Tenant App – Tom Fojta's Blog

root@tenantapp [ /var/lib/docker/overlay2 ]# du -h -d 0 7.5G . /var/lib/docker/overlay2 ]# docker image ls REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-db-cassandra 2.6.2-19235005 057345d369fd 5 weeks ago 634MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-db-cassandra latest 057345d369fd 5 weeks ago 634MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-ui 2.6.2-19235005 4e90d15d3116 5 weeks ago 396MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-ui latest 4e90d15d3116 5 weeks ago 396MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-plugin 2.6.2-19235004 de4cb469fb65 5 weeks ago 309MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-plugin latest de4cb469fb65 5 weeks ago 309MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-db-cassandra 2.6.1-18326916 3b7ef9b0c10c 7 months ago 597MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-ui 2.6.1-18326916 b66e34b5d59b 7 months ago 368MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-plugin 2.6.1-18326915 f97bc56c3d61 7 months ago 286MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-db-cassandra 2.6.0-17922920 0d5eb9de1cb7 10 months ago 581MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-ui 2.6.0-17922920 3ffdeee597ca 10 months ago 354MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-plugin 2.6.0-17922919 b23bd4eb6a2d 10 months ago 268MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-db-cassandra 2.5.0-16990343 af72dbf16623 16 months ago 536MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-ui 2.5.0-16990343 62b09bd2a0a2 16 months ago 252MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-plugin 2.5.0-16941875 1217f67efd9d 17 months ago 190MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-db-cassandra 2.4.0-15996298 a0d906a5cc5a 22 months ago 494MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-ui 2.4.0-15996298 777fe7bc0c1f 22 months ago 240MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-plugin 2.4.0-15996297 b85369dbf061 22 months ago 180MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-db-cassandra 2.3.0-14826918 556121e468da 2 years ago 466MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-ui 2.3.0-14826918 eb77c613e9ad 2 years ago 224MB vmware/vrops-vcd-tenant-app-plugin 2.3.0-14826917 e598e66d4818 2 years ago 158MB

VMware Cloud Provider Lifecycle Manager is a new product just released in version 1.1. The version 1.0 was not generaly available and thus not widely known. Let me therefore briefly describe what it is and what it can do.

As the name indicates its main goal is to simplify deployment and lifecycle of VMware’s Cloud Provider solutions. Currently in scope are:

VMware Cloud Director (10.1.x or 10.2.x)
Usage Meter (4.3 and 4.4)
vRealize Operations Tenant App (2.4 and 2.5)
RabbitMQ (Bitnami based)

The product itself ships as a stateless Docker image that can be deployed as a container for example in Photon OS VM. It has no GUI, but provides REST API. The API calls support the following actions:

Deployment of an environment that can consist of one or more products (VCD, UM, …)
Upgrade of an environment and product
Certificate management
Node managment (adding, removing, redeploying nodes)
Integration management (integration of a specific products with others)

The image below shows most of the Postman Collection API calls available:

The whole environment (or its product subset) is described in JSON format that is supplied in the API payload. The example below shows payload to deploy VCD with three cells, includes necessary certificates, target vSphere environment and integration with vSphere, NSX-T and RabbitMQ including creation of Provider VDC.

