Configure and manage subnets

This document describes how to create and manage different subnets in VMware Engine.

There are three types of subnets: workload subnets, service subnets, and management workload subnets.

Workload subnets

For workload virtual machines (VMs), you must create network segments on NSX-T Manager for your private cloud. Network segments created in NSX-T Manager aren't visible in VMware Engine.

Access NSX-T Manager

The process of creating a subnet happens in NSX-T, which you access through VMware Engine:

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Private clouds page.

Go to Private clouds
Click the private cloud name where you want to create the subnet.
Under Management appliances, click the URL corresponding to NSX Manager.
When prompted, enter your sign-in credentials. As a reminder, you can retrieve generated credentials from the private cloud details page.

If you've set up NSX-T to use an identity source, such as Active Directory, use your identity source credentials instead.

Create a workload network segment

For workload VMs, create subnets as NSX-T network segments for your private cloud:

In NSX-T, go to Networking > Segments.
Click Add Segment.
In the Segment Name field, enter a name for your segment.
In the Connected Gateway list, select Tier1 to connect to the tier-1 gateway.
In the Transport zone list, select TZ-OVERLAY | Overlay.
In the Subnets column, enter the subnet range. Specify the subnet range with .1 as the last octet. For example, 10.12.2.1/24.
Click Set DHCP Config, and provide values for the DHCP Ranges field.
Click Apply to save your DHCP configuration.
Click Save. You can now select this network segment in vCenter when creating a VM.

In a given region, you can advertise at most 100 unique routes from VMware Engine to your VPC network using private services access. For example, those unique routes include private cloud management IP address ranges, NSX-T workload network segments, and HCX internal IP address ranges. This route limit includes all private clouds in the region and corresponds to the Cloud Router learned route limit.

For information about routing limits, see Cloud Router Quotas and limits.

Service subnets

Service subnets are userDefined subnets that VMware Engine automatically created when your Private Cloud is created. You can target using service subnets for appliance or service deployment scenarios, such as storage, backup, disaster recovery (DR), media streaming, and providing high scale linear throughput and packet processing for even the largest scaled private clouds. The available service subnet names are:

service-1
service-2
service-3
service-4
service-5

Virtual Machine communication across a service subnet exits the VMware ESXi host directly into the Google Cloud networking infrastructure, enabling high speed communication.

Configuring service subnets

When VMware Engine creates a service subnet, it doesn't allocate a CIDR range or prefix. You must specify a non-overlapping CIDR range and prefix. The first usable address will become the gateway address. To allocate a CIDR range and prefix, edit one of the service subnets.

Service subnets can be updated if CIDR requirements change. Modification of an existing service subnet CIDR may cause network availability disruption for VMs attached to that service subnet.

Configuring vSphere distributed port groups

Additionally, to connect a VM to a service subnet, you need to create a new Distributed Port Group. This port group maps the service subnet ID to a network name within a vCenter private cloud. To do this:

Connect to the VMware vCenter Interface, see Accessing management appliances.
Navigate to the network configuration section of the vCenter interface.
Select Datacenter-dvs, Select New Distributed Port Group.

After the distributed port group has been created, you can attach VMs by selecting the corresponding name in the network configuration of the VM properties. The following are Distributed Port Group critical configuration values:

Port binding: static binding
Port allocation: elastic
Number of ports: 120
VLAN type: VLAN
VLAN ID: the corresponding subnet ID within the subnets section of the Google Cloud VMware Engine interface.

Google Cloud CLI and API requirements

To use the gcloud command line tool or the API to manage your VMware Engine resources, we recommend configuring the tools as described below.

gcloud

Set your default project ID:
```
gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID
```

Set a default region and zone:

gcloud config set compute/region REGION

gcloud config set compute/zone ZONE

For more information on the gcloud vmware tool, see the Cloud SDK reference docs.

