Author: Manish Jha | Program Manager
We are happy to announce the release of VMM SDN Express for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2016 (VMM 2016)! Do you want a VMM solution that can deploy an entire SDN fabric without you having to move through multiple VMM wizards or having to wait for very long? What if you could specify all the parameters in a single file and let VMM take over all the SDN deployment tasks, where you simply come back later and see the complete VMM SDN stack deployed? VMM SDN Express does exactly that, and then some. The successful deployment is completely manageable with the VMM UI post deployment, and failed deployments roll back entirely leaving your fabric ready for another deployment attempt while providing you with the required logs to investigate the causes of failure.
You can find related resources on Github , including the required documentation and example parameter files. There you will find following:
The script deploys SDN stack using VMM through a single configuration file.
Apart from reducing points of human error caused by multiple input wizards, the script also saves significant time for fabric admins as they are able to specify all of the parameters at one time and then come back later to a complete SDN stack, including Network Controller, Software Load Balancer and Gateway, all deployed through VMM. Once you deploy SDN using this script, the complete stack is manageable via the VMM UI just as it would if you had deployed SDN using the VMM UI wizards!
So use this script if you want to leverage best of both worlds – SDN Express like agility for deployment and rich management capability using VMM UI afterwards.
This script deploys all the Logical Networks and artifacts as described in the VMM SDN deployment guide . You also have the option to repurpose existing a Management Logical Network and Logical Switch if you already have those configured.
Note that if script suffers a failure due to wrong input or infra issues, all the changed settings are rolled back and you can start a fresh deployment all over again.
Also, please be aware that SET enabled switch deployment is currently not supported in this script. The script finds the first pNIC in Trunk mode on the host and deploys Logical Switch in the standalone mode on the host. In case the script can’t find such a pNIC on any host, the switch deployment will fail. If you need SET enabled deployment, you need to deploy the SET enabled switch out of band and then specify the name of the switch in the script at the time of deployment.
We’re looking forward to hearing about deployments from you guys in case you are planning to deploy SDN in your environment so please share your feedback.
Manish Jha | Program Manager | Microsoft