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vCloud Suite - 5.8
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VMware vCloud Suite - 5.8 Architecture Overview and Use Cases

vCloud Suite Architecture Overview and
Use Cases
vCloud Suite 5.8
This document supports the version of each product listed and supports all subsequent versions until the document is replaced by a new edition. To check for more recent editions of this document, see http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.
EN-001564-00
You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware Web site at:
http://www.vmware.com/support/
The VMware Web site also provides the latest product updates.
If you have comments about this documentation, submit your feedback to:
docfeedback@vmware.com
Copyright © 2014 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright and trademark information.
VMware, Inc.
3401 Hillview Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94304 www.vmware.com
2 VMware, Inc.

Contents

About this book 5
Introduction to vCloud Suite 7
1
List of vCloud Suite Components 7
Architecture Overview 11
2
Conceptual Design of a vCloud Suite Environment 13
vCloud Suite Components in the Management Cluster 15
Software-Defined Data Center Core Infrastructure 16
Delivering an Infrastructure Service 22
Delivering Platform as a Service 25
Deploying vCloud Suite 27
3
Install vCloud Suite Components 27
Update vCloud Suite Components 29
External Dependencies for Deploying vCloud Suite 30
System Requirements of vCloud Suite Components 31
Security Considerations 31
Licensing 41
vCloud Suite Use Cases 51
4
Disaster Recovery to Cloud 51
Infrastructure Provisioning 57
Index 63
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4 VMware, Inc.

About this book

The vCloud Suite Architecture Overview and Use Cases publication provides information about the design and capabilities of cloud environments based on VMware vCloud® Suite.
vCloud Suite is a collection of interoperable VMware products. vCloud Suite Architecture Overview and Use Cases provides a listing of components, high-level design guidelines for vCloud Suite deployment and operation, as well as example use cases.
The provided architecture overview is based on concepts from the practical approach used by the VMware Professional Services organization.
vCloud Suite Architecture Overview does not include detailed installation and configuration instructions for individual components. You can find that information in the dedicated documentation sets for individual VMware products.
Intended Audience
This information is intended for IT professionals and business decision makers with prior knowledge of virtualization and data center operations, who want to understand the capabilities of vCloud Suite and learn about recommended deployment models and example use cases.
VMware Technical Publications Glossary
VMware Technical Publications provides a glossary of terms that might be unfamiliar to you. For definitions of terms as they are used in VMware technical documentation, go to
http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.
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Introduction to vCloud Suite 1

vCloud Suite lets you build and operate software-defined data centers based on vSphere. vCloud Suite contains components that must be integrated to deliver IT as a service.
You download, install, and configure vCloud Suite components separately. When deployed and configured, the interoperable components enable the software-defined data center (SDDC), where resources are virtualized and available as a service. Control of the data center is fully automated by software, and hardware configuration is maintained through software systems. vCloud Suite makes it possible for workloads to run in private, public, or hybrid clouds.
Individual products in vCloud Suite are delivered as either installation packages for Windows or Linux­based virtual appliances that you can deploy on ESXi hosts.
You can extend your vCloud Suite by using VMware vCloud Air as a second site in your datacenter environment. Use vCloud Suite together with with the vCloud Air to satisfy business needs such as business continuity and burst capacity.
vCloud Suite can serve the needs of different organizations, from SMBs to large enterprises and organizations in the public sector.

