How to deploy a virtual VMware SD-WAN Edge with High Availability

Products

• VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud

Issue/Introduction

To give an overview of the process for bringing up virtual VMware SD-WAN Edges in High Availability.

Environment

VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud

Resolution

Overview

Edges configured in HA mode are mirror images of each other and they show up on the VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator as a single Edge with HA enabled.
The following diagram provides a conceptual overview of the High Availability configuration using two Edges, one active and one standby. Connecting the L1 ports on each edge is used to establish a failover link. The standby Edge blocks all ports except the L1 port for the failover link.

Configuration

1. If not done already, deploy a virtual Edge using the OVA image format in an ESXi server.
   • Deployment guide
2. Ensure the VM is deployed with GE1 assigned to the HA LAN segment and with a static MAC address.
3. Configure the WAN interfaces (static or DHCP).
4. Clone this Edge such that the clone also has the same MAC & IP address for all the interfaces excluding GE1. 
5. With the cloned instance powered down, activate the primary virtual Edge against the Orchestrator. 
6. Once activated, now bring up the cloned instance with only the GE1 interface in connected state. 
7. Once the instance comes up, the active Edge will establish communication with the cloned instance, activate it and set up the HA state between them.

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:
Note: This guide does not replace the steps to deploy a virtual Edge in our product documentation. Use both this KB and our deployment guides to deploy and configure a virtual Edge in HA.

If you are looking to enable HA on a physical Edge, please refer to the following document.