To configure a vSphere cluster as a Supervisor that uses the vSphere networking stack and the NSX Advanced Load Balancer, you must create a vSphere Distributed Switch. Create port groups on the distributed switch that you can configure as Workload Networks to the Supervisor. The NSX Advanced Load Balancer needs a distributed port group to connect the Service Engine data interfaces. The port group is used to place the application Virtual IPs (VIPs) on the Service Engines.

Prerequisites

Review the system requirements and network topologies for using vSphere networking for the Supervisor with the NSX Advanced Load Balancer. See Requirements for a Three-Zone Supervisor with NSX Advanced Load Balancer and Requirements for Enabling a Single Cluster Supervisor with NSX Advanced Load Balancer in vSphere IaaS Control Plane Concepts and Planning.

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 8.0 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 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. 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. 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. Create a port group for the Data Network.
    1. Right-click the distributed switch and select Distributed port group > New distributed port group.
    2. Enter a name for the port group, for example, Data Network and click Next.
    3. On the Configure Settings page, enter the general properties for the new distributed port group and click Next.
      Property Description
      Port binding Select when ports are assigned to virtual machines connected to this distributed port group.

      Select Static binding to assign a port to a virtual machine when the virtual machine connects to the distributed port group.

      Port Allocation Select Elastic port allocation.

      The default number of ports is eight. When all ports are assigned, a new set of eight ports is created.
      Number of ports Retain the default value.
      Network resource pool From the drop-down menu, assign the new distributed port group to a user-defined network resource pool. If you have not created a network resource pool, this menu is empty.
      VLAN From the drop-down menu, select the type of VLAN traffic filtering and marking:
      • None: Do not use VLAN. Select this option if you are using External Switch Tagging.
      • VLAN: In the VLAN ID text box, enter a value from 1 through 4094 for Virtual Switch Tagging.
      • VLAN trunking: Use this option for Virtual Guest Tagging and to pass VLAN traffic with an ID to the guest OS. Enter a VLAN trunk range. You can set multiple ranges or individual VLANs by using a comma-separated list. For example, 1702-1705, 1848-1849.
      • Private VLAN: Associate the traffic with a private VLAN created on the distributed switch. If you did not create any private VLANs, this menu is empty.
      Advanced Leave this option unselected.
  8. On the Ready to Complete page, review the configuration and click Finish.

Results

The distributed switch is created and distributed port groups appear under the distributed switch. You can now use this port group that you created as the Data Network for the NSX Advanced Load Balancer.