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NetScaler VPX
14.1-Current Release 13.1 13.0 12.1
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Install a NetScaler VPX instance on Azure VMware Solution

September 4, 2024
Contributed by: 
C

Azure VMware Solution (AVS) provides you with private clouds that contain vSphere clusters, built from dedicated bare-metal Azure infrastructure. The minimum initial deployment is three hosts, but additional hosts can be added one at a time, up to a maximum of 16 hosts per cluster. All provisioned private clouds have vCenter Server, vSAN, vSphere, and NSX-T.

The VMware Cloud (VMC) on Azure enables you to create cloud software-defined data centers (SDDC) on Azure with the number of ESX hosts that you want. The VMC on Azure supports NetScaler VPX deployments. VMC provides a user interface same as on-prem vCenter. It functions similar to the ESX-based NetScaler VPX deployments.

The following diagram shows the Azure VMware solution on the Azure public cloud that an administrator or a client can access over the internet. An administrator can create, manage, and configure workload or server VMs using Azure VMware solution. The admin can access the AVS’s web-based vCenter and NSX-T Manager from a Windows Jumpbox. You can create the NetScaler VPX instances (standalone or high availability pair) and server VMs within Azure VMware Solution using vCenter, and manage the corresponding networking using NSX-T manager. The NetScaler VPX instance on AVS works similar to the on-prem VMware cluster of hosts. AVS is managed from a Windows Jumpbox that is created in the same virtual network.

A client can only access the AVS service by connecting to the VIP of ADC. Another NetScaler VPX instance outside Azure VMware Solution but in the same Azure virtual network helps add the VIP of the NetScaler VPX instance within Azure VMware Solution as a service. As per requirement, you can configure the NetScaler VPX instance to provide service over the internet.

AVS architecture

Prerequisites

Before you begin installing a virtual appliance, do the following:

VMware cloud hardware requirements

The following table lists the virtual computing resources that the VMware SDDC must provide for each VPX nCore virtual appliance.

Table 1. Minimum virtual computing resources required for running a NetScaler VPX instance

Component Requirement
Memory 2 GB
Virtual CPU (vCPU) 2
Virtual network interfaces In VMware SDDC, you can install a maximum of 10 virtual network interfaces if the VPX hardware is upgraded to version 7 or higher.
Disk space 20 GB

Note:

This is in addition to any disk requirements for the hypervisor.

For production use of the VPX virtual appliance, the full memory allocation must be reserved.

OVF Tool 1.0 system requirements

OVF Tool is a client application that can run on Windows and Linux systems. The following table describes the system requirements for installing OVF tool.

Table 2. System requirements for OVF tool installation

Component Requirement
Operating system For detailed requirements from VMware, search for the “OVF Tool User Guide” PDF file at http://kb.vmware.com/.
CPU 750 MHz minimum, 1 GHz or faster recommended
RAM 1 GB Minimum, 2 GB recommended
NIC 100 Mbps or faster NIC

For information about installing OVF, search for the “OVF Tool User Guide” PDF file at http://kb.vmware.com/.

Downloading the NetScaler VPX setup files

The NetScaler VPX instance setup package for VMware ESX follows the Open Virtual Machine (OVF) format standard. You can download the files from the Citrix website. You need a Citrix account to log on. If you do not have a Citrix account, access the home page at http://www.citrix.com. Click the New Users link, and follow the instructions to create a new Citrix account.

Once logged on, navigate the following path from the Citrix home page:

Citrix.com > Downloads > NetScaler > Virtual Appliances.

Copy the following files to a workstation on the same network as the ESX server. Copy all three files into the same folder.

  • NSVPX-ESX-<release number>-<build number>-disk1.vmdk (for example, NSVPX-ESX-13.0-79.64-disk1.vmdk)
  • NSVPX-ESX-<release number>-<build number>.ovf (for example, NSVPX-ESX-13.0-79.64.ovf)
  • NSVPX-ESX-<release number>-<build number>.mf (for example, NSVPX-ESX-13.0-79.64.mf)

Deploy Azure VMware solution

  1. Log in to your Microsoft Azure portal, and navigate to Azure Marketplace.

  2. From the Azure Marketplace, search Azure VMware Solution and click Create.

    Azure VMware Solution

  3. In the Create a private cloud page, enter the following details:

    • Select a minimum of 3 ESXi hosts to create the default cluster of your private cloud.
    • For the Address block field, use /22 address space.
    • For the Virtual Network, make sure that the CIDR range doesn’t overlap with any of your on-premises or other Azure subnets (virtual networks) or with the gateway subnet.
    • Gateway subnet is used to express route the connection with private cloud.

    Create a private cloud

  4. Click Review + Create.

  5. Review the settings. If you must change any settings, click Previous.

    Review private cloud settings

  6. Click Create. Private cloud provisioning process starts. It can take up to two hours for the private cloud to be provisioned.

    Provision private cloud

  7. Click Go to resource, to verify the private cloud that is created.

    AVS private cloud

Note

To access this resource, you need a VM in Windows that acts as a Jump box.

