vRNI - HA desgin and multi-data center ?

[niceguy001]

hi guys,

i'm recently learning from vrni 3.2 and facing some questions:

1. the high availability (redundancy)of vrni

how to design the HA for the vrni ?

create 2 platforms + 1 proxy or create 2 platforms + 2 proxy ?

or the only thing i can do is configure vSphere HA for vrni?

2. the vrni architecture of multiple data center(cross location)?

as shown in figure below, it is the correct topology if i want to use VRNI collect traffic of several data centers?

thanks for any reply!

[lhoffer]

vRNI doesn't have any kind of native HA functionality so native vSphere HA or other external redundancy mechanisms are what you'd use to protect it.

The clustering option for platform VMs is only there to scale out and still designates one of them as primary for the UI so if that one goes down you'll be unable to access vRNI as described in the   Clustering - General​ section of the FAQ guide.

Regarding #2, what you've pictured is one of the more common deployment models.  The need for multiple proxies is technically driven more by scale than proximity since they're not really pushing a ton of traffic between DCs either way, so if you're under 100k flows per second you could also just run everything through a single proxy.

[Sateesh_vCloud]

Just curious to know the use-case or requirement for vRNI - HA design

my understanding is - this one is analyzer tool

[niceguy001]

thanks lhoffer,

i have additional questions that

1. how many kinds of data source does vRNI support?

i only see vCenter, NSX, firewall and converged infrastructure from the data source drop down list.

(does that also mean the vRNI can only analyze NSX traffic?)

2. how do platform and proxy connect remotely?(e.g. platform at US site and proxy at Europe site)

does anyone know?

thanks in advance.

[rtindall]

vRNI supports Physical as well as virtual data sources, please refer to docs for supported physical devices.

VMware Documentation Library

vRNI can analyze other traffic outside of NSX as well as it can support DVS,NSX, and physical flows

VMware Documentation Library

Platform and Proxy are linked during deployment please refer to documentation 

VMware Documentation Library

[rtindall]

Please refer to this guide for clustering

VMware Documentation Library

WIth the large amount of data that is passed to the platform it would be something to consider having the collector in another data center, but if your links can handle it, then it would be something to think about

[VFady]

is there any impact to business during vRNI operation specifically when enabling Netflow like traffic congestion or latency?

is there any overload on vDS processing?

[lhoffer]

No, there's no impact to production traffic when enabling netflow for vRNI.  Netflow data generates a minimal amount of traffic is actually sent from the management vmkernel port so doesn't touch the logical interface that VMs in the associated port groups use.

[Craigie123]

Have you any sugestions on cross datacenter DR of the Platfrom. should i use SRM and re-IP the platform and reconnect the connectors to the new IP how would that work what would be the downfalls of doing this?

Thanks

Craig

[joffrey_godard]

Hi Craig,

The following documentation might help you :
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vRealize-Network-Insight/6.7/com.vmware.vrni.using.doc/GUID-16692E...

basically, yes, SRM is the preferred and documented DR solution

[Craigie123]

thank you