Placement of NSX-Controllers and DLR VM's

[srodenburg]

Hello,

In an environment we have a bunch of 16-host clusters. We have one separate cluster purely for management systems. This is where vCenter and it's friend live.

I know that the NSX manager can live in that Management cluster but what about the three controller VM's ?  Can they live in the management cluster also ? (it has 4 ESXi hosts).

And what about the two DLR Edge VM's (HA-Pair). Does every cluster get a local HA-Pair? Or is there only one HA pair and can it live in that management cluster (which again, has no NSX).

What I'm basically asking is if the production clusters can be "free" of such core VM's (controllers, DLR VM's).

Please note that i'm not talking about Egde applicance doing stuff like Loadbalancing etc.

[Sreec]

In an environment we have a bunch of 16-host clusters. We have one separate cluster purely for management systems. This is where vCenter and it's friend live.

I know that the NSX manager can live in that Management cluster but what about the three controller VM's ?  Can they live in the management cluster also ? (it has 4 ESXi hosts).

Yes,that is perfect for this environment. You can deploy Controllers in this cluster,configure DRS rules to place it on unique ESXI hosts and configure a IP connectivity with NSX manager and all ESXi hosts

And what about the two DLR Edge VM's (HA-Pair). Does every cluster get a local HA-Pair? Or is there only one HA pair and can it live in that management cluster (which again, has no NSX).

Are you asking ,if we can place Edge HA in two different clusters ?   It is ok to place Edge VM's and Control VM's  in this shared management cluster since you don't have a dedicated cluster for Edge.

[bayupw · Accepted solution]

Hi Steven,

Just some additional information, there is a good explanation on this on VMware® NSX for vSphere Network Virtualization Design Guide ver 3.0 section 5.3.2 vCenter Design with NSX

How many vCenter server do you have?

If you have only single vCenter managing all clusters then yes the production/compute cluster can be free from NSX Management VMs as per below figure

However, if you have multiple vCenter servers (one for management and one for production), the NSX controllers would need to be deployed at the production cluster as the production vCenter can only see the production cluster and not management cluster, see below

There is a VMworld session that explains about this too here: VMworld On Demand - NET5770 - Reference Design for SDDC with NSX & vSphere - Part 1

[Techstarts]

In an environment we have a bunch of 16-host clusters. We have one separate cluster purely for management systems. This is where vCenter and it's friend live.

I know that the NSX manager can live in that Management cluster but what about the three controller VM's ?  Can they live in the management cluster also ? (it has 4 ESXi hosts).

Your NSX controller should/Must stay in Management cluster. Refer Validated Design here.

As bayupw​ states since you do not have dedicated vCenter for management cluster, you should put in the management cluster. Your management cluster should be design to perform management and Edge function.

And what about the two DLR Edge VM's (HA-Pair). Does every cluster get a local HA-Pair? Or is there only one HA pair and can it live in that management cluster (which again, has no NSX).

Management cluster or in your case it is both management & Edge should be your entry and exit point for SDDC traffic.So Edge should be designed to be deployed in the management cluster. Please note your compute cluster is not required to have access to any VLANs, Compute cluster will be restricted to have VXLAN traffic. VLAN traffic will enter through Edge. Please enable ECMP.

EDIT: DRS-Affinity rule for EGS is created automatically

[srodenburg]

Ok thanks guys.