Usage

The VMware plugin acts on the operator actions in vSphere by listening in on the vCenter event bus. The standard VMware method of creating networks is supported by the VMware plugin for Connect:

• Create dvSwitches
• Add uplinks
• Create dvPortGroups

In the standard VMware managed networks model, all Fabric Services System subnets are created within a single Fabric Services System Workload VPN, which represents one particular vSphere deployment. Within Connect, when inspected using the API, this corresponds to a single tenant.

In addition to the VMware managed networking model, Connect supports advanced Fabric Services System managed networking. In this model, Workload VPN and subnet resources are first created directly in the Fabric Services System and are then consumed in VMware.

To support this model, Connect uses custom attributes in vSphere.

The management flow is:

• In the Fabric Services System:
  1. Create a Workload VPN and one or more bridged subnets within it using the Fabric Services System intent-based REST API or UI.
  2. Obtain the UUIDs of these resources.

  For this example, we will assume that the Workload VPN has the name VMware Workload and UUID 410559942890618880 and the subnet within it has the name VMware Subnet and UUID 410560233203564544.

• In VMware:
  1. Create a dvSwitch.
  2. Two options are available to specify a custom attribute on the dvSwitch:
     1. Specify a custom attribute "FSSWorkloadEVPNID" on that dvSwitch, and set it to the UUID of the previously created Workload VPN in the Fabric Services System.

        In our example, that would be 410559942890618880.

     2. Specify a custom attribute "FSSWorkloadEVPNName" on that dvSwitch, and set it to the name of the previously created Workload VPN in the Fabric Services System.

        In our example, that would be VMware Workload.

  3. Create a dvPortGroup.
  4. Two options are available to specify a custom attribute on the dvPortgroup:
     1. Specify a custom attribute "FSSSubnetID" on that dvPortGroup and set it to the UUID of the operator-precreated subnet in the Fabric Services System.

        In this example, that would be 410560233203564544.

     2. Specify a custom attribute "FSSSubnetName" on that dvPortGroup and set it to the name of the operator-precreated subnet in the Fabric Services System.

        In this example, that would be VMware Subnet.

It is possible to define both the name and the UUID as custom attributes, but in this case the UUID will take precedence and the name will be ignored. Only when the UUID is not set (or set to 'none') will the name be used.

From here, all standard VMware operations continue.

You can undo the Fabric Services System managed characteristic of a dvSwitch or dvPortGroup by re-defining the custom attributes to the value None. The value is not case sensitive.