List of vCloud Suite Components

A vCloud Suite edition contains individual products with different versions. To ensure interoperability, you should verify that the components of your vCloud Suite environment are the correct versions.
vCenter Server is required for building the core inrastructure of the software-defined data center.
Table 1‑1. Components of vCloud Suite 5.8 and their versions
Product name Version Description
ESXi 5.5 Update 2 Provides bare-metal virtualization of
servers so you can consolidate your applications on less hardware.
vCenter Server 5.5 Update 2 Provides a centralized platform for
managing vSphere environments.
vCenter Orchestrator 5.5.2 Provides the capability to create
workflows that automate activities such as provisioning virtual machine, performing scheduled maintenance, initiating backups, and many others.
vCenter Update Manager 5.5 Update 2 Provides centralized, automated patch
and version management for vSphere and offers support for ESXi hosts, virtual machines, and virtual appliances.
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Table 1‑1. Components of vCloud Suite 5.8 and their versions (Continued)
Product name Version Description
vCloud Networking and Security 5.5.3 Provides a security suite for vSphere.
vCloud Director 5.5.2 Provides the ability to build secure,
vCloud Automation Center 6.1 Provides functionality for deploying
vCloud Automation Center Application Service
vCenter Operations Manager 5.8.3 Provides comprehensive visibility and
vCenter Configuration Manager 5.7.2 Provides automation of configuration
vCenter Hyperic 5.8.2 Provides monitoring of operating
vCenter Infrastructure Navigator 5.8.2 Provides automated discovery of
vSphere Replication 5.8 Provides replication, at the individual
vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.8 Provides disaster recovery capability
vSphere Data Protection 5.8 Provides advanced data protection
vCloud Networking and Security (formerly vShield) is a critical security component for protecting virtualized datacenters from attacks and misuse to help you achieve your compliance­mandated goals.
multi-tenant clouds by pooling virtual infrastructure resources into virtual datacenters.
and provisioning of business-relevant cloud services across private and public clouds, physical infrastructure, hypervisors, and public cloud providers.
vCloud Automation Center Enterprise includes vCloud Automation Center Application Service.
6.1 Provides automated application provisioning in the cloud including deploying and configuring the application's components and dependent middleware platform services on infrastructure clouds.
insights into the performance, capacity and health of your infrastructure.
and compliance management across your virtual, physical and cloud environments, assessing them for operational and security compliance.
systems, middleware and applications running in physical, virtual, and cloud environments.
application services, visualizes relationships, and maps dependencies of applications on virtualized compute, storage and network resources.
virtual machine disk level, between datastores hosted on any storage.
that lets you perform automated orchestration and nondisruptive testing for virtualized applications.
with backup and recovery to disk via VMware vSphere with Operations Management Data Protection features.
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Chapter 1 Introduction to vCloud Suite
Table 1‑1. Components of vCloud Suite 5.8 and their versions (Continued)
Product name Version Description
vSphere Big Data Extensions 2.0 Simplifies running Big Data workloads
on the vSphere platform.
vSphere App HA 1.1 Provides high availability for the
applications that are running on the virtual machines in your environment.
vCenter Support Assistant 5.5.1.1 Provides proactive support, by
collecting support bundles on a regular basis.
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Architecture Overview 2

To enable the full set of vCloud Suite features, you must perform a series of installation and configuration operations. The software-defined data center provides different types of capabilities, with more complex features building on top of underlying infrastructure.
Delivering the full operational capabilities of vCloud Suite to your organization or clients is a structured process. In a large organization, it might involve cycles of assessment, design, deployment, knowledge transfer, and solution validation. Depending on your organization, you should plan for an extended process that involves different roles.
Not every environment needs the full scope of vCloud Suite capabilities at a given time. Start by deploying the datacenter core infrastructure, because it enables you to add capabilities as your organization requires them. Each of the software-defined data center layers might require you to plan and perform a separate deployment process.
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Self-service application
development
Application blueprinting
Application deployment
standardization
Infrastructure Service
Self-service user portal
Low administration
overhead
Management
Monitoring with performance
and capacity
Orchestration
Virtualization of physical compute, storage, and network assets
Catalogs and
standard templates
Software-defined Data Center Core Infrastructure
Application Platform Service
Figure 2‑1. Layers of the Software-Defined Data Center
SDDC Core Infrastructure
Infrastructure Service
Application Platform Service
You can enhance your vCloud Suite environment by integrating additional products and services by VMware, in order to enable capabilities such as disaster recovery to cloud, software-defined storage, and software-defined networking. For information about implementing failover protection for virtual machines in vCloud Air, see “Disaster Recovery to Cloud,” on page 51.
The basis of the vCloud Suite deployment is the resource abstraction layer. By using VMware software, you can virtualize compute, network, and storage resources in your data center and abstract them from the underlying hardware. ESXi and vCenter Server enable you to establish a robust virtualized environment into which all other solutions integrate. The resource abstraction layer provides the foundation for the integration of orchestration and monitoring solutions by VMware. Additional processes and technologies build on top of the infrastructure to enable infrastructure as a service and platform as a service.
Infrastructure services introduce fast, self-service provisioning of virtual machines to physical, virtualized, or hybrid clouds. The IaaS layer is represented mainly by vCloud Automation Center, which provides service provisioning, catalog management, policy based management ,and authorization.
The application platform service enables end-to-end deployment and configuration of applications, along with their dependencies, to a target deployment infrastructure.
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Chapter 2 Architecture Overview
Conceptual Design of a vCloud Suite Environment on page 13
n
To start deploying vCloud Suite, you need a small number of physical hosts. Distribute your hosts into three types of clusters, in order to establish the foundation of a deployment that can later scale to tens of thousands of VMs.
vCloud Suite Components in the Management Cluster on page 15
n
The number of vCloud Suite components in the management cluster increases as you add capabilities. A management cluster can contain a minimal set of products, and you expand it as needed.
Software-Defined Data Center Core Infrastructure on page 16
n
The core of vCloud Suite environments consists of vSphere and the associated monitoring and orchestration products, such asvCenter Operations Manager and vCenter Orchestrator.
Delivering an Infrastructure Service on page 22
n
The ability to deliver infrastructure as a service represents the technological and organizational transformation from traditional data center operations to cloud. The infrastructure service lets you model and provision VMs and services across private, public, or hybrid cloud infrastructure.
Delivering Platform as a Service on page 25
n
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) lets you model and provision applications across private, public, and hybrid cloud infrastructures.

