Google Cloud Platform VMware Engine is a fully managed solution that allows you to operate VMware in Google Cloud. VMware Engine ensures VMware operational continuity, allowing you to benefit from a cloud consumption model while lowering your total cost of ownership. In addition, VMware Engine provides on-demand provisioning, pay-as-you-grow, and capacity optimization.
Your VMware environment seamlessly connects with the rest of Google Cloud and operates natively on Google Cloud bare metal infrastructure in Google Cloud locations. You may use the VMware platform effectively and safely since Google controls the infrastructure and all the required networking and administration services.
Features and Benefits
VMware Engine provides you with several benefits to your overall productivity:
Lower Cost: High degrees of automation, operational effectiveness, and scale economies are offered by VMware Engine. Google further reduces expenses by making solution designs available for you to leverage Google Cloud services in a combined VMware cloud in public cloud architecture.
Infrastructure Agility: Get self-service provisioning of VMware cloud environments on demand, with the option to reserve capacity to save costs or add and remove capacity as needed.
Security: The security and distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) prevention of Google Cloud are carried by edge-type networking services, such as VPN, public IP, and internet gateways. You have exclusive access to infrastructure that is physically separated from other clients.
Infrastructure Monitoring, Troubleshooting, and Support: Your underlying infrastructure is managed by Google as a service. Hardware that breaks is immediately changed. Concentrate on consumption while Google takes care of VMware platform upgrades, deployments, health checks, capacity checks, alerts, troubleshooting, and remediation.
Operational Continuity and Policy Compatibility: VMware platforms are accessible directly through Google. Your current architecture is compatible with the architecture:
Compliance tools and certifications
Security procedures
VMware-based applications
Audit practices
Disaster recovery backups
Convenient Monitoring: Tools for tracking platform activity, resource use, user account management, billing, and metering are known as monitoring and management tools.
Hybrid Platform: High-speed, low-latency communication to the rest of Google Cloud and your on-premises environment is made possible by VMware Engine. In addition, VMware Engine offers the L2/L3 services and firewall rule management necessary to enable VMware.
Use cases
Expand on demand
Increase capacity to accommodate unforeseen demands, such as seasonal capacity spikes or new development environments, and only maintain it for as long as you require. By leveraging the same architecture and policies for both on-premises and the cloud, you may lower your initial outlay, speed up provisioning, and simplify things.
Migrate Data Centers
Increase the size of your cloud-based data centers and quit managing hardware upgrades. Cloud migrations lessen danger and expense by utilizing well-known VMware tools and abilities. Utilize Google Cloud services in the cloud to update your apps at your speed.
Disaster recovery and virtual desktops in Google Cloud
Create remote access to Google Cloud PCs, applications, and data. You may swiftly upload and download data to recover from events using high bandwidth connections. You get quick reaction times from low-latency networks that are comparable to those of desktop software. To duplicate all of your rules and networking in the cloud, use the VMware Engine site and familiar VMware tools. The complexity and risk involved in setting up and managing DR and VDI deployments are significantly reduced by recovery and replication with VMware Engine.
Unify DevOps across VMware and Google Cloud
Use Google Cloud services and solutions to streamline VMware management for all your workloads. Utilize services offered by the public cloud without needing to upgrade your data center or restructure your applications. Logging, monitoring, access control, and identities for VMware applications on Google Cloud should all be centrally managed.
Power high-performance applications and databases
The most demanding VMware workloads can be executed on Google's hyper-converged architecture. Run middleware platforms, high-performance NoSQL databases, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and other databases. With fast network connections, you can use the cloud as your data center and run hybrid applications that span your on-premises environment, VMware on Google Cloud, and Cloud private workloads without sacrificing performance.
Working
VMware Engine Private Clouds
A private cloud powered by the Google Cloud VMware Engine is an isolated VMware stack made up of the following VMware parts:
HCX
vCenter Server
ESXi hosts
NSX
vSAN
Problems Resolved
You may handle several widespread network infrastructure problems with the use of private clouds:
Growth: When your current infrastructure reaches the point of a hardware refresh, add nodes without purchasing any new hardware.
Fast expansion: When sudden or unforeseen capacity demands occur, promptly install more capacity.
Increased protection: Get automated redundancy and availability protection when employing a private cloud with three or more nodes.
