You can federate the management domain NSX Data Center or a VI workload domain NSX Data Center. Since VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) supports a maximum of four federated NSX Managers, you can federate four management domains or four VI workload domains. More than four VI workload domains can be federated if they share an NSX Manager.

Some tasks described in this section are to be performed on the first NSX Data Center instance while others need to be performed on each NSX Data Center instance that is being federated. See the table below for more information.

NSX Data Center Intance Tasks to be Performed
First Instance
  1. Creating a Global Manager Cluster in VMware Cloud Foundation
  2. Replacing Global Manager Cluster Certificates in VMware Cloud Foundation

    You can skip this step if you are using self-signed cerificates.

  3. Prepare Local Manager for NSX Federation in VMware Cloud Foundation
  4. Enabling NSX Federation in VMware Cloud Foundation

  5. Stretching Segments between VMware Cloud Foundation Instances:

    1. Create and Configure Cross-Instance Tier-1 Gateway

    2. Connect Cross-Instance Segments to Cross-Instance Tier-1 Gateway

Enable high availability for NSX Federation Control Plane on one additional instance
  1. Creating a Global Manager Cluster in VMware Cloud Foundation
  2. Replacing Global Manager Cluster Certificates in VMware Cloud Foundation

    You can skip this step if you are using self-signed cerificates.

  3. Set Standby Global Manager

Each additional instance
  1. Prepare Local Manager for NSX Federation in VMware Cloud Foundation
  2. Add Location to Global Manager

  3. Stretching Segments between VMware Cloud Foundation Instances:

    1. Delete Existing Tier-0 Gateways in Additional Instances
    2. Connect Additional VCF Instances to Cross-Instance Tier-0 Gateway
    3. Connect Local Tier-1 Gateway to Cross-Instance Tier-0 Gateway
    4. Add Additional Instance as Locations to the Cross-Instance Tier-1 Gateway