Deploying HCX for Hybrid Cloud Connectivity
In today’s blog post, we will be discussing how to deploy HCX (Hybrid Cloud eXtension) on both your VMware on AWS SDDC and on-premises environments. HCX is a feature that allows you to stretch networks between your on-premises data center and your VMware cloud on AWS, enabling hybrid cloud connectivity.
Before we dive into the deployment process, let’s quickly go over what HCX is and its main features. HCX is a feature that enables you to extend your on-premises network to the VMware cloud on AWS, allowing for seamless communication between your on-premises and cloud environments. Some of the main features of HCX include:
* Stretching networks between on-premises and VMware on AWS SDDC
* Migrating VMs as a vMotion (live) migration or as a bulk migration
* Support for both on-premises and cloud environments
Now that we have a good understanding of what HCX is, let’s move on to the deployment process. To deploy HCX, we will need to enable it first. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Log in to your SDDC console and click on “Add-Ons”
2. Activate HCX by clicking on the “Activate HCX” button
3. Wait for HCX to activate – this may take a while
4. Once HCX is activated, click on “Open HCX”
Once you have opened HCX, you will need to create some firewall rules to allow access to the HCX system group. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Log in to your SDDC console and click on “Networking & Security”
2. Go to “Gateway Firewall” and create a new rule
3. Set the source as the user-group of your on-premises network and the destination as the HCX system group
4. Publish the rule and you should now be able to access the HCX VM
Now that we have enabled and activated HCX, we can move on to deploying it on our on-premises environment. To do this, we will need to download the HCX Connector OVA template and deploy it in our cluster or on a single host. Once the OVA has been deployed, we will need to fill in the information like we would with any other vCenter deployment.
Once the HCX Connector is up and running, we can activate our HCX license key. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Log in to the VMC HCX console and click on “Activation Keys”
2. Click on “Create Activation Key” and select your VMC on AWS subscription and HCX Connector under System Type
3. Copy the generated key and paste it into the HCX License Key field on the HCX Connector
4. Click on “Activate” and fill in the location of your on-premises data center
5. On the next screen, fill in a system name and click on “Continue”
6. You will now be given the option of entering your on-premises vCenter and optionally on-premises NSX
7. Fill in your vCenter’s FQDN if you have the embedded PSC deployment, or select your vCenter from the list if you have a separate PSC deployment
8. Click on “Next” and then click on “Restart” to restart the HCX Connector service
And that’s it! You have successfully deployed HCX on both your VMware on AWS SDDC and on-premises environments. In our next blog post, we will be doing a site pair and creating an interconnect, so be sure to check back soon for more information. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about HCX, feel free to email me or tweet at me. Thank you for reading and I hope to see you in the next one!
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