Conceptual Design of a vCloud Suite Environment

To start deploying vCloud Suite, you need a small number of physical hosts. Distribute your hosts into three types of clusters, in order to establish the foundation of a deployment that can later scale to tens of thousands of VMs.
Management, Edge, and payload clusters run the entire vCloud Suite infrastructure, in addition to customer workloads.
Deploying and leveraging vCloud Suite is a process that involves both technological transformation and operational transformation. As new technologies are deployed in the data center, your organization must also implement appropriate processes and assign the necessary roles.
In the diagram below, technological capabilities in color appear over organizational constructs in grayscale.
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Organization
Operations
Provider
IT Business
Control
Service
Control
Operations
Control
Infrastructure
Control
Orchestration
Virtualization Management
Management cluster
Edge cluster Payload cluster
● Start with three hosts
● Start with three hosts
● Start with three hosts
● Start with two clusters
Load balancer
Tenant
Portal
IaaS, PaaS, ITaaS Engine
Portal
Performance
and
capacity
management
Figure 2‑2. Conceptual Design of a vCloud Suite environment
Management cluster
Edge cluster
Payload cluster
The hosts in the management cluster run all management components required to support the software-defined data center. A single management cluster is required within a physical location. ESXi hosts running in the management cluster can be manually installed and configured to boot using local hard drives.
A management cluster provides resource isolation. Production applications, test applications, and other types of applications cannot use the cluster resources reserved for management, monitoring, and infrastructure services. Resource isolation helps management and infrastructure services to operate at their best possible performance level. A separate cluster can satisfy an organization's policy to have physical isolation between management and production hardware.
The Edge cluster supports network devices that provide interconnectivity between environments. It provides protected capacity by which internal data center networks connect via gateways to external networks. Networking edge services and network traffic management take place in the cluster. All external facing network connectivity terminates in this cluster.
The ESXi hosts in the edge cluster are managed by a dedicated vCenter Server instance paired with VMware vCloud Networking and Security. Payload clusters that require access to external networks are managed by the same vCenter Server instance. As the platform scales, you should deploy additional Edge clusters to service specific groups of payload clusters.
This specialized cluster will likely be small and can be made up of older, less capable server systems when compared to the management and payload clusters.
The payload cluster supports the delivery of all consumer workloads. The cluster remains empty until a consumer of the environment begins to populate it with virtual machines. You can scale up by adding more payload clusters.
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You can create new edge and payload clusters, scale up, or scale out, as the data center grows in size.
NOTE You can choose to combine the management and Edge clusters into a single entity. However, the model with three types of clusters provides the best basis for scaling your environment.

vCloud Suite Components in the Management Cluster

The number of vCloud Suite components in the management cluster increases as you add capabilities. A management cluster can contain a minimal set of products, and you expand it as needed.
Typically, you deploy more vCloud Suite components in the management cluster than you do in other types of clusters.
Figure 2‑3. VMware products in the management cluster
Chapter 2 Architecture Overview
Minimal set of components
Extended set of components
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An example set of VMware products required for the management cluster always includes a vCenter Server instance. vCenter Orchestrator is a vCloud Suite component that you should deploy at early stage, in order to prepare the environment for IaaS and PaaS capabilities.
As the complexity of the environment increases, you install and configure additional products. vCenter Operations Manager and related products provide advanced monitoring features. vCloud Automation Center is the key element of your IaaS solution. A vCenter Site Recovery Manager instance provides replication to a secondary site.
Virtualization
Orchestration Monitoring
SDDC
Infrastructure
Ready

