Adding NSX-T appliance/NSX-T MP Restore deploys MP nodes in VCF Workload vCenter
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Adding NSX-T appliance/NSX-T MP Restore deploys MP nodes in VCF Workload vCenter

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Article ID: 321034

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Updated On:

Products

VMware Cloud Foundation VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

In a VCF environment, NSX-T MP appliances resides in the VCF Management Domain. A VCF Workload Domain comprising a minimum of three NSX-T MP nodes gets deployed in the VCF Management Domain cluster as part of VCF Workload Domain creation as per VCF principles. One of the intent to have the VCF Management appliances in the Management cluster is for VCF-Federation and NSX-T Federation for Management appliances failover to secondary site with respect to Business Continuity principles.

Symptoms:
Additional NSX-T MP node deployment through NSX-T Manager or NSX-T MP node restoration for a VCF Workload Domain through NSX-T Manager causes the NSX-T MP nodes to be deployed in Workload Domain vCenter instead of getting deployed in the VCF Management Domain Cluster.

Environment

VMware NSX-T Data Center

Cause

This issue occurs as NSX-T Manager supports only one Compute Manager, for example, VCF Workload Domain vCenter with respect to VCF Workload Domain. The cause is highlighted in step-5 mentioned in the below procedure.

Resolution

Aligning to the purpose mentioned above, the NSX-T MP nodes that gets deployed in the VCF Workload Domain vCenter due to the cause mentioned above, these NSX-T MP nodes needs to be migrated via Cross-SVmotion to the VCF Management Domain Cluster to benefit from Business Continuity of the VCF Management appliances. 

To add NSX-T appliance/NSX-T MP Restore part of VCF Workload Domain in a VCF environment:

  1. Deploy an NSX-T MP node appliance-1 (ova-appliance) in the vCenter Server cluster of VCF Management Domain.
  2. Configure the NSX-T MP node appliance-1 with an IP/FQDN that was used previously by the NSX-T MP node appliance-1.
  3. Browse and log in to the NSX-T node appliance-1.
  4. Navigate to System > Fabric > Compute Managers.
  5. Click Add Compute Manager and provide the VCF Workload Domain vCenter details (since NSX-T is part of this VCF Workload Domain), currently NSX-T can support only one vCenter as Compute Manager,
  6. To complete the 3-node NSX-T MP plane restoration, navigate to System > Appliances. Here, NSX-T MP node appliance-1 with IP/FQDN is displayed.
  7.  Click Add NSX appliance and provide the IP/FQDN that was used previously by the NSX-T MP node appliance-2, this node now gets deployed in the VCF Workload Domain vCenter since the Compute Manager provided in NSX-T is VCF Workload Domain vCenter.
  8. Click Add NSX appliance and provide the IP/FQDN that was used previously by the NSX-T MP node appliance-3, this node now gets deployed in the VCF Workload Domain vCenter since the Compute Manager provided in NSX-T is VCF Workload Domain vCenter
  9. Navigate to System > Backup & Restore and provide Backup Server details hosting all the NSX-T MP node backups.
  10. Once the NSX-T MP node backup list is populated in the Backup & Restore window, select the recent backup file and click Restore to complete the NSX-T MP node restoration.
  11. Since the NSX-T MP node restoration deployed NSX-T appliance node-1 and NSX-T appliance node-2 in the VCF Workload Domain vCenter, the VCF administrator has to manually Cross-SVMotion these NSX-T node appliance-1 and NSX-T appliance-2 to the VCF Management Domain vCenter in order to adhere to the 'Purpose' mentioned above.

Note: Currently this limitation is with respect to NSX-T Manager able to add a single Compute Manager. If NSX-T future release supports multiple Compute Managers, it can overcome step-5 (cause) and step-12 (resolution) as part of Add NSX-T appliance/NSX-T MP node restoration for a VCF Workload Domain in a VCF environment.

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