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Manual Chapter : Setting up a VMware Cloud Environment

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Centralized Management

  • 6.0.1
Manual Chapter
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Setting up a VMware Cloud Environment

Adding VMware cloud and environment details

BIG-IQ® needs the credentials and parameters for your VMware cloud provider and cloud environment so that it can communicate with the BIG-IP® devices it manages in your service scaling group.



Specify VMware credentials required to connect to a vCenter server

Before you can create a cloud provider, you must know the vCenter Hostname.

You create a new VMware cloud provider so that you can specify the VMware credentials required to connect to the vCenter server. You can use this connector to communicate from BIG-IQ to the VMware cloud environments connected to that server.

  1. At the top of the screen, click Applications then, on the left, click ENVIRONMENTS > Cloud Providers .
  2. Click Create.
  3. After you name this new cloud provider, from the Provider Type list, select VMWARE and supply the provider details.

Before you can use this provider in a service scaling group, you need to specify the cloud environment details.

Provide your VMware cloud environment details

Before you can specify the details for the VMware cloud environment that supports your service scaling group, you must have either a template or a snapshot for a 1 SLOT, BIG-IP virtual machine (VM) in your VMware cloud. Requirements for this VM depend on the services required by the applications you deploy.
Software Version 13.1.0.5 and later
CPUs

LTM only: 2

LTM and ASM 4
RAM

LTM only: 4GB

LTM and ASM 8GB
Disk Space

LTM only: 9GB

LTM and ASM 82GB
Note: The devices in an SSG require only one disk, but the default image from downloads.f5.com, includes two. F5 recommends that you remove the second (20 GB) disk from the template or snapshot before the SSG starts using it to create virtual machines in your cloud environment.
You define a new cloud environment to specify the parameters the BIG-IQ needs so it can communicate with the BIG-IP devices it manages in your service scaling group (SSG). You also specify the device template to use when creating new BIG-IP devices for that SSG.
  1. At the top of the screen, click Applications then, on the left, click ENVIRONMENTS > Cloud Environments .
  2. Click Create.
  3. After you provide a Name and optional Description for this cloud environment, from the Device Template list, select the device template you want to use to define the new BIG-IP VE devices created for this SSG.
  4. From the Cloud Provider list, select the name of the VMware provider you want to use for this environment.
    The VMware Properties fields display.
  5. Specify the VMware properties.
    1. Select an option to identify the VMware destination to which you want new BIG-IP VE devices to deploy:
      Important: If you identify the destination using a cluster name, the VMware host must have DRS enabled before you try to deploy the SSG, or the deployment will fail. If you use the ESXi hostname, the DRS setting is optional.
      • Select Cluster , and type the name of the cluster.
      • Select ESXi Hostname, and type either the IP address or the FQDN of the ESXi host.
        Note: After you deploy the BIG-IP VE to vCenter, install the VMware tools following the procedure in the article: https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K44134742 to prepare the BIG-IP VE for cloning. This step is required for existing templates, only if you want to an IP pool to set the Management IP.
    2. In the Resource Pool field, type the name of the resource pool the ESXi host uses for this SSG.
    3. In the Folder field, type the name of the shared folder the ESXi host uses for this SSG.
    4. Specify how you want VMware to create the virtual machines it uses when it creates a BIG-IP device.
      • To use a VMware template, in the VM Image field, type the name of the template.
      • To use a VM snapshot:
        1. For VM Image, type the name of the BIG-IP image used to create the snapshot.
        2. For Linked Clone, select Yes.
        3. For Snapshot name for Linked Clone, type the name of the snapshot you created.
      Note: When you set up the VM image that you want to create your clone from, it must reside on storage that is accessible to all ESXi hosts for that cluster.
      Note: Details about creating a virtual machine in your VMware environment are provided in the BIG-IP Virtual Edition 13.1.0 and VMware ESXi: Setup guide on support.f5.com
    5. In the Network Interface Mapping fields, specify the network interface mappings for the BIG-IP VE devices the SSG creates.
      The mappings you specify must match the settings that were used when the virtual machine network interfaces were defined as part of the BIG-IP VE deployment to your VMware environment.
      Note: For additional detail on NIC configuration, refer to the BIG-IP Virtual Edition 13.1.0 and VMware ESXi: Setup on support.f5.com.
      • Click the + icon to add a new NIC.
  6. For IP Pool Alias Mapping, if the device template for this environment includes an IP pool alias and you want to map the alias to a specific IP pool for this environment, type the name of the alias, and then select the name of the IP pool that you want the alias to use in this environment.
    You can click + if you want to add more aliases for this environment.
    Note: If the alias you specify here conflicts with the alias specified in the device template, the alias you specify here takes precedence.
  7. Click the Save & Close button at the bottom of the screen.
    BIG-IQ creates the new cloud environment. You can now use this environment when you create an SSG.
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