Deploy the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller

Deploy the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller VM to the Management Network in your vSphere IaaS control plane environment.

Prerequisites

• Verify that you have a Management Network on which to deploy the NSX Advanced Load Balancer. This can be a vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) or a vSphere Standard Switch (vSS).
• Verify that you have created a vDS switch and port group for the Data Network. See Create a vSphere Distributed Switch for a Supervisor for Use with NSX Advanced Load Balancer.
• Verify that you have completed the prerequisites. See Requirements for Zonal Supervisor with NSX and NSX Advanced Load Balancer and Requirements for Cluster Supervisor Deployment with NSX and NSX Advanced Load Balancer in vSphere IaaS Control Plane Concepts and Planning.

Procedure

1. Log in to the vCenter Server using the vSphere Client.
2. Select the vSphere cluster that is designated for management components.
3. Create a resource pool named AVI-LB.
4. Right-click the resource pool and select Deploy OVF Template.
5. Select Local File and click Upload Files.
6. Browse to and select the controller-VERSION.ova file you downloaded as a prerequisite.
7. Enter a name and select a folder for the Controller.

   Option	Description
   Virtual machine name	avi-controller-1
   Location for the virtual machine	Datacenter

8. Select the AVI-LB resource pool as a compute resource.
9. Review the configuration details and click Next.
10. Select a VM Storage Policy, such as vsanDatastore.
11. Select the Management Network, such as network-1.
12. Customize the configuration as follows and click Next when you are done.

    Option	Description
    Management Interface IP Address	Enter the IP address for the Controller VM, such as 10.199.17.51.
    Management Interface Subnet Mask	Enter the subnet mask, such as 255.255.255.0.
    Default Gateway	Enter the default gateway for the Management Network, such as 10.199.17.235.
    Sysadmin login authentication key	Optionally, paste the contents of a public key. You can leave the key blank.
    Hostname of Avi Contoller	Enter the FQDN or the IP address of the Controller.

13. Review the deployment settings.
14. Click Finish to complete the configuration.
15. Use vSphere Client to monitor the provisioning of the Controller VM in the Tasks panel.
16. Use the vSphere Client to power on the Controller VM after it is deployed.

Deploy a Controller Cluster

Optionally, you can deploy a cluster of three controller nodes. Configuring a cluster is recommended in production environments for HA and disaster recovery. If you are running a single node NSX Advanced Load Balancer Contoller you must use the Backup and Restore feature.

To run a three node cluster, after you deploy the first Controller VM, deploy and power on two more Controller VMs. You must not run the initial configuration wizard or change the admin password for these controllers. The configuration of the first controller VM is assigned to the two new Controller VMs.

Procedure

1. Go to Administration > Controller.
2. Select Nodes.
3. Click the edit icon.
4. Add a static IP for Controller Cluster IP.
   This IP address must be from the Management Network.
5. In Cluster Nodes, configure the two new cluster nodes.

   Option	Description
   IP	IP address of the controller node.
   Name	Name of the node. The name can be the IP address.
   Password	Password of the controller node. Leave the password empty.
   Public IP	The public IP address of the controller node. Leave this empty.

6. Click Save.
   Note: Once you deploy a cluster, you must use the controller cluster IP for any further configuration and not the controller node IP.

Power On the Controller

After you deploy the Controller VM, you can power it on. During the boot up process, the IP address specified during the deployment gets assigned to the VM.

After power on, the first boot process of the Controller VM can take up to 10 minutes.

Prerequisites

Deploy the Controller.

Procedure

1. In the vCenter Server, right click the avi-controller-1 VM that you deployed.
2. Select Power > Power On.
   The VM is assigned the IP address that you specified during deployment.
3. To verify if the VM is powered on, access the IP address in a browser.
   When the VM comes online, warnings about the TLS certificate and connection appear.
4. In the This Connection Is Not Private warning, click Show Details.
5. Click visit this website in the window that appears.
   You are prompted for user credentials.