Managing stretched private cloud resources and activity

After you create a stretched private cloud, you can view detailed information about it, manage its resources and activity, and access its VMware management appliances.

Each stretched private cloud contains one or more clusters that are stretched across two Google Cloud zones. Each cluster contains nodes that correspond to ESXi hosts.

To manage a stretched private cloud, start by accessing its resource summary page:

Access the Google Cloud VMware Engine portal
From the main navigation, click Private clouds.
Select the stretched private cloud you want to manage from the list of private clouds.

Viewing a private cloud summary

The summary provides information about your stretched private cloud including its name, number of vSphere clusters, number of nodes, location, operational state, and more. The summary page also includes the DNS servers deployed on the private cloud.

From the private cloud summary page, you can perform the following actions:

Launch vSphere Client. Access the vCenter for this stretched private cloud.
Expand. Expand this stretched private cloud by adding a minimum of two nodes.
Shrink nodes. Shrink this stretched private cloud by removing nodes.
Delete the private cloud. Delete a stretched private cloud, including all of the VMs, vCenter configuration, and data. Before deleting, back up all systems and data.
Change vSphere privileges. Elevate your privileges to perform a particular task on this stretched private cloud.
Copy IP addresses of DNS servers. Get a list of DNS servers on your private cloud. You can set up DNS forwarding from on-premises DNS servers to your private Cloud DNS servers. For more information about DNS forwarding, see Configuring DNS for name resolution for private cloud vCenter access from on-premises workstations.

Expanding a stretched private cloud

A stretched private cloud consists of one or more vSphere clusters, each containing multiple nodes. When adding nodes to a stretched private cloud, you add a minimum of two nodes (or in multiples of two nodes) to the existing cluster or create a new cluster. A stretched private cloud can be expanded multiple times as long as you stay within the overall node limits.

If a stretched cluster is expanded by two nodes, one node is added to the primary site, and the other node is added to the secondary site.

As part of the new cluster configuration, Google configures the VMware infrastructure. The settings include storage settings for vSAN disk groups, VMware High Availability, and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS).

You can expand a stretched cluster by adding nodes using the Google Cloud console, Google Cloud CLI, or VMware Engine API by doing the following. This action adds the specified number of nodes to each zone in the stretched cluster.

Expand a stretched cluster using a node

You can expand a stretched cluster by adding nodes using the Google Cloud console, Google Cloud CLI, or VMware Engine API by doing the following.

Console

To expand a stretched cluster by adding nodes using the Google Cloud console, follow these steps:

Access the Google Cloud console.
From the main navigation, click Private clouds.
Click the name of the cluster you want to expand.
Under cluster details, click Adjust nodes.
Choose a higher number of nodes per zone for your cluster.

gcloud

To expand a stretched cluster by adding nodes using the Google Cloud CLI, do the following:

Increase your node count by entering the gcloud vmware private-clouds clusters update command:

gcloud vmware private-clouds clusters update CLUSTER_ID \
  --location="REGION" \
  --project="PROJECT_ID" \
  --private-cloud=PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID \
  --update-nodes-config=type=standard-72,count="NODE_COUNT"

Replace the following:

CLUSTER_ID: the cluster ID for this request.
REGION: the region for this request.
PROJECT_ID: the project ID for this request.
NODE_COUNT: the new total number of nodes in the cluster, an even number, for this request.

API

To expand a stretched cluster by adding nodes using the VMware Engine API, do the following:

Increase your node count by making a PATCH request:

  PATCH "https://vmwareengine.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/REGION/privateClouds/PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID/clusters/CLUSTER_ID"
  -d '{
    "node_type_configs": {
        "standard-72": {
          "node_count": "NODE_COUNT"
        }
    }
  }'

Replace the following:

PROJECT_ID: the project for this request.
REGION: the region for this request.
CLUSTER_ID: the cluster ID for this request.
NODE_COUNT: the new total number of nodes in the cluster, an even number, for this request.

