Service Discovery using NSX Advanced Load Balancer as IPAM and DNS Provider

This section explains the configuration of NSX Advanced Load Balancer's native IPAM and DNS solution for providing service discovery.

The NSX Advanced Load Balancer IPAM/ DNS profile consists of both IPAM and DNS related configuration in a single bundle. It is recommended to have both IPAM and DNS configuration in a single profile for ease of management. However, configuration of one can exclude the other if different profiles for IPAM and DNS are preferred.

For instance, vantage-ipam can be created without configuring any DNS domains and vantage-dns can be created by using only domain names and without any networks/ subnets.

IPAM/ DNS Support for Cloud Infrastructure

NSX Advanced Load Balancer can be configured to provide automatic IP address allocation for virtual services and to provide authoritative DNS resolution for their virtual IP addresses.

Provider	Infoblox		NSX Advanced Load Balancer Internal		Cloud-native
Cloud Infrastructure	IPAM	DNS	IPAM	DNS	IPAM	DNS
VMware vCenter	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	NA	NA
OpenStack	No	No	No	Yes	Yes (Default)	NA (Not Used)
Amazon Web Services	No	No	No	Yes	Yes (Default)	Yes (Default)
Google Cloud Platform	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No
Azure (as of 18.2.5)	No	No	No	Yes	Yes (Default)	Yes (Default)
Linux Server (bare metal)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
No access cloud	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Note:

• When creating virtual services in OpenStack or AWS cloud, a separate configuration for IPAM is not needed/ allowed, since the cloud configuration has support for IPAM natively in NSX Advanced Load Balancer.

  • Default means NSX Advanced Load Balancer accepts the cloud’s IPAM/DNS support without additional action on the part of the NSX Advanced Load Balancer admin.

  • NSX Advanced Load Balancer supports Route 53 when AWS is the cloud provider configuration in NSX Advanced Load Balancer.

  • Not used means, although the cloud supports DNS, NSX Advanced Load Balancer does not use it.

• NSX Advanced Load Balancer DNS service can be used with all these clouds.

General Configuration Workflow

Initial configuration is common for both IPAM and DNS. The configuration fields differ among the infrastructure types and the provider (NSX Advanced Load Balancer, Infoblox, AWS, GCP, and OpenStack). To configure IPAM and DNS support, follow the steps listed below:

1. Navigate to Templates > Profiles.

2. Click IPAM/DNS Profile.

3. Click Create and select the provider.

4. Fill in the displayed fields (detailed steps are provided in the sections below).

5. Click Save. The profile appears in the list.

6. Navigate to Infrastructure > Clouds and edit the cloud setting.

7. Select the IPAM and DNS providers from the drop-down menu. Either one or both must be selected based on the providers required.

8. Click Save.