VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer : Install, Configure, Manage (V20.x)

The VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer : Install, Configure, Manage (V20.x) course offers comprehensive training on the AVI Advanced Load Balancer, designed to educate IT professionals on the installation, configuration, and management of this powerful VMware load balancer. Through a series of modules, the course delves into various aspects such as the Architecture, Virtual services, Profiles, and Policies, ensuring learners understand the intricacies of load balancing within modern data centers and cloud environments.Participants will gain hands-on experience in configuring Virtual services, pools, and understanding the Load balancing algorithms, Health monitors, and persistence Profiles. The course also touches upon modifying application behavior, infrastructure Architecture, and integrating the load balancer with different cloud platforms like VMware, AWS, and no-access cloud environments.By the end of the course, learners will be adept at troubleshooting, Monitoring, and utilizing the NSX Advanced Load Balancer's REST API, positioning them to effectively manage and optimize application delivery across their networks.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, you should be able to meet the following objectives:

• Describe the NSX Advanced Load Balancer architecture.

• Identify the components and main functions of NSX Advanced Load Balancer.

• Explain the key features and benefits of NSX Advanced Load Balancer.

• Deploy and configure the NSX Advanced Load Balancer infrastructure within private or public clouds using Write and No Access Cloud Connectors.

• Explain, deploy, and configure Service Engines.

• Configure local load balancing components, such as virtual services, pools, health monitors, and related elements.

• Understand and modify application behavior through profiles, policies, and DataScripts.

• Configure advanced services, including global server load balancing.

• Utilize NSX Advanced Load Balancer REST API interfaces and related automation capabilities.

• Describe and configure application and infrastructure monitoring for NSX Advanced Load Balancer.

• Gather relevant information and perform basic troubleshooting of applications using built-in NSX Advanced Load Balancer tools.

Who Can Benefit

• Experienced system administrators

• Network administrators

Course Outline:

1. Course Introduction

• Introduction and Course Logistics

• Course Objectives

2. Introduction to NSX Advanced Load Balancer

• Introduce NSX Advanced Load Balancer

• Discuss use cases and benefits

• Explain architecture and components

• Explain the management, control, data, and consumption planes and their respective functions

3. Virtual Services Configuration Concepts

• Explain Virtual Service components

• Explain Virtual Service types

• Explain and configure basic Virtual Service components (Application Profiles, Network Profiles)

4. Profiles and Policies

• Deep dive on Advanced Virtual Service creation

• Explore Application Profiles and Types (L4, DNS, Syslog, and HTTP)

• Configure advanced application HTTP Profile options

• Deep dive on Network Profiles and Types

• Configure SSL Profiles and Certificates

• Configure HTTP and DNS policies

5. Pools Configuration Concepts

• Deep dive on Pools configuration options

• Describe available Load Balancing algorithms

• Explain multiple Health Monitor types

• Explain multiple Persistence Profiles

• Configure Pool Groups

6. Modifying Application Behavior

• Design and apply application solutions leveraging application profiles

• Apply application solutions using Network and HTTP Policies and DataScripts

• Explain DataScript fundamentals

• Leverage NSX Advanced Load Balancer analytics to understand application behavior

• Configure Client SSL Certificate Validation

• Configure Virtual Service DDoS, Rate Limiting, and Throttling capabilities

• Modify Network Profiles properties (TCP connection properties)

• Design and apply application solutions using Persistence Profiles

7. NSX Advanced Load Balancer Infrastructure Architecture

• Deep dive on the management, control, data, and consumption planes and functions

• Describe Control Plane Clustering and High Availability

• Explain Controller Process Sharding

• Describe Controller Sizing

• Explain Service Engine CPU and NIC Architecture

• Explain Tenants

• Configure properties of Service Engine Groups

• Explain Service Engine Group High Availability Modes

• Describe and configure Active/Standby High Availability Mode

• Describe and configure Elastic HA High Availability Mode (Active/Active, N+M)

• Explain Service Engine Failure Detection and Self-Healing

• Describe Service Engine as a Router

• Explore Virtual Service scale-out options (Layer 2, Layer 3, and DNS-based)

8. Introduction to Cloud Connector

• Introduce Cloud Connectors

• Review Cloud Connector integration modes

• Introduce Cloud Connector types

9. Install, Configure, and Manage NSX Advanced Load Balancer in No-Access Cloud

• Explain No Access Cloud concepts

• Configure No Access Cloud integration

• Configure Linux Server Cloud

• Describe Advanced Configuration options available in Bare-Metal (Linux Server Cloud)

10. Install, Configure, and Manage NSX Advanced Load Balancer in VMware Environment: Cloud Configuration

• Introduce VMware integration options

• Configure VMware No Access Cloud Connector

• Configure VMware Write Access Cloud Connector

• Describe VMware Write with NSX-V Access Cloud Connector

• Describe VMware NSX-T integration

11. AWS Cloud Configuration

• Describe NSX Advanced Load Balancer Public Cloud integrations

• Explain and demonstrate AWS Public Cloud Integration

12. DNS Foundations

• Review and explain DNS fundamentals

• Describe NSX Advanced Load Balancer DNS and IPAM providers

13. Global Server Load Balancing

• Introduce Global Server Load Balancing concepts and benefits

• Configure NSX Advanced Load Balancer infrastructure

• Configure DNS Virtual Service components

• Configure GSLB Service Engine Group

• Describe and configure GSLB Sites

• Configure basic GSLB Services (pools and health monitors)

• Describe GSLB Service Load Balancing algorithms

• Configure Data and Control Plane-based Health Monitors

• Describe GSLB Health Monitor Proxy

14. NSX Advanced Load Balancer: Troubleshooting

• Introduce Infrastructure and Application Troubleshooting Concepts

• Describe Control Plane and Data Plane-based Troubleshooting

• Explain Application Analytics and Logs

• Describe client logs analysis

• Explain Headers troubleshooting and Packet Capture mechanism

• Leverage CLI for detailed data plane troubleshooting

• Explain Service Engine Logs

• Explain Health Monitors troubleshooting

• Explain BGP session troubleshooting

• Describe Control Plane Troubleshooting, Clustering, and Cloud Connector issues

15. Events and Alerts

• Describe NSX Advanced Load Balancer Events

• Configure NSX Advanced Load Balancer Alerts

• Describe monitoring capabilities leveraging SNMP, Syslog, and Email

16. Introduction to NSX Advanced Load Balancer REST API

• Introduce NSX Advanced Load Balancer REST API interface

• Describe REST API Object Schema

• Explain and interact with REST API interface using browser and command line utility

• Explain Swagger-based API documentation