There is no dedicated storage network needed with Nutanix as AHV leverages the data network as the backplane for storage. In AHV based deployments, CVM, Hypervisor and Guest VMs connect with physical network via Open vSwitch (OVS). 

An instance of OVS is present on each AHV host and all instances of OVS in a cluster forms a single logical switch (somewhat similar to VMware vDS concept).

In a default AHV installation, all the interfaces present in the NX node are grouped together in a single bond called bro-up. A typical NX node ships with 2×10 GB and 2×1 GB interface.  Read More

In last post of AHV Networking series, we learnt the basics of the various bond modes that are available with OVS in AHV. In this post we will learn how to change the bond mode configuration.

Lets jump into lab and start firing some commands.

1: Verify current bond mode.

SSH to any of the AHV host in cluster and run command: ovs-appctl bond/show

This command shows the current bond mode that is configured and the member interfaces that are present in the bond.

Alternatively you can connect to a CVM and run command: allssh ssh root@192.168.5.1 ovs-vsctl show to fetch more information about a bond.  Read More

In last post of this series we learnt few basics of AHV networking. In this post we will learn about network load balancing in Nutanix.

Nutanix networking is based on OVS and the networks are configured via Prism/ACLI. OVS supports 3 bond modes for network load balancing. 

1: Active/Backup

By default the bond mode is in Active/backup mode when AHV is installed. In this mode VM traffic is sent only over one of the physical uplink and rest all uplinks are in passive mode and they become active only when the active uplinks fails. Read More

AHV Networking Overview

AHV uses Open vSwitch (OVS) to connect the CVM, the hypervisor, and guest VMs to each other and to the physical network on each node. When we install AHV, an instance of OVS is created on that host and all instance of OVS across a cluster combines to form a single logical switch.

What is Open vSwitch (OVS)

OVS is an open source software switch implemented in the Linux kernel and designed to work in a multiserver virtualization environment. OVS is a layer-2 learning switch that maintains a MAC address table. Read More

Once a cluster have been registered to Prism central, unregistering it via Prism UI is no longer available. This option was removed to reduce the risk of accidentally unregistering a cluster because several features require Prism Central to run your clusters.

If a cluster is unregistered from Prism Central, not only will these features not be available but the configuration for them may also be erased.

Unregistering a cluster can be done via CLI. Please follow below steps for removing a cluster from PC. Read More

In earlier post we learnt how to deploy Prism Central on AHV using 1-Click deployment. To keep things simple, I deployed only one PC vm as I wanted to test how PC scaling out works.

If Prism Central is deployed as single vm, we can expand it to three VMs. PC scale out helps in increasing the capacity and resiliency. 

Note: Prism Central scaling is supported on AHV and ESXi clusters only.

To scale out a Prism Central instance, login to Prism Central and from gear icon select the “Prism Central Management” option. Read More

In last post I demonstrated the Prism Central 1-Click installation process. In this post I will walk through the 1-Click upgrade process.

Before you start your Prism Central upgrade, there are few pre-requisites that needs to met. Below screenshot taken from Prism Central Admin guide lists the requirements.

To upgrade Prism Central to a higher version, Login to Prism Central and click on gear icon and select “Upgrade Prism Central”.

If your Prism central have access to internet, you can download the upgrade directly from support portal.  Read More

What is Prism Central?

Software to provide centralized infrastructure management, one-click simplicity and intelligent operations. Prism Central runs as a separate instance composed of either a single VM or a set of  (3) VMs.

What does Prism Central provides?

• Manage multi-cluster from single pane of glass.
• Single sign-On for all registered clusters.
• Entity Explorer to search various items.
• Global alert and notifications.
• Multi cluster analytics dashboard.
• Dashboard Customization.
• Capacity Forecast and Planning

Prism Central is a must have tool for every Nutanix administrator if they have a multi cluster Nutanix environment. In this post I am not stressing on explaining each features of Prism Central. I will write a separate blog post on that. In this post I will walk through the installation procedure for prism central.   Read More

In earlier post of this series, we learnt how to deploy a single node cluster. In this post we will learn how to deploy a multi node cluster using community edition.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Nutanix Community Edition Introduction

2: Lab Setup

3: Deploy Single Node Cluster

During lab setup, I created a template vm to for faster deployments of CE vm’s. To create a multi-node cluster, we node to deploy at least 3 VM’s and during deployment we need to make sure to not to select “Create single-node cluster” Read More

In last post of this series, I covered installation of Nutanix CE single-node cluster. In this post i will walk through steps of reducing CVM memory.

By default when you deploy Nutanix CE, CVM is configured with 16 GB RAM. You can verify this by logging into Prism and navigating to Home > VM view.

Or you can SSH to AHV host and type command : virsh dominfo

Now suppose you allocated 20 GB RAM to the VM where Nutanix CE is installed, CVM will consume 16 GB out of it, leaving only 4 GB for the AHV host. But we can reduce CVM memory to 12G or 8G for lab purpose. Read More

In last post of this series we discussed about lab setup that is needed to deploy the Nutanix CE platform. In this post we will learn about how to deploy a single node cluster.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Nutanix Community Edition Introduction

2: Lab Setup

In last post we converted our centos VM to a template to save deployment time. I deployed a new VM from the template and booted it. 

Once the “init image” is loaded at the login, type “install” command to proceed. Read More

In last post of this series we discussed about what Nutanix CE is what does it offer and we talked about limitation of the product. In this post I will walk through my lab setup which I used to deploy the Nutanix CE.

Recommended Hardware

Before planning your deployment, make sure to refer to below spreadsheet which lists all necessary piece of hardware you need to have in place. 

In my lab, I don’t have a dedicated hardware server for deployment, so I went ahead with Nested virtualization technique. But if you are interested in deploying CE on dedicated piece of hardware then I would recommend reading this article. Read More

Till the time I was working majorly on VMware products, I thought there can’t be a better piece of technology than this. But since the time I started learning Nutanix, my thoughts changed and I must admit that I am in awe of this product.

To learn any new product, home lab is the best place where you can learn things from scratch. Since I don’t have dedicated hardware pieces to deploy Nutanix, I tried my hands on Nutanix Community Edition.

In this post I will outline some basic considerations which you should keep in mind when when planning to go with Nutanix CE and will walk through the steps needed to create lab. Also I will discuss possibilities and limits of using this product. Read More