Adding VMware Transit Connect to Egress VPC (Part 3)

-

Gilles Chekroun


Lead VMware Cloud on AWS Solutions Architect
---

UPDATE 6 NOV 2020: Github terraform code here

Finally, here is Part 3 of this blog "series" around Egress VPC.

Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here

After setting up the  Egress VPC in part 1 and adding a VPN connected SDDC in part 2 I want to connect the SDDC and the Apps VPCs via a VMware Transit Connect a.k.a. VMware managed Transit gateway.

Lab Setup

Creating an SDDC Group

I have described in deep details the way to create SDDC group and attach Customer VPCs in this article. Let's go and do that quickly.
  1. Create an SDDC group and Attach the SDDC. This step will create the vTGW.
  2. Under "VPC Connectivity" tab, configure the Customer AWS  account number so the vTGW resource can be shared.
  3. On Customer AWS console, go to RAM (Resource Access Manager) and look for "Resources shared  with me"
  4. Accept the vTGW resource

Connecting Apps VPCs

We have now accepted the shared vTGW resource and are able to connect Customer Apps VPCs.

1 - On AWS console, go to VPC, Transit Gateways and select "Transit Gateways Attachments"

2 - Create 2 new attachments and connect the 2 Apps VPCs
3 - The new attachments will be in "pending acceptance" state until we accept them from the VMC console. Since this process is asynchronous, it can take a few mins (I have seen 3 to 10 mins) until we will see the acceptance request in the VMC console. Be patient.

4 - After accepting the VPCs in the VMC console, their state will move to "pending", then "available" and "associated"

Checking the vTGW routes learned in the SDDC

Adding CGW Firewall rules for vTGW

The CGW FW rules will allow traffic to and from the vTGW attached VPCs. We have now a new System Group that includes the VPC prefixes. These rules need to be "Applied to" the Direct Connect interface. It's a bit confusing for now but this is where the SDDC attachment as  "VPC" lives. We are looking to rename it to "DX/vTGW" or something similar.

Update the Apps VPCs route table 

From the Apps VPC point of view we have now 2 TGWs attachments (and by the way the AWS limit is 5). We need to select the proper way out of these VPCs to "TGW-Internet" or vTGW

Tests

Voila. At this stage all is ready.

  • SSH to the Ubuntu VM
  • Ping EC2 in Apps VPC 100
  • Ping EC2 in Apps VPC 200
  • Traceroute to the EC2s and verify that no NAT gateways are in the path.

Connection to On-prem

In my lab, I don't have Direct connect and the connectivity to on-prem would be something like:

Next Step

As many of you know, I am a fan of Terraform and my next project will be to automate this lab creation with Terraform.
I will update this post with a Github link when that's done.

Thanks for reading.

Comments

  1. Ajay KallaOctober 31, 2020 at 7:14 AM

    Very Useful Content , What tool you use to create Diagrams ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. WBandeiraMarch 4, 2021 at 11:32 PM

    Great content Guilles! In the last diagram when you talk about "Connection to On-prem", I can connect DX Gateway up to 3 TGWs according to AWS Documentation. But this TGWs (VMware or not) can be in the same region? Thank you for your attention.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gilles ChekrounMarch 5, 2021 at 8:47 AM

      In my case they should in the same region just because they connect to the same VPCs.
      In general a DXGW is not linked to a region and the 3 associations can come from different regions

      Delete

Post a Comment

Populars

AWS Transitive routing with Transit Gateways in the same region

-
Image
Gilles Chekroun Lead VMware Cloud on AWS Specialist --- At the AWS Re:invent 2019 conference, the long waited TGW peering functionality was announced and available in a few AWS regions. This is an INTER-REGION peering only meaning that the Transit Gateways need to be in different regions. Hoping that AWS will soon release an INTRA-REGION capability I discussed with a few AWS Solutions Architects in Las Vegas, among them Tom Adamski , about using a VPC as a bridge between two TGWs in the same region. Tom assured me that it is possible opening for the first time the transitive routing capability in AWS networking. Well . . . I needed to test that and see by myself. Test bed For a simple test, I will use 2 TGWs in the same regions with 2 VPCs attached each and another VPC as "bridge" connected to both TGWs. Yes you can connect a VPC up to 5 TGWs . The whole idea is to use this "bridging VPC" and point the default route of the TGWs to it. To do that I c
Read more

Using Terraform with multiple providers in multiple phases to deploy and configure VMware Cloud on AWS

-
Image
Gilles Chekroun Lead VMware Cloud on AWS Solutions Architect --- With the recent development of new VMware Terraform providers for NSX-T and VMware Cloud on AWS, we have now the possibility to create code for a full automation and deployment of  Infrastructure including AWS, VMC, NSX-T and vSphere. Architecture This code architecture will be done in 3 phases and the output of one phase will be used as input for another. The code is done using Terraform modules . The first phase will use AWS provider combined with VMC provider. Terraform AWS provider and the VPC module We will start with terraform.tfvars file to hold our secret parameters. // VMC Credentials vmc_token = "Your VMC API Token" // AWS Credentials access_key = "Your AWS Access Key" secret_key = "Your AWS Secret Key" AWS_account = "Your AWS Account Number" // ORG ID my_org_id = "Your VMC ORG ID" The variables.tf file will hold different p
Read more

AWS Transit Gateway and Multiple Accounts

-
Image
Gilles Chekroun Lead VMware Cloud on AWS Specialist --- Many Customers start to use  AWS transit Gateway  and want to be able to attach VPCs in multiple accounts. Often AWS organisations are split by departments and have separate accounts. This blog post will go through the detailed setup for the TGW and how to connect VPCs in separate accounts. For a complete description of VMware Cloud on AWS and TGW, please refer to  here . AWS Shared Resource Manager Login to the main account where the TGW was created and create a resource share Name your share and select the TGW  Add the other account and create the share Verify the share creation Log into the account we just added and look for an invitation Accept the invitation For the purpose of the tests we can use an existing VPC or create a new one. I am using VPC4 with CIDR 99.99.0.0/16 in the added account. Create a TGW attachment for this new VPC At this stage, we will get a "pending acce
Read more