{
    "environmentName": "{{vcd_env_id}}",
    "products": [
        {
            "properties": {
                "installationId": 1,
                "systemName": "vcd-1-vms",
                "dbPassword": "{{password}}",
                "keystorePassword": "{{password}}",
                "clusterFailoverMode": "MANUAL",
                "publicAddress": {
                    "consoleProxyExternalAddress": "{{vcd_lb_ip}}:8443",
                    "restApiBaseHttpUri": "http://{{vcd_lb_ip}}",
                    "restApiBaseUri": "https://{{vcd_lb_ip}}",
                    "tenantPortalExternalHttpAddress": "http://{{vcd_lb_ip}}",
                    "tenantPortalExternalAddress": "https://{{vcd_lb_ip}}"
                },
                "adminEmail": "admin@vcd-test.com",
                "adminFullName": "admin",
                "nfsMount": "{{vcd_nfs_mount}}"
            },
            "certificate": {
                "product": {
                    "certificate": "{{vcd_cert}}",
                    "privateKey": "{{vcd_cert_key}}"
                },
                "restApi": {
                    "certificate": "{{vcd_cert}}"
                },
                "tenantPortal": {
                    "certificate": "{{vcd_cert}}"
                }
            },
            "integrations": [
                {
                    "integrationId": "vcd-01-to-vc-01",
                    "datacenterComponentType": "VCENTER",
                    "hostname": "{{vcenter_hostname}}.{{domainName}}",
                    "integrationUsername": "administrator@vsphere.local",
                    "integrationPassword": "{{vc_password}}",
                    "properties": {
                        "providerVdcs": {
                                "PVDC-1": {
                                "description": "m01vc01-comp-rp",
                                "highestSupportedHardwareVersion": "vmx-14",
                                "isEnabled": true,
                                "clusterName": "{{vc_cluster}}",
                                "resourcePoolname": "{{pvdc_resource_pool}}",
                                "nsxIntegration": "vcd-01-to-nsx-01",
                                "storageProfile":[
                                    "{{pvdc_storage_profile}}"
                                ],
                                "networkPoolname":"NP-1"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "integrationId": "vcd-01-to-nsx-01",
                    "datacenterComponentType": "NSXT",
                    "hostname": "{{nsxt_hostname}}.{{domainName}}",
                    "integrationUsername": "admin",
                    "integrationPassword": "{{nsx_password}}",
                    "properties": {
                        "networkPools": {
                            "NP-1": "{{pvdc_np_transport_zone}}"
                        },
                        "vcdExternalNetworks": {
                            "EN-1": {
                                "subnets": [
                                    {
                                        "gateway": "192.168.91.1",
                                        "prefixLength": 24,
                                        "dnsServer1": "",
                                        "ipRanges":  [
                                            {
                                                "startAddress": "192.168.91.150",
                                                "endAddress": "192.168.91.200"
                                            }
                                        ]
                                    }
                                ],
                                "description": "ExternalNetworkCreatedViaVCDBringup",
                                "tier0Name": "{{pvdc_ext_nw_tier0_gw}}"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "integrationId": "vcd-01-to-rmq-01",
                    "productType": "RMQ",
                    "hostname": "{{rmq_lb_name}}.{{domainName}}",
                    "port": "{{rmq_port_amqp_ssl}}",
                    "integrationUsername": "svc_vcd",
                    "integrationPassword": "{{password}}",
                    "properties": {
                        "amqpExchange": "systemExchange",
                        "amqpVHost": "/",
                        "amqpUseSSL": true,
                        "amqpSslAcceptAll": true,
                        "amqpPrefix": "vcd"
                    }
                }
            ],
            "productType": "VCD",
            "productId": "{{vcd_product_id}}",
            "version": "10.1.2",
            "license": "{{vcd_license}}",
            "adminPassword": "{{password}}",
            "nodes": [
                {
                    "hostName": "{{vcd_cell_1_name}}.{{domainName}}",
                    "vmName": "{{vcd_cell_1_name}}",
                    "rootPassword": "{{password}}",
                    "gateway": "{{vcd_mgmt_nw_gateway}}",
                    "nics": [
                        {
                            "ipAddress": "{{vcd_cell_1_ip}}",
                            "networkName": "vcd-dmz-nw",
                            "staticRoutes": []
                        }, {
                            "ipAddress": "{{vcd_cell_1_mgmt_ip}}",
                            "networkName": "vcd-mgmt-nw",
                            "staticRoutes": []
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "hostName": "{{vcd_cell_2_name}}.{{domainName}}",
                    "vmName": "{{vcd_cell_2_name}}",
                    "rootPassword": "{{password}}",
                    "gateway": "{{vcd_mgmt_nw_gateway}}",
                    "nics": [
                        {
                            "ipAddress": "{{vcd_cell_2_ip}}",
                            "networkName": "vcd-dmz-nw",
                            "staticRoutes": []
                        }, {
                            "ipAddress": "{{vcd_cell_2_mgmt_ip}}",
                            "networkName": "vcd-mgmt-nw",
                            "staticRoutes": []
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "deploymentInfrastructures": {
        "infra1": {
            "vcenter": {
                "vcenterName": "mgmt-vc",
                "vcenterHost": "{{vcenter_hostname}}.{{domainName}}",
                "vcenterUsername": "administrator@vsphere.local",
                "vcenterPassword": "{{vc_password}}",
                "datacenterName": "{{vc_datacenter}}",
                "clusterName": "{{vc_cluster}}",
                "resourcePool": "{{vc_res_pool}}",
                "datastores": [
                    "{{vc_datastore}}"
                ],
                "networks": {
                    "vcd-dmz-nw": {
                        "portGroupName": "{{vcd_dmz_portgroup}}",
                        "gateway": "{{vcd_dmz_gateway}}",
                        "subnetMask": "{{vcd_dmz_subnet}}",
                        "domainName": "{{domainName}}",
                        "searchPath": [
                            "{{domainName}}"
                        ],
                        "useDhcp": false,
                        "dns": [
                            "{{dns}}"
                        ],
                        "ntp": [
                            "{{ntp}}"
                        ]
                    },
                    "vcd-mgmt-nw": {
                        "portGroupName": "{{vcd_mgmt_nw_portgroup}}",
                        "gateway": "{{vcd_mgmt_nw_gateway}}",
                        "subnetMask": "{{vcd_mgmt_nw_subnet}}",
                        "useDhcp": false
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

The JSON payload structure is similar for other products. It starts with the environment definition and then follows with a specific product and its product type (VCD, RMQ, TenantApp, Usage Meter). Each has its own set of properties. Integrations section defines for example which tenant VC and NSX should be registered, RabbitMQ etc. Then follows the description of each node to be deployed while referring to Deployment Infrastructure section that is at the end of the JSON and describes the vSphere environent where the nodes can be deployed.

During the bring up the Lifecycle Manager will perform various set of tests and validations to see if the payload is correct and if the referenced environments are accessible. Then it will go on with the actual deployment process. For that it needs to have access to file repository of OVA images (for the bring up) or patch/upgrade files (for lifecycle). This must be manually downloaded to the Docker VM or mounted via NFS.

For the day 2 operations (certificate changes, node manipulations, etc.) an environment must first be imported (as mentioned before the Lifecycle Manager is stateless and forgets everything when rebooted). During the import the same payload as for deployment is provided and checks are performed that the actual environment matches the imported one. Once the state is in the container memory day 2 command can be run. And a six cell VMware Cloud Director deployment can be upgraded with a single API call!

The actual architecture of the deployment is quite flexible. The Lifecycle Manager itself does not prescribe or deploys any networks, load balancers or NFS shares. All those must be prepared up front. I have tested deployment on top of VMware Cloud Foundation 4 (see here) but that is not a hard requirement. Brown field environments are not supported, but nothing is really stopping you to try to describe your existing environment in the JSON and import it.

If you plan to deploy and manage VMware Cloud Director at scale give it a try. And as this is the first public release we have a lot to look forward in the future.

Tom Fojta's Blog

About virtualization, cloud computing and beyond

Tag: Tenant App

vROps Tenant App Upgrade Issue

VMware Cloud Provider Lifecycle Manager

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