Introduction
VMware Cloud on AWS is an on-demand service that enables customers to run applications across vSphere-based cloud environments with access to a broad range of AWS services. Powered by VMware Cloud Foundation, this service integrates vSphere, vSAN, and NSX along with VMware vCenter management, and is optimized to run on dedicated, elastic, bare-metal AWS infrastructure. ESXi hosts in VMware Cloud on AWS reside in an AWS Availability Zone(s) (AZ) and are protected by vSphere HA.
With VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX), customers can easily and rapidly perform large-scale bi-directional migrations between on-premises and VMware Cloud on AWS environments.
With the same architecture and operational experience on-premises and in the cloud, IT teams can now quickly derive instant business value from the use of AWS services and VMware hybrid cloud experience. VMware Cloud on AWS is ideal for enterprise IT infrastructure and operations organizations looking to migrate their on-premises vSphere-based workloads to the public cloud, consolidate and extend their data center capacities, and optimize, simplify and modernize their disaster recovery solutions
VMware Cloud on AWS is an integrated cloud offering jointly engineered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and VMware. You can deliver a highly scalable and secure service by migrating and extending your on-premises VMware vSphere-based environments to the AWS Cloud running on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).
What is An Software Defined Data Center (SDDC)
The mobile cloud era is changing line-of-business (LOB) expectations of IT. For IT organizations to securely deliver the anticipated improvements in service quality and speed, a Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) approach is required. The VMware approach to the SDDC delivers a unified platform that supports any application and provides flexible control. The VMware architecture for the SDDC empowers companies to run hybrid clouds and to leverage unique capabilities to deliver key outcomes that enable efficiency, agility, and security.
The Lab Environment
For the entirety of this workshop, you will have access to a live, dedicated VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC instance, along with a live vSphere 8 U1 On-Premises deployment. The VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC instance provided to you is a single-host SDDC. Single-host SDDCs are designed for the following purposes:
- Training/Learning
- Proof of Concept
- Limited Development
The single-host SDDC supports all VMC on AWS use-cases, however, it should not be used for production workloads, as the availability and resiliency of this SDDC are far lower than a 2 or more host SDDC.
The single-host SDDC starter configuration allows you to kickstart your VMware Cloud on AWS hybrid cloud experience with a 60-day time-bound single-host configuration. Beyond this class, you can purchase this configuration on an hourly on-demand basis using a credit card or VMware credit funds.
TASKS
In this lab, we are going to start by looking at the basic tasks you can perform in the VMware Cloud on AWS user interface when you are administering the platform. We'll take a close look and discover, through a very intuitive interface, where you perform specific administrative tasks.
From your laptop/desktop access the VMware Cloud on AWS Console
- Using your preferred browser go to https://vmc.vmware.com
- In tests Google Chrome in Incognito mode or Firefox in private browsing mode works best
- Click SIGN IN
- Login with your VMC on AWS console credentials provided by your instructor:
- Type <Your Assigned login Credentials> in the email address field i.e. vmcexpert#[email protected] (where # is your Environment ID, and XX is your assigned student number)
- Click NEXT
- Password: VMware1!
- Click SIGN IN
Upon signing in you'll notice there are two or more SDDCs named VMCExpert#-XX (Where XX indicates your student number).
NOTE: Unless instructed to, only use the SDDC that matches your assigned Student number.
PLEASE DO NOT add hosts or make other changes beyond those indicated in the lab steps or without your instructor’s guidance.
An SDDC (Software Defined Datacenter) is a fully deployed environment including ESXi, NSX, vSAN, and vCenter Server, with all day-1 configurations completed. Deployment of an SDDC takes about 90 minutes so for this lab, we have already deployed one for you.
This SDDC is in the same state as it would be if you would have deployed it manually.
Identify your SDDC, (VMCEXPERT#-XX, where XX is your Student Number). At the top left of the SDDC tile (i.e. VMCEXPERT3-02).
- Click VIEW DETAILS
In this task we will review the options under each of the SDDC Tabs (Summary, Networking and Security, Integrated Services, Maintenance...)
SUMMARY TAB
This tab displays the resource allocation of your VMware on AWS SDDC. It shows how many hosts (ESXi hypervisors) are in the SDDC along with the CPU, RAM, and Storage capacity of the SDDC.
From here, you can expand your SDDC by adding Hosts and/or Clusters to it. If allowed, you can also shrink the SDDC by removing one or more hosts. You can also configure elastic DRS, Activate Tanzu Services as well as enable the purchase of Microsoft Licenses for Microsoft OSes and Applications you intend to deploy in the SDDC.
- Click the Networking & Security Tab
NETWORKING AND SECURITY
From here you can view the Networking & Security Dashboard. This dashboard allowing you only to view in Read-Only view information about VPN / Direct / Transit Connections, Management and Default Compute Gateways, inventory information about Cloud Provider.
To view and modify SDDC networking features you need to click Open NSX Manager button. In Window Open NSX Manager proceed further with clicking on button ACCESS VIA THE INTERNET. New browser tab will be opened, you need to wait till NSX Manager UI will be loaded (loading circle will spin - it will take up to 60 seconds).
- At Overview of Home tab you can see an overview network diagram of your SDDC.