Long-term infrastructure needs: While maintaining compatibility with your business processes, retire data centers and switch to a cloud-based solution. This is extremely helpful if your data centers are at capacity or you wish to reorganize to cut expenses.
​​Private Cloud Environment
Through the VMware Engine site, you can manage your private clouds. All nodes in a specific private cloud are located in the same area, and every private cloud has its vCenter Server in its administrative domain.
The VMware stack operates on isolated, dedicated bare metal hardware nodes in Google Cloud locations. vCenter Server and NSX Manager are two examples of native VMware tools you may use to access the stack.
Private clouds are also designed to eliminate single points of failure:
For resilience, ESXi host clusters are sized to include at least one spare node and are configured using vSphere High Availability (HA). The HA feature of vSphere guards against network and node failures.
VSAN offers primary storage redundancy. In a private cloud, vSAN needs at least three nodes to protect against a single failure. For more giant clusters, you may configure vSAN to offer more resilience.
Single-Node Private Clouds
In every country where VMware Engine is accessible, you may build a private cloud with just a single node and cluster for pilot testing and proofs of concept. In a single-node private cloud, all VMware Engine features are accessible; however, owing to cluster size, there are certain restrictions on VMware stack features.
The following are common use cases for a single-node private cloud:
Application upgrade testing: Before making an application upgrade in production, test and validate any application component upgrades.
Proof of concept: assessing VMware Engine and its features
Disaster recovery testing: To regularly check your application's preparedness for disaster recovery, deploy it from recent backups.
Custom Core Counts
Depending on how many CPU cores are present on the underlying physical node or in the cluster, you may be charged differently under different license agreements, such as those for Windows Server and SQL Server. To satisfy the criteria of the application licensing, you can lower the number of available cores for each cluster node whenever you build a new cluster. When a node fails, VMware Engine replaces it with a new node with the same number of cores as the failed node.
Limitations
There are resource restrictions for each private cloud's nodes and clusters.
Google Cloud VMware Engine gives each area where your VMware Engine service is implemented its network. There is just one TCP Layer 3 address space on the network, and routing is by default turned on. Any private clouds and subnets built in this region can connect without extra configuration. With NSX-T, you may create network segments (subnets) for your workload virtual machines (VMs).
Management VLANs
Google gives each private cloud its VLAN (Layer 2 network). You can isolate the local traffic inside a private cloud since Layer 2 traffic stays within the private cloud's perimeter. The management network uses these VLANs. On NSX-T Manager, you must define network segments for workload virtual machines (VMs).
Subnets
You need to construct a network segment on the NSX-T management for your private cloud. A single private Layer 3 address space is allotted per client and location. Any IP address range that does not intersect with any other private cloud networks, on-premises networks, private cloud management networks, or subnet IP address ranges in your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network is available for configuration. See Networking requirements for a thorough explanation of how VMware Engine distributes subnet IP address ranges.
By default, all subnets may interact with one another, which lowers the configuration burden for private cloud routing. East-west traffic between private clouds in the same area travels across the regional local network architecture while remaining in the same Layer 3 network. Communication between private clouds in a region doesn't need egress. This method eliminates any WAN/egress performance hit while deploying various workloads across several private clouds within the same project.
Management subnets created on a private cloud
The following management subnets are created by VMware Engine when you build a private cloud:
NsxtEdgeTransport: VLAN and subnet for transport zones control the reach of Layer 2 networks in NSX-T
VMotion: VLAN and subnet for ESXi hosts' vMotion network
System management: VLAN and subnet for ESXi hosts' management network, DNS server, vCenter Server
NsxtEdgeUplink2: VLAN and subnet for VLAN uplinks to an external network
VSAN: VLAN and subnet for ESXi hosts' vSAN network
NsxtEdgeUplink1: VLAN and subnet for VLAN uplinks to an external network
NsxtHostTransport: VLAN and subnet for host transport zone
Recommended MTU settings
The size of the most extensive packet supported by a network layer protocol, including headers and payload, is measured in bytes as the maximum transmission unit (MTU). The following MTU values are advised to prevent fragmentation-related problems.
You can utilize MTU values up to 8800 bytes for VMs that only connect with other endpoints inside a private cloud.
Use the default 1500 byte MTU option for VMs that talk to or from a private cloud without encapsulation.
