Deploy a Virtual Machine in VMware Cloud on AWS vCenter from an S3 bucket

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Gilles Chekroun
Lead NSX Systems Engineer - VMware Europe
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The magic of Elastic Network Interfaces

         During a recent discussion with a customer, the need for deploying a bunch of tests Virtual Machines over a VMware Cloud on AWS vCenter has risen and the customer asked if it would be possible to use AWS S3 as the repository for that.
Absolutely YES ! 
And this is where having native AWS resources access using ENI in VMware Cloud on AWS is coming into play.
In that case we are going to setup an end point in our VPC to S3 so the traffic stays in the same region and on the internal AWS network.
NO Egress Charges !!

Create S3 endpoint

  • Log in AWS console and select VPC / Endpoints
  • Choose S3 Service
  • Select your VPC and route table
  • Create the S3 End Point
To make sure NO traffic will go across the Internet, and for this test, detach any Internet Gateways (IGW) from your VPC.

Setup Firewall rules 

Open your VMware Cloud on AWS dashboard and create 2 Firewall rules for ENI inbound and ENI outbound
The ENI Outbound rule will allow all traffic from our VM source network (192.168.1.0/24) to our AWS VPC
The ENI Inbound rule is for the return way.

Copy your OVA to S3

  • Select the OVA you want to deploy and copy it to an S3 bucket preferably in the same region where your SDDC is deployed.
  • Make it public
  • Make a note of the S3 URL
A nice way to bulk transfer data to S3 is to use AWS Snowball. 

Open VMware Cloud on AWS vCenter 


 In VMware Cloud on AWS vCenter, right click on "Compute-ResourcePool" and select "Deploy OVF Template".
Select the URL option and paste the S3 Link saved previously.
Skip the SSL certificate verification and proceed to the next screen.
Select a Name and a Folder for the deployment.
Select the compute resource pool
NOTE: At this stage you may hit an issue that will trigger the following error: "OVF parameter chunkSize with value XXXXXXXXXX is currently not supported"
Please refer to this article to have a workaround.

 Review the details.
Accept License agreement.

Select storage.
Select Network.
And finally, click FINNISH to deploy.
Check Recent Tasks status on the vCenter and wait for completion.
Choose the deployed Virtual Machine and power it on.
Launch the web console and access your Virtual Machine.
Et voila, our Virtual Machine is up and running.



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