Create a vSphere Distributed Switch for a Supervisor Cluster for Use with HAProxy Load Balancer

To configure a vSphere cluster as a Supervisor Cluster that uses the vSphere networking stack and the HA proxy load balancer, you must add the hosts to a vSphere Distributed Switch. You must create port groups on the distributed switch that you will configure as Workload Networks to the Supervisor Cluster.

You can select between different topologies for the Supervisor Cluster depending on the level of isolation that you want to provide to the Kubernetes workloads that will run on the cluster.

Prerequisites

• Review the system requirements for using vSphere networking for the Supervisor Cluster with the HAProxy load balancer. See System Requirements for Setting Up vSphere with Tanzu with vSphere Networking and HAProxy Load Balancer.
• Determine the topology for setting up Worklaod Networks with HA Proxy on the Supervisor Cluster. SeeTopologies for Deploying the HAProxy Load Balancer.

Procedure

1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to a data center.
2. Right click the data center and select Distributed Switch > New Distributed Switch.
3. Enter a name for the switch, for example Workload Distributed Switch and click Next.
4. Select version 7.0 for the switch and click Next.
5. In Port group name, enter Primary Workload Network, click Next, and click Finish.
   A new distributed switch with one port group is created on the data center. You can use this port group as the Primary Workload Network for the Supervisor Cluster that you will create. The Primary Workload Network handles the traffic for Kubernetes control plane VMs.
6. Create distributed port groups for Workload Networks.
   The number of port groups that you create depends on the topology that you want to implement for the Supervisor Cluster. For a topology with one isolated Workload Network, create one distributed port group that you will use as a network for all namespaces on the Supervisor Cluster. For a topology with isolated networks for each namespace, create the same number of port groups as the number of namespaces that you will create.
   1. Navigate to the newly-created distributed switch.
   2. Right-click the switch and select Distributed Port Groups > New Distributed Port Group.
   3. Enter a name for the port group, for example Workload Network and click Next.
   4. Leave the defaults, click Next and click Finish.
7. Add hosts from the vSphere clusters that you will configure as Supervisor Cluster to the distributed switch.
   1. Right-click the distributed switch and select Add and Manage Hosts.
   2. Select Add Hosts.
   3. Click New Hosts, select the hosts from the vSphere cluster that you will configure as a Supervisor Cluster, and click Next.
   4. Select a physical NIC from each host and assign it an uplink on the distributed switch.
   5. Click Next through the remaining screens of the wizard and click Finish.

Results

The hosts are added to the distributed switch. You can now use the port groups that you created on the switch as Workload Networks of the Supervisor Cluster.