In the previous blog post, we learned how to deploy the NSX-t Manager and Edge serves. This gets us ready to start attaching our workloads to our logical networks, or NSX-t segments. Let’s together learn how to create and attach a workload to a segment.
In this blog post I will cover the following:
- Creating a T1 Gateways
- Creating an Overlay Segments
- Attach VMs to a Segment
Create a T1 Gateway
In a physical world, when you want to connect several servers or workstations together, you typically use a switch. So, let’s put the connection in NSX-t terminology; T1 gateway is referring to a switch. We will create the first T1 gateway to connect our VMs together.
To create a T1 gateway, browse to “Networking”, “Tier-1 Gateways”
Next, click on “Add Tier-1 Gateway”, and then:
- Enter the Gateway Name (“Oasis_App_Switch”)
- Select the Edge Cluster
- Click Save
When we have completed these steps, we are ready to create our Segment (Subnet) and connect to the newly created “Switch”
Create a Segment
The NSX-t segment is a Layer 2 broadcast domain; it is presented as a port group on the VMware vCenter. After it is created and presented on vCenter, we can connect our VMs to it. NSX-t offers two different segments configurations, Overlay and VLAN. A segment created in a VLAN transport zone is a VLAN-backed segment, and a segment created in an overlay transport zone is an overlay-backed segment
Lets create two Segments, One Overlay and one vLan; we will use these in the next blog post coming up a bit later.
Browse to Segments and click add segment:
- Provide a segment name “AppSegmant”
- Connect to the newly created switch “Oasis_App_Switch”
- Select “Overlay” Transport Zone
- Enter a Subnet you wish to use; in my lab, I used “172.33.10.1/24”
- Press Save
Now, we can create the second segment, but this time we must use the f:ollowing settings:
- Name, on my lab i will use “Ext_Seg20”
- Connect to Gateway “None”
- Transport Zone “vLan”
- Subnet “None”
- vLan “20”
Following those steps above, you are ready to connect your VMs to the new Segment, or vCenter “port group”. We will go through the connection procedure in the next section.
Connect VMs to Segment
Now it’s time to connect our VMs to the new “Port Group”, or NSX-t segment. If you browse to vCenter networking, you can see the new segments presented as a portgroup on your vDS. The figure below shows the view from my lab:
To connect our VMs to this portgroup, edit the VM configuration and under Network, select “AppSegment”
After completing the steps above, make sure you configure the VM IP address to the same Segment subnet you provided on the previous section; then you will be done.
What’s next
In this blog, we went through the deployment and configuration of the NSX-t segments and Tier1 Gateway. Then we attached a VM to the Segments and tested the connection with the segment gateway.
As you may have already noticed, you are unable to connect to the internet from the VM; this will be our next topic in the next blog post where we will go through the configuration of:
- Tier0 Gateway configuration
- BGP connection
- Routing
Until then, please don’t hesitate to follow the steps outlined above in your lab; and of-course, share if you find the blog post informative and likely to help others.
