Basic NSX Question in Dual Site Setup

[niksheridan]

Hi Forum,

If I have two sites, linked vcenters and primary and secondary NSX managers - how does the controller failover work?  I cannot seem to deploy controllers in my secondary site?

Thanks!

[NealeC]

Hello Nik,

On a recent NSX Course we asked the same thing about the new multi-site/universal configuration.

Here's the thing. There are only one set of controllers for both sites and when one site fails you have to manually deploy the new controllers after making your secondary the primary!

You could use VRA/VRO for that but personally I think it should be part of NSX, perhaps it's VMware strategy to make you use their Orchestration and Automation suites?

[NealeC]

There is a great diagram here to show the "Universal Controller Cluster"

Cross-VC NSX for Multi-site Solutions - The Network Virtualization Blog

Happy bedtime reading

[niksheridan]

Thank goodness for that... I was worried we had no DR!!!

here's a virtual kudos point for you NealeC‌

[GyroDom]

Neale is correct,

the process is

Step 1. From the Recovery site, disconnect the Secondary NSX Manager from the

primary NSX manager
Step2. Make the Secondary NSX Manager role Primary

Step 3. Re-deploy the controller cluster on the Recovery site from the newly promoted NSX Manager

Step 4. Sync Controller State
Step 5. If Local Egress is used, Universal Control VM already exists, otherwise Universal Control VM needs to be redeployed

The only place it's listed in any documentation is on page 26 of 'Disaster recovery with NSX and SRM'