Add a cluster

To add a cluster to a stretched private cloud using the Google Cloud console, Google Cloud CLI, or VMware Engine API by do the following. The added cluster is stretched across the same two data zones as specified during the stretched private cloud creation:

Console

To add a cluster using the Google Cloud console, follow these steps:

Access the Google Cloud console.
From the main navigation, click Private clouds.
Click the Clusters tab.
Click Add Cluster.
Add the cluster details and submit.

gcloud

To add a cluster using the Google Cloud CLI, do the following:

Add a cluster by running the gcloud vmware private-clouds clusters create command:

gcloud vmware private-clouds clusters create CLUSTER_ID \
  --private-cloud=PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID \
  --node-type-config=type=standard-72,count="NODE_COUNT"

Replace the following:

CLUSTER_ID: the cluster ID for this request.
PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID: the private cloud ID for this request.
NODE_COUNT: the total number of nodes in the cluster, an even number, for this request.

API

To expand a stretched cluster by adding nodes using the VMware Engine API, do the following:

Increase your node count by making a POST request:

  POST "https://vmwareengine.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/REGION/privateClouds/PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID/clusters/CLUSTER_ID"
    -d '{
      "node_type_configs": {
          "standard-72": {
            "node_count": "NODE_COUNT"
          }
      }
    }'

Replace the following:

PROJECT_ID: the project for this request.
REGION: the region for this request.
PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID: the private cloud ID for this request.
CLUSTER_ID: the cluster ID for this request.
NODE_COUNT: the total number of nodes in the cluster, an even number, for this request.

Shrink a stretched cluster

You can shrink a stretched cluster by removing nodes using the Google Cloud console, Google Cloud CLI, or VMware Engine API by doing the following.

Console

To shrink a stretched cluster by removing nodes using the Google Cloud console, follow these steps:

Access the Google Cloud console.
From the main navigation, click Private clouds.
Click the name of the cluster you want to expand.
Under cluster details, click Adjust nodes.
Choose a lower number of nodes for your cluster.

gcloud

To shrink a stretched cluster by removing nodes using the Google Cloud CLI, do the following:

Decrease your node count by running the gcloud vmware private-clouds clusters update command:

gcloud vmware private-clouds clusters update CLUSTER_ID \
  --location="REGION" \
  --project="PROJECT_ID" \
  --private-cloud=PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID \
  --update-nodes-config=type=standard-72,count="NODE_COUNT"

Replace the following:

CLUSTER_ID: the cluster ID for this request.
REGION: the region for this request.
PROJECT_ID: the project for this request.
PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID: the private cloud ID for this request.
NODE_COUNT: the new total number of nodes in the cluster, an even number, for this request. Shrinking must be done in increments of two.

API

To shrink a stretched cluster by removing nodes using the VMware Engine API, do the following:

Decrease your node count by making a PATCH request:

    PATCH "https://vmwareengine.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/REGION/privateClouds/PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID/clusters/CLUSTER_ID"
    -d '{
      "node_type_configs": {
          "standard-72": {
            "node_count": "NODE_COUNT"
          }
      }
    }'

Replace the following:

PROJECT_ID: the project for this request.
REGION: the region for this request.
PRIVATE_CLOUD_ID: the private cloud ID for this request.
CLUSTER_ID: the cluster ID for this request.
NODE_COUNT: the new total number of nodes in the cluster, an even number, for this request. Shrinking must be done in increments of two.

This process requires resynchronization in vSAN and can take a few hours, depending on the data.

Shrink a stretched private cloud

When removing nodes from a stretched private cloud, you remove nodes from the existing cluster or delete the entire cluster.

To shrink a stretched private cloud, do the following:

Access the Google Cloud VMware Engine portal.
From the main navigation, click Private clouds.
On the private clouds summary page, click Remove nodes.
Select the cluster that you want to shrink or delete.
Select Remove one node per zone or Delete the whole cluster.
Verify the cluster capacity.
Click Submit to begin the process of removing nodes.

Restrictions

The process of removing nodes from your stretched private cloud has the following restrictions:

You can't remove nodes from a cluster with six (6) nodes (three (3) per zone).
The total storage consumed can't exceed the total capacity after removing nodes from a cluster.
You can't delete the first cluster that was created when the private cloud was created.

Viewing subnets

To view the list of defined management subnets for your private cloud, select the Subnets tab. The list includes the HCX subnets created when the private cloud was created.

Viewing activity information

To view the activity information for your private cloud, click Go to Logs Viewer. For a full list of activities and associated actions, see Monitoring VMware Engine activity.

Viewing vSphere management network

To view the list of VMware management resources and virtual machines that are configured on your private cloud, select the vSphere Management Network tab. Information includes the software version, fully qualified domain name (FQDN), and IP address of the resources.