Software-Defined Data Center Core Infrastructure

The core of vCloud Suite environments consists of vSphere and the associated monitoring and orchestration products, such asvCenter Operations Manager and vCenter Orchestrator.
The software-defined data center infrastructure layer includes the core virtualization, monitoring, and orchestration sub-layers. The infrastructure enables consolidation and pooling of physical resources, in addition to providing orchestration and monitoring capabilities, while reducing the costs associated with operating an on-premise data center.
Once the SDDC infrastructure is in place, you can extend it to provide Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings to consumers of IT resources inside or outside the organization. IaaS and PaaS complete the SDDC platform, and provide further opportunities for extending capabilities. With IaaS and PaaS, you increase the agility of IT and developer operations.
Figure 2‑4. The stages of building the software-defined data center infrastructure
Virtualization and Management as an Element of vCloud Suite Infrastructure on page 16
n
VMware products provide the virtualization and management capabilities required for the vCloud Suite foundation. You should consider the design choices that are available to you.
Monitoring as an Element of vCloud Suite Core Infrastructure on page 19
n
Monitoring is a required element of a software-defined data center. The monitoring element provides capabilities for performance and capacity management of related infrastructure components, including requirements, specifications, management, and their relationships.
Orchestration as an Element of vCloud Suite Core Infrastructure on page 21
n
The software-defined data center requires orchestration capability. In vCloud Suite, you can use vCenter Orchestrator to orchestrate processes by using workflows.