Connect to an Azure virtual machine running Windows

This procedure shows you how to use the Azure portal to deploy a virtual machine (VM) in Azure that runs Windows Server 2019. To see your VM in action, you then RDP to the VM and install the IIS web server.

To access the private cloud that you have created, you need to create a Windows Jump box within the same virtual network.

  1. Go to the Azure portal, and click Create a Resource.

    AVS create resource

  2. Search for Microsoft Windows 10, and click Create.

    Create Microsoft Windows 10

  3. Create a virtual machine (VM) that runs Windows Server 2019. The Create a virtual machine page appears. Enter all the details in Basics tab, and select the Licensing check box. Leave the remaining defaults and then select the Review + create button at the bottom of the page.

    Create a virtual machine

  4. After validation runs, select the Create button at the bottom of the page.
  5. After the deployment is complete, select Go to resource.

  6. Go to the Windows VM that you have created. Use the public IP address of the Windows VM and connect using RDP.

    Use the Connect button in the Azure portal to start a Remote Desktop (RDP) session from a Windows desktop. First you connect to the virtual machine, and then you sign on.

    To connect to a Windows VM from a Mac, you must install an RDP client for Mac such as Microsoft Remote Desktop. For more information, see How to connect and sign on to an Azure virtual machine running Windows.

Access your Private Cloud vCenter portal

  1. In your Azure VMware Solution private cloud, under Manage, select Identity. Make note of the vCenter credentials.

    vCenter credentials

  2. Launch the vSphere client by typing the vCenter web client URL.

    Launch vSphere client

  3. Log in to VMware vSphere using the vCenter credentials of your Azure VMware Solution private cloud.

    vSphere login

  4. In the vSphere client, you can verify the ESXi hosts that you created in Azure portal.

    Verify ESXi hosts

For more information, see Access your Private Cloud vCenter portal.

Create an NSX-T segment in the Azure portal

You can create and configure an NSX-T segment from the Azure VMware Solution console in the Azure portal. These segments are connected to the default Tier-1 gateway, and the workloads on these segments get East-West and North-South connectivity. Once you create the segment, it displays in NSX-T Manager and vCenter.

  1. In your Azure VMware Solution private cloud, under Workload Networking, select Segments > Add. Provide the details for the new logical segment and select OK. You can create three separate segments for Client, Management, and Server interfaces.

    AVS adds segments

  2. In your Azure VMware Solution private cloud, under Manage, select Identity. Make note of the NSX-T Manager credentials.

    NSX-T Manager credentials

  3. Launch the VMware NSX-T Manager by typing the NSX-T web client URL.

    NSX-T web client

  4. In the NSX-T manager, under Networking > Segments, you can see all the segments that you have created. You can also verify the subnets.

    Networking Segments

For more information, see Create an NSX-T segment in the Azure portal.

Install a NetScaler VPX instance on VMware cloud

After you have installed and configured VMware Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC), you can use the SDDC to install virtual appliances on the VMware cloud. The number of virtual appliances that you can install depends on the amount of memory available on the SDDC.

To install NetScaler VPX instances on VMware cloud, perform these steps in Windows Jumpbox VM:

  1. Download the NetScaler VPX instance setup files for ESXi host from the NetScaler downloads site.
  2. Open VMware SDDC in the Windows Jumpbox.
  3. In the User Name and Password fields, type the administrator credentials, and then click Login.
  4. On the File menu, click Deploy OVF Template.

  5. In the Deploy OVF Template dialog box, in Deploy from file field, browse to the location at which you saved the NetScaler VPX instance setup files, select the .ovf file, and click Next.

    Note:

    By default, the NetScaler VPX instance uses E1000 network interfaces. To deploy ADC with the VMXNET3 interface, modify the OVF to use VMXNET3 interface instead of E1000. Availability of VMXNET3 interface is limited by Azure infrastructure and might not be available in Azure VMware Solution.

  6. Map the networks shown in the virtual appliance OVF template to the networks that you configured on the VMware SDDC. Click OK.

    Add network interfaces

  7. Click Finish to start installing a virtual appliance on VMware SDDC.

    Deploy OVF Template

  8. You are now ready to start the NetScaler VPX instance. In the navigation pane, select the NetScaler VPX instance that you have installed and, from the right-click menu, select Power On. Click the Console tab to emulate a console port.

    Power On the VPX instance

  9. You are now connected to the NetScaler VM from the vSphere client.

    Connect to NetScaler VM

  10. To access the NetScaler appliance by using the SSH keys, type the following command in the CLI:

    ssh nsroot@<management IP address>
<!--NeedCopy-->

    Example:

    ssh nsroot@192.168.4.5
<!--NeedCopy-->

  11. You can verify the ADC configuration by using the show ns ip command.

    Verify using `show nsip` command

Install a NetScaler VPX instance on Azure VMware Solution
September 4, 2024
Contributed by: 
C
September 4, 2024
Contributed by: 
C

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