[lunar.lab] Prepare Bootstrap Machine for TKGm Deployment

Having a bootstrap machine is one of the step required for deploying TKGm to vSphere as stated here:

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Tanzu-Kubernetes-Grid/1.5/vmware-tanzu-kubernetes-grid-15/GUID-mgmt-clusters-vsphere.html

This article will run through the step I took to configure that bootstrap machine which involves these following 4 steps.

Step 1 - Starting Point: Ubuntu VM

I create Ubuntu VM from scratch with the following configuration:

• Virtual Hardware specification
• 8 vCPU
• 8GB RAM
• 40GB disk
• Ubuntu 20.04
• Minimum install + OpenSSH
• Configure static IP
• Configure Internet access (using proxy)

Once VM created on vSphere, boot from Ubuntu 20.04 installation image, then all the above settings can be configured easily through the installation wizard. Pretty straightforward.

Help! Where is my tanzu cluster Plugin?

So you have lost your tanzu cluster Plugin after upgrading Tanzu CLI?

I tried to upgrade my TKG from version 1.4.2 to 1.5.1. One of the first step is to upgrade Tanzu CLI. Once upgraded, I realize that tanzu cluster plugin is missing! 😱 How can I manage my TKG cluster then? This did not happen when I did the upgrade from 1.3.1 to 1.4.2! 

Help, I Cannot Pass IaaS Provider Step when Deploying TKG 1.4.2 Management Cluster to vSphere!

In TKG 1.4, if you deploy management clusters to vSphere with the installer interface, as a first step of configuring vCenter Server as IaaS Provider, you’ll need to fill in your vCenter Server IP Address or FQDN, username/password then hit Connect. If your vCenter use the default certificate, you’ll found this error:

Failed to connect to the specified vCenter Server. Post "https://IP_or_FQDN/sdk": x509: cannot validate certificate for IP_or_FQDN because it doesn't contain any IP SANs

[lunar.lab] Configuring NSX Advanced Load Balancer for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) on VMware vSphere

Disclaimer:

• This is for lunar.lab only and not intended as a guide for production environment. 
• All deployed on vSphere environment. 
• I use nested environment.
• I use vSphere 7, NSX ALB 20.1.6, TKGm 1.5.1 
• The official documentation is here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Tanzu-Kubernetes-Grid/1.5/vmware-tanzu-kubernetes-grid-15/GUID-mgmt-clusters-install-nsx-adv-lb.html

To support my learning as part of VMware SEAK (South East Asia & Korea) Tanzu Take-12 Program, I try to build my own lab. I don't have the luxury of physical lab on my own, so I build on nested environment my company provided. Here is the first of my documentation.

I started with a base pod which provide me a working vSphere cluster. The networking setup is one distributed switch with following portgroup:

• ESXi: management network vmkernel - 192.168.110.0/24
• vMotion: vmotion vmkernel - 10.10.30.0/24
• storage: storage vmkernel - 10.10.20.0/24
• VM: VM management network - 192.168.110.0/24
• tkg-vip-network: load balancer/ingress virtual IP - 192.168.120.0/24
• tkg-network: management/workload cluster nodes - 192.168.100.0/24
• avi-internal: placeholder network for ALB Service Engine

All subnet are routable.

[lunar.lab] NSX-T Deploy & Initial Configuration

Disclaimer:

• This is for lunar.lab only and not intended as a guide for production environment. I’m aware that some configurations I use here are not supported configuration. 
• All deployed on vSphere environment. 
• I use nested environment. 
• The official documentation is here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T/2.1/com.vmware.nsxt.install.doc/GUID-414C33B3-674F-44E0-94B8-BFC0B9056B33.html
• The documentation is quite clear, I just add some notes specific to my deployment. 

Step-by-step:

• Deploy
• NSX-T Manager: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T/2.1/com.vmware.nsxt.install.doc/GUID-FA0ABBBD-34D8-4DA9-882D-085E7E0D269E.html
• NSX-T Controller (for lab purpose I only deploy 1 NSX-T Controller): https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T/2.1/com.vmware.nsxt.install.doc/GUID-24428FD4-EC8F-4063-9CF9-D8136740963A.html
• NSX-T Edge (for lab purpose I only deploy 1 NSX-T Edge): Please note that PKS requires Large (8 vCPU 16GB RAM) size of NSX-T Edge Node. https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T/2.1/com.vmware.nsxt.install.doc/GUID-AECC66D0-C968-4EF2-9CAD-7772B0245BF6.html

vSAN Effective Capacity - Quick and Dirty Sizer Tool

Found this online tool to quickly approximate how much datastore capacity you can get from a certain number of vSAN hosts with certain configuration. I think this is very useful in the case where you already have certain number of physical hosts with vSAN compatible disks, and you want to determine how much capacity you can get from it, and the capacity of cache disk you need to provide to fulfil the 10% recommendation of cache capacity compare to consumed storage (reference). In my experience, I have seen couple of customers where they already have considerably new server hardware with vSAN compatible components where they want to see what they will get if they use vSAN. Please note that VMware has official vSAN Sizing Calculator where you can get recommendation of the hardware specification you need to provide to accommodate certain number of workloads (VMs).

vSphere 5.5 End of General Support Reminder

Maintain Full Level of Support by Upgrading Your vSphere Environment

In 2016 I wrote a note regarding vSphere upgrade because a lot of my customer at that time was doing upgrade due to vSphere 5.1 EoGS (End of General Support) phase. Well, it’s 2018, and this time you may already aware that vSphere 5.5 will enter EoGS phase in 19 September 2018. Which means, if you still have ESXi hosts 5.5 and/or vCenter Server 5.5, you’ll need to upgrade them in order to maintain your level of full support and subscription services as referenced here.

Source: https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/support/product-lifecycle-matrix.pdf