Virtualization and Management as an Element of vCloud Suite Infrastructure

VMware products provide the virtualization and management capabilities required for the vCloud Suite foundation. You should consider the design choices that are available to you.
Virtualization and management components are the core of the software-defined data center. For organizations of all sizes, they reduce costs and increase agility. Establishing a robust foundation for your datacenter requires you to install and configure vCenter Server and ESXi, as well as supporting components.
ESXi and vCenter Server Design Considerations on page 17
n
Design decisions for the virtualization component of the software-defined data center must address the deployment and support specifics of ESXi and vCenter Server.
Network Design Considerations on page 17
n
As virtualization and cloud computing become more popular in the data center, a shift in the traditional three-tier networking model is taking place. The traditional core-aggregate-access model is being replaced by the leaf and spine design.
Shared Storage Design Considerations on page 18
n
A proper storage design provides the basis for a virtual data center that performs well.
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Chapter 2 Architecture Overview
ESXi and vCenter Server Design Considerations
Design decisions for the virtualization component of the software-defined data center must address the deployment and support specifics of ESXi and vCenter Server.
Consider the following design decisions when planning the deployment of ESXi hosts.
ESXi
Use a tool such as VMware Capacity Planner to analyze the the performance and use of existing servers.
n
Use supported server platforms that are listed in the VMware Compatibility Guide at
n
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
Verify that your servers meet the minimum required system requirements for running ESXi.
n
To eliminate variability and achieve a manageable and supportable infrastructure, standardize the
n
physical configuration of the ESXi hosts.
You can deploy ESXi hosts either manually or by using VMware Auto Deploy. One valid approach is to
n
deploy the management cluster manually, and implement Auto Deploy as your environment grows.
vCenter Server
You can deploy vCenter Server as a Linux-based virtual appliance or in a 64-bit Windows virtual
n
machine.
NOTE vCenter Server on Windows scales up to support up to 10,000 powered-on virtual machines. The vCenter Server Virtual Appliance is an alternative choice that comes pre-configured and enables faster deployment method along with reduced Microsoft licensing costs. When using an external Oracle database, the vCenter Server Virtual Appliance can support a maxium of 3,000 virtual machines.
Provide sufficient virtual system resources for vCenter Server.
n
Deploy the vSphere Web Client and the vSphere Client for user interfaces to the environment. Deploy
n
the VMware vSphere Command-Line Interface, VMware vSphere PowerCLI, or VMware vSphere Management Assistant for command-line and scripting management.
Network Design Considerations
As virtualization and cloud computing become more popular in the data center, a shift in the traditional three-tier networking model is taking place. The traditional core-aggregate-access model is being replaced by the leaf and spine design.
The network must be designed to meet the diverse needs of many different entities in an organization.
n
These entities include applications, services, storage, administrators, and users.
The network design should improve availability. Availability is typically achieved by providing
n
network redundancy
The network design should provide an acceptable level of security. Security can be achieved through
n
controlled access where required and isolation where necessary.
Simplify the network architecture by using a leaf and spine design.
n
Configure common port group names across hosts to support virtual machine migration and failover.
n
Separate the network for key services from one another to achieve greater security and better
n
performance.
Network isolation is often recommended as a best practice in the data center. In a vCloud Suite environment, you might have several key VLANs, spanning two or more physical clusters.
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Management cluster
Edge cluster
Payload cluster
VLAN ESXi/DHCP Helper
VLAN IP Storage
VLAN vMotion
VLAN Fault Tolerance
VLAN Management Server
VLAN Fault Tolerance
VLAN Transport/VXLAN VLAN Transport/VXLAN
VLAN Internet
VLAN DMZ
VLAN vMotion VLAN vMotion
VLAN IP Storage VLAN IP Storage
VLAN ESXi/DHCP Helper VLAN ESXi/DHCP Helper
Internet/DMZ
Sample ESXi host Sample ESXi host Sample ESXi host
Figure 2‑5. Network isolation in the software-defined data center
ESXi/DHCP Helper
The helper network is used for PXE booting ESXi images by using Auto Deploy.
IP Storage
Network storage traffic over Ethernet should be isolated for performance and security reasons.
vMotion
vMotion traffic is not encrypted by default. Isolate the vMotion traffic to increase security while migrating the state of virtual machines and the contents of virtual disks between hosts.
Fault Tolerance
Management Server
Shared Storage Design Considerations
FT logging traffic should use a dedicated VLAN.
Management traffic between vCenter Server and ESXi hosts.
A proper storage design provides the basis for a virtual data center that performs well.
The storage design must be optimized to meet the diverse needs of applications, services,
n
administrators, and users.
Tiers of storage have different performance, capacity, and availability characteristics.
n
Designing different storage tiers is cost efficient, given that not every application requires expensive,
n
high-performance, highly available storage.
n
Fibre Channel, NFS, and iSCSI are mature and viable options to support virtual machine needs.
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Chapter 2 Architecture Overview

Monitoring as an Element of vCloud Suite Core Infrastructure

Monitoring is a required element of a software-defined data center. The monitoring element provides capabilities for performance and capacity management of related infrastructure components, including requirements, specifications, management, and their relationships.
VMware monitoring components in vCenter Operations Manager Suite include the following products:
Table 2‑1. Monitoring products in vCloud Suite
Monitoring component Description
vCenter Operations Manager Provides comprehensive visibility and insights into the
performance, capacity and health of your infrastructure.
vCenter Infrastructure Navigator Automatically discovers application services, visualizes
relationships and maps dependencies of applications on virtualized compute, storage and network resources.
vCenter Hyperic Monitors application health and is fundamental to the
operation of VMware AppHA.
A subset of the products can be deployed without damaging the integrity of the solution.
vCenter Operations Manager is distributed as virtual appliance that you can deploy on ESXi hosts. You need to configure the virtual appliance and register it with a vCenter Server system. For an in-depth discussion of vCenter Operations Manager and related products, see
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vmware-vcops-suite-pubs.html.
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vCenter
vCenter Operations vApp
UI VM
Admin
WebApp
Custom
WebApp
vSphere WebApp
Capacity Analytics
Postgres
DB
Postgres
DB
FSDB
DB
ActiveMQ
Collector
Analytics VM
Performa nce Analytics
VPN
Hyperic
Log Insight
Network
Complia nce
Storage
Adapters enabled
Management Cluster
Edge Cluster
Payload Clusters
vCenter
vCenter Adapter
Figure 2‑6. Monitoring with vCenter Operations Manager
The vCenter Operations Manager vApp contains two virtual machines. One of the virtual machines runs the analytics engine, and the other runs the user interface component. Plug-ins enable you to add additional functionality, according to the needs of your environment. You can use and configure vCenter Operations Manager by using the Web-based interface.
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