How to Use Terraform on NSX-T on VMC/AWS: A Step-by-Step Guide

If you’re trying to automate your NSX-T deployment on VMware Cloud (VMC) or Amazon Web Services (AWS), you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll show you how to use Terraform to manage your NSX-T environment and integrate it with VIDM.

Before we dive into the steps, let’s first understand what NSX-T is and why it’s important to integrate it with VIDM. NSX-T is a network virtualization platform that enables you to create a flexible and secure network infrastructure for your applications. By integrating NSX-T with VIDM, you can leverage the power of both platforms to manage your network and application security, as well as automate your network configuration.

Now, let’s get started with the steps to use Terraform on NSX-T on VMC/AWS:

Step 1: Collect the Needed Information

The first step is to collect the needed information about your NSX-T host on your VMC environment. You can find this information by logging into your NSX-T manager and looking for the URL of the API endpoint. The URL should look something like this:

https://nsx-1-38-60-79.rp.vmwarevmc.com/vmc/reverse-proxy/api/orgs/53045f5a-59f7-4921-8bcb-0b09e8c3ac16/sddcs/24163dc6-2b22-475b-b197-167932ef5124

This URL will give you the information you need to create a Terraform configuration file.

Step 2: Create an Access Token

The second step is to create an access token for your account to be able to connect to the NSX-T API. To do this, you can use the NSX-T CLI tool to generate an access token. Here’s how to do it:

1. Log in to your NSX-T manager using the NSX-T CLI tool.

2. Run the following command to generate an access token:

nsx-t cli -c -u –generate-access-token

This will generate an access token that you can use to authenticate your Terraform configuration file.

Step 3: Create a Terraform Configuration File

Now that you have the necessary information and an access token, it’s time to create a Terraform configuration file. Here’s an example configuration file that you can use as a starting point:

“`yaml

provider “nsxt” {

host = “https://nsx-1-38-60-79.rp.vmwarevmc.com/vmc/reverse-proxy/api/orgs/53045f5a-59f7-4921-8bcb-0b09e8c3ac16/sddcs/24163dc6-2b22-475b-b197-167932ef5124”

access_token = “YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_HERE”

}

resource “nsxt_sddc” “example” {

host = provider.host

access_token = provider.access_token

# Set the name of your SDDC

name = “my-sddc”

# Set the description of your SDDC

description = “My sample SDDC”

}

“`

This configuration file defines a provider for NSX-T and creates an SDDC with the specified name and description.

Step 4: Apply the Terraform Configuration File

Once you have created your Terraform configuration file, it’s time to apply it to your NSX-T environment. You can do this using the following command:

“`bash

terraform apply

“`

This command will apply your Terraform configuration file and create the SDDC with the specified name and description.

Conclusion

In this article, we showed you how to use Terraform to manage your NSX-T environment on VMware Cloud (VMC) or Amazon Web Services (AWS). We also demonstrated how to integrate NSX-T with VIDM to leverage the power of both platforms. By following these steps, you can automate your network configuration and management, as well as improve your application security.

We hope this article has been helpful. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below.