Deploy the HAProxy Load Balancer Control Plane VM

If you want to use the vSphere networking stack for Kubernetes workloads, install the HAProxy control plane VM to provide load balancing services to Tanzu Kubernetes clusters.

Prerequisites

• Verify that your environment meets the compute and networking requirements for deploying HA Proxy. See System Requirements for Setting Up vSphere with Tanzu with vSphere Networking and HAProxy Load Balancer.
• Verify that you have a Management network on a vSphere standard or distributed switch where to deploy the HAProxy load balancer. The Supervisor Cluster communicates with the HAProxy load balancer on that Management network.
• Create a vSphere Distributed Switch and port groups for Workload Networks. The HAProxy load balancer communicates with Supervisor Cluster and Tanzu Kubernetes cluster nodes over the Workload Networks. See Create a vSphere Distributed Switch for a Supervisor Cluster for Use with HAProxy Load Balancer. For information on Workload Networks, see Workload Networks on the Supervisor Cluster
• Download the latest version of the VMware HAProxy OVA file from the VMware-HAProxy site.
• Select a topology for deploying the HAProxy load balancer and Workload Networks on the Supervisor Cluster. See Topologies for Deploying the HAProxy Load Balancer

It may be helpful to view a demonstration of how to use vSphere with Tanzu with vDS networking and HAProxy. Check out the video Getting Started Using vSphere with Tanzu.

Procedure

1. Log in to the vCenter Server using the vSphere Client.
2. Create a new VM from the HAProxy OVA file.

   Option	Description
   Content Library	If you imported the OVA to a Local Content Library: Go to Menu > Content Library. Select the library where you imported the OVA. Select the vmware-haproxy-vX.X.X template. Right-click and choose New VM from This Template.
   Local file	If you downloaded the OVA file to your local host: Select the vCenter cluster where you will enable Workload Management. Right-click and select Deploy OVF Template. Select Local File and click Upload Files. Browse to and select the vmware-haproxy-vX.X.X.ova file.

3. Enter a Virtual machine name, such as haproxy.
4. Select the Datacenter where you are deploying HAProxy and click Next.
5. Select the vCenter Cluster where you will enable Workload Management and click Next.
6. Review and confirm the deployment details and click Next.
7. Accept the License agreements and click Next.
8. Select a deployment configuration. See HAProxy Network Topology for details.

   Configuration	Description
   Default	Select this option to deploy the appliance with 2 NICs: a Management network and a single Workload network.
   Frontend Network	Select this option to deploy the appliance with 3 NICs. The frontend subnet is used to isolate cluster nodes from the network used by developers to access the cluster control plane.

9. Select the storage policy to use for the VM and click Next.
10. Select the network interfaces to use for the load balancer and click Next.

    Source Network	Destination Network
    Management	Select the Management network, such as VM Network.
    Workload	Select the vDS portgroup configured for Workload Management.
    Frontend	Select the vDS portgroup configured for the Frontend subnet. If you did not select Frontend configuration, this setting is ignored during installation, so you can leave the default.

    Note: The workload network must be on a different subnet than the management network. Refer to the system requirements.
11. Customize the application configuration settings. See Appliance Configuration Settings.
12. Provide the network configuration details. See Network Configuration.
13. Configure load balancing. See Load Balancing Settings.
14. Click Next to complete the configuration of the OVA.
15. Review the deployment configuration details and click Finish to deploy the OVA.
16. Monitor the deployment of the VM using the Tasks panel.
17. When the VM deployment completes, power it on.

What to do next

Once the HAProxy load balancer is successfully deployed and powered on, proceed with enabling Workload Management. See Configuring and Managing a Supervisor Cluster.