Readme file

        Version last updated: 12/01/2022
        This version is deprecated
        This version 1.0.9 will not be available after 05/26/2025.

        VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller

        Avi Vantage delivers enterprise grade Elastic Load Balancer with SSL offload, web application security and Real-Time application performance monitoring and predictive autoscaling for applications for optimal application sizing.

        With this template, you can use IBM Cloud Schematics to create an NSX Advanced Load Balancer controller built on a Centos 7 host OS. Schematics uses Terraform as the infrastructure-as-code engine.

        Before you begin

        1. Make sure that you have the following permissions in IBM Cloud Identity and Access Management:
          • Manager service access role for IBM Cloud Schematics
          • Operator platform role for VPC Infrastructure
        2. Create or use an existing SSH key for VPC virtual servers.

        Required resources

        • VPC
        • Subnet for deploying the controller
        • NSX-ALB license (30 day trial license is preinstalled)

        Installing the software

        When you select the NSX-ALB Controller template from the IBM Cloud catalog, you set up your deployment variables from the Create page. When you apply the template, IBM
        Cloud Schematics provisions the resources according to the values that you specify for these variables.

        Production configuration

        • The customer is responsible for the security, patching, and maintenance of the OS of this controller instance.
        • A 3-node cluster is recommended for production deployments, ideally each controller in a different availability zone. Because of limitations in addressing in IBM cloud, you will not be able to use a floating IP for the cluster.

        Sizing

        The Terraform template has variables for sizing based on T-shirt sizing. These T-shirt sizes map to the following instance and volume sizes:

        Controller Size

        • small: bx2-8x32
        • medium: cx2-16x32
        • large: cx2-32x64

        Disk Size

        • small: 256GB
        • medium: 512GB
        • large: 1024GB

        Required values

        Fill in the following values, based on the steps that you completed before you began.

        Variable Name Description
        vpc Enter the VPC where you want the instance to be placed.
        subnet Enter the subnet where you want the instance to be placed
        ssh-key Enter the public SSH key that you use to access your VPC virtual servers.
        zone Enter the zone where the VPC is created.
        region Enter the short name of the region where the other required objects are created.

        Optional values

        Before you apply your template, you can customize the following default variable values.

        Variable Name Description Default Value
        security_group The name of the security group you want to use. One will be created for you if you don't specify one null
        firewall_inbound_subnet The source subnet to allow for inbound access to your controller. 10.0.0.0/8
        firewall_outbound_subnet The destination subnet to allow for outbound access from your controller. Internet access is required for deployment. 0.0.0.0/8
        floating_ip Choose whether to give the controller instance a floating IP for internet access. This isn't necessary if you're using a public gateway. Accepts true or false. false
        controller_size The size of the controller instance. Accepts small, medium, and large. small
        disk_size The size of the data disk for the controller instance. Impacts log storage. Accepts small, medium, and large. small
        nsxalb_version The version of the controller image to be pulled, needs to match the container tag at https://hub.docker.com/r/avinetworks/controller/tags 20.1.6-9132-20210615.024303

        Outputs

        After you apply the template your VPC resources are successfully provisioned in IBM Cloud, you can review information such as the virtual server IP addresses and VPC identifiers in the Schematics log files, in the Terraform SHOW section.

        The controller will take around 15 minutes to deploy, once the web interface is available, you can continue with configuring the controller and deploying Service Engines in your environment.

        Upgrading to a new version

        • Upgrading to a new version of the NSX-ALB controller can be done through the web UI by navigating to Administration/Controller.
        • Upgrading from the CLI/API can also be done, follwing this guide.
        • The upgrade software can be downloaded from https://portal.avipulse.vmware.com/ if you have a support entitlement.

        Uninstalling the software

        Complete the following steps to uninstall a Terraform-deployed controller from your account.

        1. Go to the Menu > Schematics.
        2. Select your workspace name.
        3. Click Actions > Destroy resources. All resources in your workspace are deleted.
        4. Click Update.
        5. To delete your workspace, click Actions > Delete workspace.

        This will need to be done for each controller schematic if a cluster was deployed.

        This will not clean up any resources created in the environment in support of NSX-ALB, such as Service Engine hosts or custom route tables. Those must be removed manually.

        Getting support

        This product is provided and supported by VMware. If you encounter issues, consult the NSX-ALB (Avi Networks) support KB for more information on how to contact support.