In this series of blog posts we will talk about the steps involved in deploying a Clustered Production-Ready vRealize Automation Environment enabled with Multi-Tenancy. We have divided this series into 4 blog posts which will be as follows:

Part-1: Configure Load Balancer for vRA 8 and vIDM
Part-2: Deploy vRSLCM, vRA and vIDM Appliances using Easy Installer
Part-3: Scale-Out VMware Identity Manager Deployment
Part-4: Enable Multi-Tenancy for vRealize Automation 8 Deployment

VMware solutions which we will deploy in this 4 – Blog series are as follows:

1. vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8
2. VMware Identity Manager 3.3.4
3. vRealize Automation 8

Part-1: Configure Load Balancer for vRealize Automation 8 and VMware Identity Manager

In this post we are going to talk about one of the Primary requirement to deploy a clustered vRealize Automation deployment with Multi-Tenancy, which is, Setting up your Load Balancer. We are using NSX-V for our setup but you can use NSX-T, F-5 or Citrix Netscaler.
We are assuming that you already have your Active Directory and DNS configured.

Before we begin setting up our Load Balancer we need to perform the following pre-requisites:

1. We need 11 IP Addresses and 12 DNS entries.
   1. vRSLCM (A-Type Record) – 1 IP Address and DNS Record
      vrslcm.mycloud.lab – 192.168.10.11
   2. vRA- 3 IP Addresses for vRA Appliances and 1 vRA-LB IP with DNS Records
      vra.mycloud.lab (A-Type Record) – 192.168.10.12 (vRA LB IP Address)
      vra1.mycloud.lab (A-Type Record) – 192.168.10.13
      vra2.mycloud.lab (A-Type Record) – 192.168.10.14
      vra3.mycloud.lab (A-Type Record) – 192.168.10.15
   3. vIDM – 3 IP Addresses for vIDM Appliances and 1 vIDM-LB IP with DNS Records
      We will also need 1 IP Address for vIDM Postgres replication
      vidm.mycloud.lab (A-Type Record) – 192.168.10.16 (vIDM LB IP Address)
      vidm1.mycloud.lab (A-Type Record) – 192.168.10.17
      vidm2.mycloud.lab (A-Type Record) – 192.168.10.18
      vidm3.mycloud.lab (A-Type Record) – 192.168.10.19
      Internal vIDM Postgres IP Address – 192.168.10.20
   4. Load Balancer Interface IP Address – 192.168.10.21
   5. DNS Entry for Default Tenant
      tenant.mycloud.lab (A-Type Record) – 192.168.10.16
      tenant1.mycloud.lab (A-Type Record) – 192.168.10.16
   6. Multi-Tenancy DNS Entries:
      tenant1.vra.mycloud.lab (CNAME Record) – vra.mycloud.lab

Now we re ready to configure our Load Balancer in NSX-V, the steps to configure NSX-V LB are as follows:

1. Deploy a new NSX-V Edge Services Gateway with High Availability.

2. Enter the Admin Password for your Edge Services Gateway and enable SSH.

3. We have selected the Appliance size as Large for our Edge Service Gateway. You can select the Appliance size as per your requirement.

4. Specify the placement for your Edge Services Gateway Appliances by clicking on Add Edge Appliance VM.

5. Now we need configure an Interface to the uplink for Edge Services Gateway.

6. Enter the Name for the Interface, Select the Port Group and enter the Primary and Secondary IP Addresses. Primary IP Address should be your Load Balancer Interface IP and Secondary IP Addresses should be the Load Balancer IPs for your vRA & vIDM.

7. Enter the Default Gateway IP for your Interface.

8. Keep the Firewall Deafault Policy values to as is.

9. Leave the High Availability values to default and click Next.

10. Review your configuration and click Finish.

Once your Edge Services Gateway has been deployed, we will proceed with the rest of the configuration.

1. Stop the Firewall for your Edge Services Gateway.

2. Enable Load Balancer and Logging on NSX Edge.

3. Create 2 Application Profiles, One for vRealize Automation8 and one for VMware Identity Manager with type SSL Passthrough.

4. Create 2 Service Monitors, One for vRealize Automation and one for VMware Identity Manager.Create 2 Service Monitors, One for vRealize Automation and one for VMware Identity Manager.

vRealize Automation Service Monitor:
Name: vRealize Automation8
Interval: 3
Timeout: 10
Max Retries: 3
Type: HTTP
Expected: 200
Method: GET
URL: /health

VMware Identity Manager Service Monitor:
Name: VMware Identity Manager
Interval: 3
Timeout: 10
Max Retries: 3
Type: HTTPS
Expected: 200
Method: GET
URL: /SAAS/API/1.0/REST/system/health/heartbeat

5. Now we will create 2 Pools of Member Servers, One for vRealize Automation and one for VMware Identity Manager.

vRealize Automation Pool:
Name: pool_vra8
Algorith: LEASTCONN
Monitors: vRealize Automation8

vRealize Automation Pool Members:
Members: vra1, vra2 and vra3
IP Addresses: 192.168.10.13, 192.168.10.14 and 192.168.10.15
Monitor Port: 8008
Port: 443

VMware Identity Manager Pool:
Name: pool_vidm
Algorith: LEASTCONN
Monitors: VMware Identity Manager

VMware Identity Manager Pool Members:
Members: vidm1, vidm2 and vidm3
IP Addresses: 192.168.10.17, 192.168.10.18 and 192.168.10.19
Monitor Port: 443
Port: 443

6. The last step in the process of setting up our Load Balancer is to create 2 Virtual Servers, again one for vRealize Automation and one for VMware Identity Manager.

vRealize Automation Virtual Server:
Virtual Server: Enable
Acceleration: Disable
Application Profile: vRealize Automation8
Name: vs_vra8-va
IP Address: 192.168.10.12
Protocol: HTTPS
Default Pool: pool_vra8

VMware Identity Manager Virtual Server:
Virtual Server: Enable
Acceleration: Disable
Application Profile: VMware Identity Manager
Name: vs_vidm-va
IP Address: 192.168.10.16
Protocol: HTTPS
Default Pool: pool_vidm

There is actually one more step where we need to import a Certificate for the Load Balancer in NSX Edge Services Gateway but we will discuss about that step in Part-3: Scale-Out VMware Identity Manager Deployment of this series. For steps related to NSX-T, F5 Big-IP and Citrix Netscaler configurations please visit vRealize Automation 8 Load Balancing Guide.

In Part-2 of this Blog post series Part-2: Deploy vRSLCM, vRA and vIDM Appliances using Easy Installer, we will discuss the process to deploy vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8, vRealize Automation 8 and VMware Identity Manager Appliances using Easy Installer. Stay Tuned.