Is it Mandatory to enable BGP on Physical Switch during Installing VCF 4.0?

[Leocao2017]

According to Prerequisite Checklist of VCF 4.0, it needs to enable BGP Dynamic routing on physical switch.

Is this mandatory, which VCF software needs BGP, any idea? Because it's not allowed to enable BGP at customer datacenter due to IT policy.

[heathbarj3]

The short answer is no, BGP is not required. It is recommended to support dynamic networking with NSX overlay networks. It entirely depends on how you leverage NSX SDN in your deployment. I would recommend a deeper discussion with your local VMware NSX SE.

[Leocao2017]

Thanks for your reply.

Yes. BGP is not required for installing NSX separately.

Unfortunately, it will encounter BGP errors when disabling BGP during install VCF 4.0 with Cloud builder.

Any comment is welcome!

[GaryJBlake · Accepted solution]

As mentioned by heathbarj3 the use of Application Virtual Networks (and therefore BGP) is completely optional with VCF 4.0. The Deployment Parameters Workbook provides a setting to completely exclude this called 'Do you want to deploy and configure Application Virtual Networks?'

Setting this value to 'No' will instruct VMware Cloud Builder to essentially skip the following elements:

• Deploy an NSX-T Edge Cluster
• Configure BGP Peering with Top Of Rack Switch
• Create two NSX-T Virtual Segments

The default value is set to 'Yes' so if you have not change the default value then VMware Cloud Builder will attempt to implement the components I mentioned. (This is the error you are seeing in the screenshot, VMware Cloud Builder is trying to verify the BGP relationships its been instructed to implement but is failing for some reason).

If you do choose to skip during bringup process using VMware Cloud Builder, it is possible to perform part of the operation from within SDDC Manager at a later date however this will only perform the following steps:

• Deploy an NSX-T Edge Cluster
• Configure BGP Peering with Top Of Rack Switch

Note the Virtual Segments will not be create as part of this SDDC Manager Workflow and have to be configured manually.

[nubecitica]

Hey Leocao2017, not sure if you're still facing the issue, but if you do: with VCF 4.0.1 you can just select No on the AVNs section on the parameters worksheet and set the BGP password as "n/a" this should signal Cloud Builder to skip those verifications