tags ass all B profiles.
Now as you have seen from the screenshots we have vCenter (On-Prem) (CloudAccountA) and vCenter (On-Prem) – Hotspare (CloudAccountB) Cloud Accounts. We can set provisioning path in two ways:
- Use constraint tags in the BP to preferably provision on CloudAccountA and If this is not responding/available for deployment, use CloudAccountB. Our BP will have the same constraints for network, storage and image profiles, but it will have a soft constraint for the cloud account pointing to CloudAccountA. Again from the screenshots we can see that CloudAccountA has a tag cas.clouid.account.cap:primary (account.constraint:A) and CloudAccountB has a tag cas.clouid.account.cap:hotspare (account.constraint:B). By specifying account.constraint:A:soft in our blueprint we can guide the deployment to our Primary path. If this path is not available for deployment, as we are using a soft constraints, deployment will go to the Hotspare path. In this case note that the cloud zone priority on a project level for both cloud zones is the same.
- Use Cloud Zone priority on a Project level to achieve the same. In this case we will guide the deployment by selecting higher (0) priority for the Primary deployment path and lower (1) priority for the Hotspare path. As we are using priority to guide the deployment all profiles and account have the same tags and we are not using any soft tags in the blueprint.
If I run a deployment it will:
- Use Network Profile A, Storage Profile A, Image Profile A, Cloud Account A, Cloud Proxy A to connect to vCenter A
If I simulate a failover (e.g. disconnect Cloud Proxy A from the network) and run a deployment it will:
- Use Network Profile B, Storage Profile B, Image Profile B, Cloud Account B, Cloud Proxy B to connect to vCenter A
UC02: Configuring DR vSphere Cloud Account
Now to achieve DR/Hotspare use case where we have two different vCenter and we want to use one for failover/hotspare, we can use very similar approach
So we end up with:
- Two vCenters
- Distinct Network , Storage , image profiles and Cloud Accounts and Proxies for each vCenter.
- We can exactly the same configuration of all these profiles and accounts , including all the tags, as shown in the screenshots at the beginning.
Now if we consider the same screenshots we have vCenter (On-Prem) (CloudAccountA) and vCenter (On-Prem) – Hotspare (CloudAccountB) Cloud Accounts. These are now connected to two different vCenters. We can set provisioning path in two ways, same as before:
- Use constraint tags in the BP to preferably provision on CloudAccountA and If this is not responding/available for deployment, use CloudAccountB.
- Use Cloud Zone priority on a Project level to achieve the same. In this case we will guide the deployment by selecting higher (0) priority for the Primary deployment path and lower (1) priority for the Hotspare path.
If I run a deployment it will:
- Use Network Profile A, Storage Profile A, Image Profile A, Cloud Account A, Cloud Proxy A to connect to vCenter A
If I simulate a failover (e.g. disconnect Cloud Proxy A from the network) and run a deployment it will:
- Use Network Profile B, Storage Profile B, Image Profile B, Cloud Account B, Cloud Proxy B to connect to vCenter B
UC03: Configuring HA Cloud Proxy and DR vCenter Cloud Account
IN this use case we just need to do a combination of UC01 and UC02. Which means we will create a second set of profiles/accounts/proxies to point to the same vCenterA. We will then multiple this by two and create the same for vCenterB. Same tagging and priority strategy apply.
Final Step
If all went well, go grab a beer.
