Tag Management VMs in a Collapsed Cluster Environment

Starting in NSX-T Data Center 3.0.2, you can migrate an NSX Data Center for vSphere environment that uses a collapsed cluster.

In a collapsed cluster design, all management VMs, workload VMs, and optionally edges run on the same vSphere cluster that is prepared for NSX for vSphere. The management VMs of the NSX-T Data Center must be initially attached to dvPortgroups. After migration, the management VMs of NSX-T Data Center will be attached to NSX-T VLAN segments.

The management VMs in the NSX-T Data Center include appliances, such as NSX Manager, vCenter Server, VMware Identity Manager, and so on. The NSX-T VLAN segment ports to which these management VMs connect are blocked after the migration when these management VMs are rebooted. Therefore, the management VMs might lose connectivity after the VMs reboot.

To prevent this problem, create a "management_vms" tag category, and add tags in this category. Assign a tag from this category to all the management VMs in the NSX-T Data Center environment. The migration coordinator migrates the VMs, which have tags in the "management_vms" tag category, always to use the unblocked VLAN segment ports.

Procedure

1. Log in to the vSphere Client.
2. Click Menu > Tags & Custom Attributes.
3. Click Categories, and then click New to add a category.
   Create a category with name management_vms.
4. Click the Tags tab and add a tag in the management_vms category.
5. Navigate to Menu > Hosts and Clusters.
6. Expand the collapsed cluster from the left Navigator view, right-click the name of the NSX Manager VM, and select Tags & Custom Attributes > Assign Tag.
7. Assign a tag from the management_vms category to the NSX Manager VM.
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for all the management VMs in the cluster.
   For a detailed information about tag categories and tags, see the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.