This page provides a suggested configuration for a VMware cluster using VLAN networking. For more information, see the sections below:

Possible VLAN configuration

Useful Information

The provided diagram is a VLAN diagram and not a physical network diagram. It is intended as a guide rather than an explicit prescription of your network topology

The specifications provided in the above diagram are our recommended specifications.

Multiple compute nodes are recommended, with a minimum of 5 suggested for resiliency reasons. For proof of concept and beta testing environments you can install with other multiples.

As this configuration uses VLAN networking, router nodes are required. It is also possible to use PVIP networking in VMware clusters; this removes the need for router nodes. For more information, see PVIP support for VMware clusters.

Hardware Prerequisites

FCO Management Server

This is the server Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator is installed on. FCO installs its operating system as part of the install so this needs to be a blank machine.

It is possible to virtualise your Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator management server, obviating the need for extra hardware; this may however result in a small adverse effect on performance. For information about how to virtualise a management server, see http://docs.flexiant.com/display/DOCS/Virtualising+a+Flexiant+Cloud+Orchestrator+Management+Server

Minimum requirements are as follows:

ESXi Nodes

These are the servers upon which Virtual Machines run.  Multiple compute nodes are recommended, with a minimum of 5 suggested for resiliency reasons.

Your compute nodes should each consist of the same hardware (specifically the same CPU type), in order to allow live migration to work. If you have heterogeneous CPU types, read the following CPU Levelling document (http://docs.flexiant.com/display/DOCS/CPU+Levelling) carefully. Specifications for the ESXi nodes should confirm to the minimum recommendation from VMware. 

Router Nodes

As this example uses VLAN networking, a router node is required, ideally with a second node for redundancy. It is also possible to use PVIP networking in VMware clusters; in this case no router nodes are needed. For more information, see PVIP support for VMware clusters.

In VMware clusters using VLAN networking, it is possible to virtualise router nodes, obviating the need for extra hardware; this may however result in a small adverse effect on performance. For information about how to virtualise router nodes in VMware clusters, see Virtualising VMware Router Nodes. 

Router nodes should have the following minimum specification:

vSphere vCenter

For minimum specifications for a vSphere management server, please refer to the relevant VMware documentation available at http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/. 

Storage

FCO is able to support any storage system which is supported by VMware.

Flexiant Engineer Platform Access

Our installation engineers require a method in which to connect to your platform to perform your install. Our preferred method is IP-KVM/DRAC however we are able to discuss alternative methods. Please raise any questions you may have over this with our support team by emailing support@flexiant.com.

Useful Information

Recommended Hardware for Evaluation

For evaluation purposes, the best hardware choice would be hardware conforming to the Recommended Hardware for Production specification set out above. However, smaller specification hardware can be used, though at the expense of performance. For instance, the requirement for RAID drives can be omitted, router nodes can be installed singly rather than in pairs, a single upstream router can be used, and lower CPU specification hardware can be used. We do not, however, recommend using less RAM than set out above.

Network Prerequisites

L2 Switch

The following are the minimum requirements that we have for any L2 Switch however the switch should be able to handle however many number of VLANs that you project being required.

Upstream Router

Regardless of configuration an upstream router (or pair) is always required, to route traffic outside of the cloud platform. These can be existing routers.
These would normally be supplied and managed by your networking team. Our nodes can speak either OSPF or BGP to the routers, or a static configuration can be used.

IP Address Range

The recommendations below are on the assumption that you are using VLAN networking. You will also need IPv4 addresses to assign to the relevant servers. The minimum ranges depend upon the networking mode in use.

VLAN Tag Range

The number of VLANs required depends upon the networking modes in use.

NAT, Firewall & Internet Access

Your firewall must allow inbound connectivity to the management server. Assuming a single management server, inbound access should be set up as follows.

The management server will need to make outbound internet connections on ports TCP/80 (http), TCP/443 (https), UDP/123 (ntp), and UDP/53 (DNS).
The system will not install correctly (or at all) unless ports TCP/80 (http), TCP/443 (https), UDP/123 (ntp), and UDP/53 (DNS) are open.

Connectivity between clusters

Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator requires secure IPv4 network connectivity between the cluster management servers and the control plane management servers. This can be provided by VLAN (if all clusters are in the same place), or by VPN. Using an unencrypted internet connection is not recommended. Apart from connectivity to the control plane, each cluster does not require inbound connectivity. Each cluster requires outbound connectivity (possibly through a NAT) on ports TCP/80 (http), TCP/443 (https), UDP/123 (ntp), and UDP/53 (DNS). This is used, amongst other things, to fetch disks and images.

Scalability Caveats

As the system grows, resource requirements will increase, and the recommended hardware will increase commensurately. This may call for additional hardware, both in terms of larger shared components and a larger quantity of non-shared components. Certain hardware selected by the Licensee may be limited in the scalability it provides. A non-exhaustive list of notes follows:

• If more virtual machines are desired, more nodes will be required to support them.
• As the network traffic generated by additional virtual machines increases (especially storage traffic), the requirements of the network switch and SAN will be increased.
• Increased usage will increase both storage capacity required and storage I/O required.
• In certain networking modes, each allocated network uses one physical VLAN. If these modes are used, the platform will therefore be limited by the number of VLANs that the switch supports.
• The system runs several databases. If the system grows, may become I/O bound in performance. These may require separating out onto separate physical nodes, and/or necessitate hardware upgrades.
• Other services shared between customers may require similar upgrades to capacity.

Software Prerequisites

Sign-Up

First you should sign up to the www.flexiant.com website for our free trial, this will provide you with a FCO licence and username and password for installation. It is essential that you keep your licence, username, and password safe as you will be asked to enter this when the engineer is installing FCO on your platform.

https://www.flexiant.com/flexiant-cloud-orchestrator-free-version/

Licence

Your licence will be converted from a free trial licence to the relevant licence by our support team prior to installation.

Bootable FCO ISO

Signing up for your free trial will also provide you with the downloadable copy of the FCO ISO required. Please ensure that you have burned a copy of this and inserted it in the media drive of your management server to allow installation.

Preparing the install media

The Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator image is built using the Hybrid ISO/IMG format, this allows it to be used in two ways:

• An ISO image file ready to directly “burn” to DVD.
• An IMG image file ready to directly write to USB using special tools.

DVD

To record the image on to a DVD you can use the same DVD writer program you normally would for any other ISO or IMG file. Some writing software may look for it to end in an .img or .iso extension, so please be aware of this as you may need to rename it. Check the instructions or help system of your DVD writer program if you aren’t sure.

USB

Any program which performs a bit-for-bit copy of the downloaded file onto the USB memory stick will work. Attempting to copy the file directly will not work (e.g. using Explorer). In the process of doing the bit copy the USB drive will be wiped so please ensure to use a blank drive. 

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