Intro
So in my Last Post I deployed an NSX Micro Seg only deployment to my compute cluster, in this post I’ll cover how we can do the same thing without using the wizard.
Wizard Generated Profiles
If I have already deployed one cluster then I can use the Transport Node Profile that was created during the Wizard deployment to deploy another one manually.
But if I do that then what’s the point of doing a manual deployment? I may as well do it via the Wizard.
If I am deploying from an NSX Manager that has not already been used to deploy a wizard driven Micro Seg deployment the Transport Node Profile won’t exist so I either need to deploy to a cluster via the wizard which will create it or I can manually create the profile or a custom one of my own.
First let’s take a look at the profile that was created by the wizard.
From the NSX manager that I ran the Wizard deployment from I can browse to System, Fabric, Profiles then select the system created profile, that’s the one with the crazy long name, then click EDIT
We can see that the Mode is ‘standard’ and the Type is ‘VDS’ we have the vCenter2 and the DC2-Comp-vDS selected. with the exception of the Standard mode the other settings are what we chose during the wizard deployment.
The wizard used the default ‘nsx-vlan-transportzone’ and the default ‘nsx-default-loadbalance-uplink-hostswitch-profile’
As the Uplink profile contains 4 x Uplinks the Teaming Policy shows 4.
Looking at the Transport Zone we can see that there’s not much to it, it’s just a simple VLAN transport zone however if we want the next cluster to be in a different transport zone then we can’t use the wizard as it will use the same one by default. We can edit this profile but only the name.
Remember that the Segments we deploy are associated with the Transport zone so you can’t just move a host to a new TZ without adjusting the segments.
The uplink profile cannot be edited so it’s stuck with 4 uplinks not that that’s an issue but we can use our own one for the manual build.
The Build
For this build I’m going to use a fresh cluster so I’ll need to create what I need manually. First off the Transport Zone.
You can do all this as part of the Transport Node Profile creation but I’ve split it out in this guide.
Transport zone
Browse to System, Fabric, Transport Zones then click + ADD
Give it a ‘Name’ the ‘Switch Name’ can be left blank (You can enter a name but since it’s going to use the vDS it won’t create any switch.
Select VLAN as the ‘Traffic Type’ then click ADD
We can see that the TZ has been created and the system has entered ‘nsxDefaultHostSwitch’ as the switch name.
Uplink Profile
Next up is the Uplink profile, browse to System, Fabric, Profiles, Uplink Profiles then click + ADD
Give the profile a ‘Name’, Enter ‘LAGs’ if you are using them scroll down.
Configure the ‘Teaming Policy’ Load Balanced Source in my case, in the ‘Active Uplinks’ I enter Uplink-1,Uplink-2
The Transport VLAN can be left at 0 and the MTU can be left blank.
Click ADD
The profile is created.
Transport Node Profile
Finally we need to create our Transport Node Profile.
You can configure the hosts without this profile but to do the whole cluster at once a profile is needed.
Navigate to System, Fabric, Profiles, Transport Node Profiles then click + ADD
Give the profile a ‘Name’ Select ‘VDS’ select the ‘vCenter’ and the relevant ‘vDS’ Click the drop-down for the ‘Transport Zone’ and select the TZ you created earlier, if you haven’t already created one you can do that now by clicking ‘OR Create New Transport Zone’.
Click the drop-down for the ‘Uplink Profile’ and select the Uplink Profile you created earlier, again if you haven’t already created one you can do that now by clicking ‘OR Create New Uplink Profile’.
Scroll down.
Map the ‘Uplinks’ to the ‘VDS Uplinks’ then click ADD
Configure Cluster
We are now ready to configure our cluster for a Micro Seg only deployment.
Navigate to System, Fabric, Nodes, Host Transport Nodes Select your vCenter from the ‘Managed by’ drop-down menu, select the cluster and then click CONFIGURE NSX
Select the ‘Transport Node Profile’ we just created then click APPLY
Once complete we can see the cluster is up.
The next step is the same as before we need to create our Segments only this time we pick our new Transport Zone.
Finally as before we can create our Micro Seg Firewall rules.