This topic explains how the NSX Advanced Load Balancer - Basic edition is installed.
Installing the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller
The NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller OVA can be downloaded from My VMware customer portal. SE creation will be handled by the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller.
The Basic Edition of Avi Load Balancer (formerly known as NSX Advanced Load Balancer) has reached its End of Availability (EoA) date on Jan 30th, 2024. The changes only apply to the Basic Edition of Avi Load Balancer. For additional details, see VMware Knowledge Base.
Deploying NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller
Log in to the vCenter server through a vSphere Web Client. Use the client to deploy NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller OVA file by following the steps mentioned below:
Click the File option in the top menu and select Deploy OVF Template.
Follow the Deploy OVA Template wizard instructions:
Select Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed for disk format.
Select a port group for Destination Networks in Network Mapping. This port group will be used by the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller to communicate with vCenter.
Specify the management IP address and default gateway. In the case of DHCP, leave this field empty (Only static IP addresses must be used in production environment).
Leave the Sysadmin login authentication key field blank.
Power on the VM.
Repeat the above steps to deploy three NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller VMs to create an NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller cluster set-up.
Performing the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller Initial Setup
You can change or customize settings following initial deployment using the NSX Advanced Load Balancer ControllerUI. Navigate to the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller IP on the browser.
While the system is booting up, a 503 status code or a page with following message will appear:
Controller is not yet ready. Please try again after a couple of minutes. Wait for about 5 to 10 minutes and refresh the page. Follow the instructions below for the set-up wizard.
To perform the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller initial setup:
Configure the basic system settings:
Administrator account.
Note:A valid email address is required for the admin password reset in case of user account lockout.
DNS and NTP server information
Configure Email or SMTP information
Select the No Orchestrator option for Orchestrator Integration.
Select No for Support multiple Tenants? to complete the set-up.
Preparing NSX Advanced Load Balancer - Basic Edition
The NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller boots up in the Enterprise Edition by default. Delete the features that are not supported in the Basic Edition before changing the license tier.
Perform Configuration Audit
Run the configuration audit API to identify the Enterprise Edition features that need to be removed.
All configuration violations need to be corrected before license tier change is allowed.
The following is a sample output of the configuration audit API performed right after a fresh install.
[admin:cntrl]: > show configuration audit tier basic +--------------------+---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Object Type | Name | License Violations | +--------------------+---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | ServiceEngineGroup | Default-Group | Field ServiceEngineGroup.ha_mode cannot have HA_MODE_SHARED as its value in BASIC license tier. Allowed value(s): HA_MODE_LEGACY_ACTIVE_STANDBY. | | | | Field ServiceEngineGroup.hm_on_standby cannot have True as its value in BASIC license tier. Allowed value: False. | | | | Field ServiceEngineGroup.app_cache_percent cannot have 10 as its value in BASIC license tier. Allowed value: 0. | | | | | +--------------------+---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The following are the observations from the above output:
The default Service Engine Group (Default-Group) has a default HA mode of N+M. The NSX Advanced Load Balancer Basic Edition only supports the legacy Active/Standby HA mode and this must be changed.
The NSX Advanced Load Balancer Basic Edition does not support configurable cache memory, and this value must be edited to zero.
The NSX Advanced Load Balancer Basic Edition does not support health monitoring from the standby SE, and this must be disabled.
The above command will display any features that must be disabled before proceeding, if the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller is used and other features are configured.
Setup Service Engine Group to Legacy Active/ Standby
Before configuring the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller to be in the Basic Edition tier, the Service Engine group needs to be re-configured to adhere to the Basic Edition restrictions. Log in to the NSX Advanced Load Balancer UI using the Controller IP address on your browser.
Navigate to , edit the Default-Group and perform the following steps:
Under Placement, select the Active/Standby option from High Availability Mode.
Deselect the Enable Health Monitoring on Standby SE(s) check box.
Under Resources, set 0 as the value for Memory for Caching.
Click Save.
Run the configuration audit API to validate that there are no configuration errors.
[admin:ctrl]: > show configuration audit tier basic License audit passed successfully [admin:ctrl]: >
