First of all – I am no NSX expert. In fact, I only ever used NSX in conjunction with vCloud Director. If you are after an article in how to use NSX and its full potential, then I am afraid, this is not the right article for you.
vCloud Director cannot utilise the features of NSX and therefore runs in compatibility mode. In fact, when you connect vCloud Director to NSX, you still only get vShield Edges version 5.5 deployed.
So when NSX is used with vCloud Director, apart from the required VXLAN (Multicast) configuration, it pretty much remains a default install.
Anyway, lets get started.
Deploy the OVA using the web client. The C# client will not display the additional settings required.
Browse for the NSX ova
Accept the additional configuration options required
Accept the License Agreements
Select the appropriate datastore.
Select the appropriate network
Enter the additional required settings, such as Password, IP, Gateway, Netmask, DNS etc.
Tick the box to power the appliance on once deployed, confirm the settings and click Finish
Wait until the deployment is complete
Now browse to the IP / FQDN of the appliance. The login is the username admin and the password configured during initial deployment
Click View Summary
Wait until vPostgres, RabbitMQ, SSH Service (if enabled) and NSX Management Service are in Running state
The NSX Management Service will likely take a while to start
When the service running as shown in the picture, click Manage
Here we configure the vCenter. Under Lookup Service, click Edit
Enter the Lookup details of your vCenter.
NOTE: As of vSphere 6 – the Lookup Service is now running on Port 443 instead of 7444 !!
Accept the certificate
Now enter the vCenter details. NOTE: If, as shown in this picture, the SSO admin is being used to connect NSX to the vCenter, only the SSO admin will have access to the NSX section in the vCenter web client. If you do use the SSO admin to connect, but use a different user to connect to the web client, you will need to login to the web client using the SSO admin first and give the desired user the appropriate permissions to access NSX
Accept the certificate
The Lookup Service and vCenter should now appear connected and an inventory taken.
Login to the vCenter web client and click Networking & Security
Select Installation
Under Actions, click Install
Confirm the install of the agents
Once the installation is finished, select Logical Network Preparation. Under Segment ID, click Edit
Enter the appropriate Segment ID pool and Multicast addresses. Below is just an example.
Go back to Host Preparation. You should now see the hosts are configured, but VXLAN is not. Click Not Configured
Select the appropriate Switch and VLAN. I will be using an IP Pool. Click the dropdown and New IP Pool …
Enter the desired network details and range for the pool.
Now select the newly created IP Pool. If this is a test environment and nested, ensure the Teaming Policy is set to Fail Over
You can now watch the client and wait until the required packages are installed and vmkernel interfaces created
Once done you should be able to the see the VXLAN port group and the hosts’ vmkernel interface added
The VXLAN configuration should now be complete
That’s it. This is all you need when using NSX in conjunction with vCloud Director. As you can see, it is quite straight forward. When adding NSX to vCloud Director, you simply use the FQDN of the NSX Manager when asked for the vShield Manager FQDN / IP.