API

API examples in this documentation set use the cURL command-line tool to query the API. A valid access token is required as part of the cURL request. There are many ways to get a valid access token; the following steps use the gcloud tool to generate a access token:

Generate access token and export to TOKEN:

export TOKEN=`gcloud auth print-access-token`

Verify that TOKEN is set properly:
```
echo $TOKEN
```

Now, use the authorization token in your requests to the API. For example:

curl -X GET -H "Authorization: Bearer \"$TOKEN\"" -H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8" https://vmwareengine.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations

Python

Python code samples in this documentation use the VMware Engine library to communicate with the API. To be able to use this approach, the library needs to be installed and the Application Default Credentials should be configured.

Download and install the Python library:
```
pip install google-cloud-vmwareengine
```
Configure the ADC information by executing those command in your shell:
```
gcloud auth application-default login
```
Or, use a Service Account key file:
```
export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="FILE_PATH"
```

For more information about the library, visit the reference page or view code samples on GitHub.

You can configure a userDefined subnet using the Google Cloud console, Google Cloud CLI or VMware Engine API. You will need to know the name of the subnet and private cloud.

Console

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Subnets page.

Go to Subnets
Look for the userDefined subnet you want to edit and click the pencil icon to edit the subnet.

gcloud

Edit a subnet using the Google Cloud CLI using the gcloud vmware private-clouds subnets update command:

gcloud vmware private-clouds subnets update SUBNET_NAME \
  --private-cloud=PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID \
  --location=ZONE \
  --ip-cidr-range=`IP_ADDRESS`

Replace the following:

SUBNET_NAME: the name of the subnet to update in this private cloud
PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID: the name for the private cloud
ZONE: the zone for the private cloud
IP_ADDRESS: the IP address and range, for the example 10.0.0.0/24

API

To edit a subnet using the VMware Engine API, make a PATCH request:

 curl -sSL -XPATCH -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" -H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8"
 "https://vmwareengine.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/ZONE/privateClouds/PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID/subnets/SUBNET_NAME?update_mask=ip_cidr_range" -d '{
    "ip_cidr_range": "IP_ADDRESS"
 }'

Replace the following:

PROJECT_ID: the project ID for this request.
ZONE: the zone for the private cloud
PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID: the name for the private cloud
SUBNET_NAME: the name of the subnet to update in this private cloud
IP_ADDRESS: the IP address and range, for the example 10.0.0.0/24

Management subnets

Management subnets are read-only subnets that you can view using the Google Cloud CLI or VMware Engine API.

List all subnets

View a list of subnets in the Google Cloud console, Google Cloud CLI, or the API.

Console

View a list of subnets by going to the Subnets page.

Go to Subnets

gcloud

List a subnet using the Google Cloud CLI by entering the gcloud vmware private-clouds subnets list command:

gcloud vmware private-clouds subnets list \
  --private-cloud=PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID \
  --location=ZONE

Replace the following:

PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID: the name for the private cloud
ZONE: the zone for the private cloud

API

To list a subnet using the VMware Engine API, make a GET request:

 curl -sSL -XGET -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" -H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8"
 "https://vmwareengine.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/ZONE/privateClouds/PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID/subnets"

Replace the following:

PROJECT_ID: the project ID for this request.
ZONE: the zone for the private cloud
PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID: the name for the private cloud

Describe a subnet

Get a description of any subnet using the Google Cloud CLI or VMware Engine API.

Console

Get the description of a subnet by going to the Subnets page.

Go to Subnets

gcloud

Get the description of a subnet using the gcloud vmware private-clouds subnets update command:

gcloud vmware private-clouds subnets describe SUBNET_NAME \
  --private-cloud=PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID \
  --location=ZONE

Replace the following:

SUBNET_NAME: the name of the subnet to update in this private cloud
PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID: the name for the private cloud
ZONE: the zone for the private cloud

API

To get the description of a subnet using the VMware Engine API, make a GET request:

GET "https://vmwareengine.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/REGION/privateClouds/PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID/subnets/SUBNET_NAME"

Replace the following:

PROJECT_ID: the project name for this request
REGION: the region of the network
PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID: the name for the private cloud
SUBNET_NAME: the name for the subnet to update in this private cloud

What's next

Manage your private cloud resources and activity.