So as a first stop,
we are going to verify our current infrastructure
and let's go ahead and start off with the DNS
regarding the IP addresses and the names we intend on using
just to verify that's all in place right here
at our DNS server.
So a quick way of verifying the DNS
is from a command prompt.
So this is a little command prompt
on my management computer.
I'm running Windows 11
and let's type in nslookup as a DNS tool here.
This puts us into interactive mode
and I'm currently using that same DNS server
at 192.168.1.100. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
at 192.168.1.100.
So let me check for nsx-mgr-11
and that says can't find it.
My local computer isn't looking
for the same fully qualified domains.
So let me go ahead and do nsx-mgr-11.ogat.local
and press Enter.
Sure enough, that resolves and that's at 192.168.1.11.
Let's do the same thing for nsx-mgr-12
and that's .12.
Let's do 13 and that's resolving to .13.
We can also verify the reverse lookups as well WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
We can also verify the reverse lookups as well
with doing a 192.168.1.11
and that should resolve to the name nsx-mgr-11.
I also have a DNS entry
for the virtual IP address of .10.
I forget what that is, but we can find out real quick
by just doing a nslookup for 192.168.1.10, press Enter,
and there's the name of that right there.
So I currently have A records in place
for the three NSX managers,
as well as the virtual IP address.
I also have pointer records set up
for the reverse lookup functionality as well. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
for the reverse lookup functionality as well.
Also because we're currently interacting
with this DNS server, I know that's reachable
and that's also the same server
that's providing NTP services as well.
So we'll use the Windows Server at that IP address
for both network time protocol, NTP,
as well as DNS services.
So let me exit out of that.
Also, let's verify the management IP address here
of our vCenter at .185.
And while we're there and verifying that,
we can also verify the port groups involved
that we'll be using for connectivity
of the new NSX manager to our management network. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
of the new NSX manager to our management network.
So here on the vSphere Client, we are currently logged on
as administrator at vsphere.local.
That's the single sign-on domain.
And let's go to the VM and templates view here.
Let's go down to vCenter Server Appliance.
There it is right there.
We'll click on the Summary tab
and its IP address is 192.168.1.185.
So we've just confirmed the IP address of vCenter.
We also confirm the user that we can log in as
which will be important
as part of integrating the NSX over with vCenter. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
as part of integrating the NSX over with vCenter.
Let's also verify some capacity.
Our intention is to go ahead
and put the new NSX manager on one of our ESXi hosts.
And I think based on our plan,
in fact, I'm sure based on our plan,
we are looking at esxi-c.
So if we open up the management cluster here,
here is esxi-c.
And at the moment, esxi-c has plenty of CPU available
and not so much memory, it has like 21 gigs free,
and that'll be fine for our first NSX appliance.
As far as the port group for the management network,
let's just go to networking for a moment here. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
let's just go to networking for a moment here.
And here is a distributed switch called VDS for MGMT.
And if we click on Configure and then click on Topology,
it has a port group called MGMT.
There's VM kernel adapters associated with it.
There's a few VMs associated with it.
And that leads out to a couple of NICs.
We have vmnic0 and vmnic6.
And I just wanna take a look at the teaming here
for the management distributed port group.
So here for the port group, if we click on Configure
and we click on Policies and scroll down a little bit,
here it shows us that it's using as the active uplink vmnic0 WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
here it shows us that it's using as the active uplink vmnic0
with a standby link of vmnic6, which is perfectly fine.
So both those interfaces lead to my VLAN one here
in my Home Office Studio
and that is the 192.168.1 management network.
So when we deploy the first NSX manager,
we're gonna tell it that for its port group
for the management interface,
we want it to use this management port group.