Workload VM migration
You may move virtual machines (VMs) from an on-premises data center to your private cloud using Google Cloud VMware Engine. Native access to VMware vCenter, which includes several tools for workload migration, is provided by your private cloud.
Migration options
There are several ways to move your virtual machines to your private cloud. The following are some of the most popular choices to think about:
VMware HCX: You may create a hybrid environment by abstracting and exposing vSphere-based on-premises and cloud resources to apps as a single continuous resource.
Backup and disaster recovery tools: Choose your personal cloud as the destination to restore backups.
VMware PowerCLI: Utilize a command-line interface to move virtual machines (VMs) across vCenters.
ISO files and templates: By utilizing a VM template from your published vSphere content library and uploading an ISO file to your private cloud, you may create new virtual machines (VMs).
NSX Layer 2 VPN: By making an on-premises subnet accessible in your private cloud, you may live move workload VMs.
Migration Requirements
A network link between your on-premises data center and private cloud is necessary to migrate virtual machines and data from the data center. Establish a site-to-site VPN connection between your on-premises infrastructure and your private cloud before you can transfer workloads.
The network connection between your private cloud and on-premises vCenter environment must allow vMotion-based VM migration. You need routing capabilities for your on-premises vCenter's vMotion network. Routing on the vMotion network is preconfigured in the private cloud.
Creating a VMware Engine private cloud
An isolated VMware stack comprised of ESXi hosts, vCenter, vSAN, NSX-T, and HCX is a private cloud. Through the Google Cloud VMware Engine site, you may administer private clouds. A single vSphere cluster and all of the management VMs produced in that cluster are given to you when you build a private cloud.
For vSphere/vSAN subnets, VMware Engine distributes management components in the network you choose. During the deployment, many subnets are created from the IP address range of the network.
Prerequisites
The following setup is required as a prerequisite:
Allot a unique IP address range for the vSphere/vSAN subnets of the private cloud you wish to build.
Choose to Create a private cloud from the Resources page.
Decide where to put your private cloud.
Decide on the private cloud's node count. Create your private cloud with at least three nodes to support production workloads. After 60 days, VMware Engine deletes private clouds with a single node.
If you wish to lower the number of cores available for each node in the management cluster, click the Customize Cores checkbox. This step is optional. For the VMware management network, provide a CIDR range. See the Before you start a section for details on the limitations of this range.
For the VMware management network, provide a CIDR range.
The HCX deployment network, which is used to deploy HCX components, provides a CIDR range. Make sure that none of your on-premises or cloud subnets intersect with the CIDR range. The CIDR range needs to be at least /27.
Click on Review and Create.
Review the settings. Click Back to alter any settings.
To start deploying the private cloud, click Create.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Private Cloud?
The term "private cloud" refers to a computing environment where all hardware and software resources are solely allocated to and accessed by a single client.
What is VLAN?
One or more local area networks can be combined to form a bespoke network called a VLAN. Integrating a collection of devices spread over several logical networks makes it possible. Consequently, a virtual LAN managed similarly to a physical LAN is created. Virtual Local Area Network is the term used to refer to VLAN.
What is a VMware Engine?
Google Cloud Platform VMware Engine is a fully managed solution that allows you to operate VMware in Google Cloud. VMware Engine ensures VMware operational continuity, allowing you to benefit from a cloud consumption model while lowering your total cost of ownership. In addition, VMware Engine provides on-demand provisioning, pay-as-you-grow, and capacity optimization.
Conclusion
In this article, we introduced you to ​​Google Cloud VMware Engine, its features, and how it works and is managed.
We hope this blog has helped you enhance your Knowledge about Google Cloud VMware Engine. For more content about Microsoft Azure, refer to our articles on Microsoft Azure Certification – Coding Ninjas Blog.
To learn more about machine learning, you can visit Machine Learning.
If you think you are ready for the tech giants company, check out the mock test series on code studio.
You can also refer to our Guided Path on Coding Ninjas Studio to upskill yourself in domains like Data Structures and Algorithms, Competitive Programming, Aptitude, and many more! You can also prepare for tech giants companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Uber, etc., by looking for the questions asked by them in recent interviews. If you want to prepare for placements, refer to the interview bundle. If you are nervous about your interviews, you can see interview experiences to get ideas about these companies' questions.
Nevertheless, you may consider our premium courses to give your career an edge over others!
Do upvote our blogs if you find them helpful and engaging!
116+ registered 