Create a Neutron Availability Zone with NSX-T Data Center

You can create additional Neutron availability zones with NSX-T Data Center by updating your VMware Integrated OpenStack configuration.

Prerequisites

Create a separate DHCP profile and metadata proxy server for each availability zone. Availability zones can share an edge cluster or use separate edge clusters.

For information about creating a DHCP profile, see Create a DHCP Server Profile in the NSX-T Administration Guide.
For information about creating a metadata proxy server, see Add a Metadata Proxy Server in the NSX-T Administration Guide.

Procedure

Log in to the Integrated OpenStack Manager as the root user.
```
ssh root@mgmt-server-ip
```
Modify the Neutron configuration.
```
viocli update neutron
```
In the nsx section, create a section for the new availability zone.
Use the format az:zone-name: for the section name.
In the section for the new availability zone, add the dhcp_profile parameter and sets its value to the name of the DHCP profile configured for the availability zone.
Add the metadata_proxy parameter and set its value to the name of the metadata proxy server configured for the availability zone.
If you want to use separate transport zones, add the default_overlay_tz and default_vlan_tz parameters and set their values to the names of the overlay and VLAN transport zones for the availability zone

In the nsx_v3 section, add the availability_zones parameter and set its value to the name of each availability zone, separated by commas (,).

The configuration file now looks similar to the following:

conf:
  metadata_agent:
    [...]
  plugins:
    nsx:
      az:zone1-name:
        dhcp_profile: dhcp1-uuid
        metadata_proxy: mdp1-uuid
      az:zone2-name:
        dhcp_profile: dhcp2-uuid
        metadata_proxy: mdp2-uuid
      nsx_v3:
        availability_zones: zone1-name, zone2-name
        [...]
manifests:
  [...]
pod:
  [...]

Results

The new availability zone is created. To specify an availability zone for a network, include the --availability-zone-hint az-name parameter when creating the network.

Example: Creating Separate Availability Zones for N-VDS Standard and Enhanced Data Path

The following procedure implements separate availability zones so that you can deploy NFV workloads on N-VDS in enhanced data path mode and other workloads in standard mode. In this example, VMware Integrated OpenStack has been deployed with NSX-T Data Center in standard mode. The availability zones will be configured on the same tier-0 router and edge cluster. The VMware Integrated OpenStack management network uses the IP address range 192.0.2.10 to 192.0.2.50.

In NSX-T Data Center, configure an overlay transport zone and VLAN transport zone using N-VDS in enhanced data path mode. See Enhanced Data Path.

The overlay transport zone is named nfv-overlay-tz and the VLAN transport zone is named nfv-vlan-tz.
Create a DHCP profile for the new availability zone.
1. In NSX Manager, select Networking > DHCP.
2. In the Server Profiles tab, click Add.
3. Enter nfv-dhcp as the name and select the existing edge cluster.
4. Click Add.
Create a metadata proxy server for the new availability zone.
1. In NSX Manager, select Networking > DHCP.
2. In the Metadata Proxies tab, click Add.
3. Enter nfv-mdp as the name.
4. Enter http://192.0.2.10:8775 as the Nova server URL.
5. Enter mdpassword as the secret.
6. Select the existing edge cluster.
7. Click Add.
Log in to the Integrated OpenStack Manager as the root user.
Modify the Neutron configuration.
```
viocli update neutron
```

Add the following information:

conf:
  plugins:
    nsx:
      az:std-az:
        default_overlay_tz: std-overlay-tz
        default_vlan_tz: std-vlan-tz
        dhcp_profile: std-dhcp
        metadata_proxy: std-mdp
      az:nfv-az:
        default_overlay_tz: nfv-overlay-tz
        default_vlan_tz nfv-vlan-tz
        dhcp_profile: nfv-dhcp
        metadata_proxy: nfv-mdp
      nsx_v3:
        availability_zones: std-az, nfv-az

Create a network in the new availability zone.
1. Switch to the root user and load the cloud administrator credentials file.
```
sudo su -
source ~/cloudadmin.rc
```
2. Create the network.
```
neutron net-create nfv-network --tenant-id nfv-project --availability-zone-hint nfv-az
```