Starting with version 10.1, VMware Cloud Director supports data center groups backed by NSX Data Center for vSphere with both an active and a stand-by egress point for a single network fault domain.

The organization virtual data centers in a local group are backed by a single vCenter instance.

In a local data center group, you can set a pair of edge gateways - an active egress point and a stand-by egress point, to support high availability and disaster recovery scenarios within the same network fault domain.

Prerequisites

Verify that you are logged in as a System Administrator or a role with the VDC Group: Configure VDC Group right published to the organization.

Create a Local Data Center Group with NSX Data Center for vSphere Network Provider Type in the VMware Cloud Director Tenant Portal

You can group between 1 and 16 virtual data centers (VDCs) in a data center group backed by NSX Data Center for vSphere with a fault domain egress configuration.

Prerequisites

The system administrator enabled the target virtual data centers for cross-virtual data center networking.

Procedure

  1. From the primary left navigation panel, select Networking, and from the page top navigation bar, select the Data Center Groups tab.
    The list of data center groups appears.
  2. Click New.
  3. On the Starting VDC page, select a VDC to start the VDC group.
  4. Enter a name and, optionally, a description for the new data center group.
  5. To create a group that contains only virtual data centers from a single network fault domain, toggle on the Create Local Group option.
  6. Click Next.
  7. On the Participating VDCs page, select additional data centers for the new data center group, and click Next.
    The Data Centers page contains a list of the VDCs that the system administrator has enabled for cross-virtual data center networking.
  8. Review the data center group details and click Finish.

Results

The newly created virtual data center group appears in the Data Center Groups view.

Add an Active Egress Point for a Local Data Center Group with NSX Data Center for vSphere Network Provider Type in the VMware Cloud Director Tenant Portal

To connect the data centers from the local data center group backed by NSX Data Center for vSphere to the Internet, you must add an active egress point to the network fault domain.

Procedure

  1. From the primary left navigation panel, select Networking, and from the page top navigation bar, select the Data Center Groups tab.
    The list of data center groups appears.
  2. Click the target data center group.
    The Network Topology view for this data center group opens. The diagram of the current network topology displays the participating VDCs with their network fault domains, the egress points, if configured, and the traffic routes.
  3. Click Add Egress Point.
  4. From the list of edge gateways that belong to the participating virtual data centers, select an edge gateway to act as an active egress point for the data center group, and click Add.

Results

BGP routes are configured on the edge gateway representing the egress point and the universal router of the network fault domain. The configuration does not affect the existing routes on the edge gateway.

The newly added active egress point appears in the diagram of the network topology. A continuous blue line represents the traffic from the virtual data centers in the network fault domain to the Internet.

What to do next

To allow for egress point fault tolerance, add a stand-by egress point for the local data center group.

Add a Stand-By Egress Point for a Local Data Center Group with NSX Data Center for vSphere Network Provider Type in the VMware Cloud Director Tenant Portal

In local data center groups configurations, you can add a secondary egress point, which acts as a stand-by egress point for fault tolerance scenarios.

Prerequisites

Apart from the edge gateway that acts as an active egress point, you must have at least one more edge gateway in any of the virtual data centers that are participating in the local data center group.

Procedure

  1. From the primary left navigation panel, select Networking, and from the page top navigation bar, select the Data Center Groups tab.
    The list of data center groups appears.
  2. Click the target data center group.
    The Network Topology view for this data center group opens. The diagram of the current network topology displays the participating VDCs with their network fault domains, the egress points, if configured, and the traffic routes.
  3. Click Add stand-by egress point.
    The Add Stand-by Egress Point page opens providing a list of the unused edge gateways that belong to the participating virtual data centers. The edge gateway that is in use by the active egress point in this virtual data center group appears dimmed.
  4. Select the edge gateway that you want to act as a stand-by egress point for this data center group, and click Add.

Results

BGP routes are configured on the edge gateway representing the egress point and the universal router of the network fault domain. The configuration does not affect the existing routes on the edge gateway.

The newly added egress point appears in the network topology diagram. A dashed blue line represents the traffic from the participating virtual data centers to the Internet in fault tolerance scenarios.