- From Networking tab you can also perform the following:
- Add additional Tier-1 Gateways and edit DHCP configuration on the Tier-1 Compute Gateway
- CRUD operations on Networks Segments for Applications running in your SDDC
- Configure VPN from your SDDC to another endpoint such as your On-Premises environment or another SDDC
- Configure NAT
- Check inventory of Cloud Services: Direct Connect, Transit Connect, Connected VPCs
- Request and manage Public IPs for workloads running in your SDDC
- Configure DNS forwarders for the SDDC
- Create and manage Networking Profiles for Gateway QoS and DHCP services
- Change Global Configuration for Filtering and Route aggregation
- From Security tab you can also perform the following:
- Define N/S Firewall policies on the Gateway Firewalls for Compute and Management workloads, as well as E/W Firewall policies using the Distributed Firewall
- Configure NSX Advanced Security, such as Distributed IDS/IPS,Layer-7 Firewall, and User Identity Firewall rules
- From Inventory tab you can also perform the following:
- Create or Edit custom User-defined Groups and Services
- Create or Edit custom Context Profiles for NSX Advanced Security features
- Review Virtual Machines in your SDDC Inventory
- From Plan & Troubleshoot tab you can also perform the following:
- Configure Network troubleshooting tools (IPFIX and Port Mirroring)
- Do Traffic Analysis operations using Traceflow utility or Live Traffic Analysis
- From System tab you can also perform the following:
- Configure settings for Identity Firewall AD
- View and edit User Management settings (Roles, Users and Authentication Providers)
- Change settings of SSL Certificates of NSX Manager
- Click the Storage tab to review external storage management in the VMC on AWS SDDC
The Storage tab is used to add customer-managed storage to an SDDC cluster. The Storage tab of the VMC Console gives you the tools you need to add, remove, and reconfigure mountable storage (file systems) like NFS.
- Click Elasticity tab to view, and edit Elastic DRS profiles. for the SDDC Cluster(S). From here you can also create a Custom EDRS Policy for your Cluster(s)
You can manage the Elastic DRS policy for each SDDC cluster to optimize cluster scaling to meet your workloads' needs.
For any policy, scale-out is triggered when a cluster reaches the high threshold for any resource. Regardless of the policy you choose, the storage scale-out threshold cannot be set to greater than 80%. Scale-in is triggered only after all of the low thresholds have been reached.
- Click the Integrated Services tab to review the additional services that can be added to your VMC on AWS SDDC
INTEGRATED SERVICES
These add-on services are used to extend the capabilities of the SDDC and provide solutions for specific Use Cases. The Add on services include:
- VMware HCX Allows the Migration of existing workloads to your SDDC
- Site Recovery Allows the protection and recovery of Workloads into your SDDC from on-premises, SDDC to On-Premises, or SDDC to SDDC
- NSX Advanced Firewall helps you secure your applications against an ever-expanding set of threats on the internet.Specifically, it includes a robust set of networking and security capabilities that enable customers to run production applications in the cloud.
- VMware Aria Automation Allows automated provisioning of workloads through a self-service service catalog. Also layers governance and policy management as part of the provisioning lifecycle.
- VMware Aria Operations for Networks provides end-to-end network visibility across VMware NSX, VMware SD-WAN, VMware Cloud, public cloud, and other multi-cloud deployments. Cloud, network, and security administrators can use vRealize Network Insight Cloud to view usage details across all their clouds, both public and private
- VMware Aria Operation Enables you to perform real-time monitoring, optimize performance, manage cost and capacity, perform root-cause analysis, and measure configuration compliance of your workloads and SDDC infrastructure
- Click the Maintenance Tab to view scheduled maintenance activities for your SDDC.
MAINTENANCE
VMware periodically schedules software maintenance for its services, including VMware Cloud on AWS. During maintenance, your workload VMs will remain online, but you won't be able to view or modify your vCenter Server and SDDC networking.
You can view the progress of ongoing maintenance by clicking on the Maintenance Tab.
- Click the Troubleshooting tab to review the connectivity use case tests between On-Premises and the SDDC
TROUBLESHOOTING
Includes tests for connectivity and other use cases.
- Click the Settings Tab to review the SDDC and vCenter Information
SETTINGS
This page displays information about SDDC settings, predefined user accounts, and SDDC access via the API and PowerCLI. These settings include:
- SDDC Management Appliance Size - Displays the size of management appliances in this SDDC. These sizes were specified when the SDDC was created.
- Default vCenter User Account - Displays the credentials for this pre-defined user. The password is generated when the SDDC is created. If you change it in vCenter, it does not get not updated on this page.
- vCenter FQDN - Shows the fully-qualified domain name and IP address of the vCenter in this SDDC
- vSphere Client - Provides the link to open the SDDC vCenter with the vSphere client
- vCenter API Explorer - Provides a link to open the API Explorer view of the SDDC and the VMC REST API
- PowerCLI Connect - The Command String can be used in PowerCLI to connect to the SDDC vCenter Server
- NSX Information - Includes NSX Manager URLs and Admin account credentials for NSX UI
- Click the Support Tab to view support information about the SDDC.
SUPPORT
This page displays information about your SDDC. You use the information in this tab when working with VMware Technical Support. The information includes:
- Org ID
- SDDC ID
- SDDC Version
- vCenter and NSX Manager IPs
NOTE: Unless instructed to, only use the SDDC that matches your assigned Student number.
DO NOT add hosts or make other changes beyond those indicated in the lab steps or without your instructor’s guidance.
When you get automatically logged out and log back in, the interface may not take you back to the same screen you were before. There are two ways to get there:
Option 1:
- In the Address bar, type:
- vmc.vmware.com/console/sddcs
Option 2:
- Click on the waffle menu (nine squares) in the upper right
- Select VMware Cloud
- Select Inventory in the menu on the left
Conclusion
The Single Host SDDC starter configuration is appropriate for test and development or proof of concept use cases. However, you can easily scale the number of hosts within 60 days to a 2 or more host SDDC. Do not run production workloads on a single host SDDC. You can however start to prove the value of VMware Cloud on AWS with a single host.
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