Table of Contents
Overview
So besides all the variations of product names in play, pre-Broadcom acquisition and post, there is something that has been baffling me for quite some time. How to create the globalenvironment in VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle using VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer (ALB) (Avi) as the load balancer.
Installation Issues
Things I am still trying to find out. What is the actual workflow to create the globalenvironment, but using the VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer (ALB) (Avi) when first getting started (so in the Management Workload Domain)?
When I look for the documentation, I see either deploying VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) or deploying VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle or well, I can’t really find anything on installing VMware Identity Manager 3.3.7 in VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle that is in VCF aware mode (or any way, actually). I mean, if you are going to have integrations, why is the documentation so extremely difficult to find? Literally, why is there not something titled, Installing VMware Identity Manager in VCF Aware VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle?
I did find a note (pg 9) in the Advanced Load Balancing for VMware Cloud Foundation product Documentation that mentioned that the scope of this guidance will not replace LB for the vRealize suite in the management workload domain.
Adding an NSX Load Balancer to VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle
So maybe this is the workflow I have been looking for. In the VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle Installation, Upgrade, and Management Guide, on page 79, there is a section titled, Add an NSX load balancer. In here, it mentions, Before deploying the VMware Aria Suite product, add a load balancer to your VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle configuration…
So I did try that prior to just settling on the VCF managed NSX-T load balancer type, but I kept getting stuck on the certificate step. It kept failing in stage eight about the root certificate chain. I kept feeding it different variations of the certificate, added the CA to the deployed VIDM appliance, but no matter what I tried, nothing worked.
I am also confused with the note I found above, but then this procedure mentions it can be used for VMware Identity Manager. One of the prerequisites is to verify that you have deployed an NSX Advanced Load Balancer outside of VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle. But while adding the Load Balancer to the VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle settings dialog, it asks for the Load Balancer IP and Load Balancer FQDN. This would make sense if it needed this to reference the correct Virtual Service on the controller, but the documentation mentions that providing the IP address there will be used to create the virtual service on the NSX ALB. Huh? My head is spinning. So I guess the prerequisite means to just have an NSX ALB controller deployed and configured with an NSX-T cloud account prior to kicking off the create globalenvironment workflow?
Conclusion
It is still unclear to me on whether the NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi) can actually be used in the Management Workload Domain for the VMware Identity Manager appliance cluster. I guess I will have to try to configure again.
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