Native AWS VPC Connecting to VMware Cloud on AWS (Part 2) – Route Tables and Transit Gateway Attachments

Welcome to Part 2 of VPN connectivity to VMC via AWS VPN. For this post, I will walk through how to attach an AWS VPC to an AWS Transit Gateway in order for route tables to be learned by the VMC SDDC and AWS VPC that will ultimately allow communication from workloads in AWS and workloads in VMC. If you immediately try to ping across the VPN from an EC2 instance to a VMC VM, it will fail as there is more work to do in order to create communication pathways in the form of adding a VPC to the Transit Gateway as well as configure some NSX rules.

In the diagram above I created two EC2 instances with an AWS VPC. For the sake of testing and validation, I first had to create a jump VM with access to the internet in order to remote into the workload VM. This is because, in order for the workload VM to ping across the VPN, 0.0.0.0/0 must be routed through the Transit Gateway and not an Internet Gateway. The goal here is to have a VM on the 10.0.10.32/27 subnet ping a VM on the 10.250.10.0/24 subnet.

To start, the first thing to check is the routing table for the Transit Gateway. This is done by selecting “Transit Gateway Route Tables” on the sidebar with the VPC.

You will then see a list of learned routes from the VMC SDDC. For the sake of this blog, I have deployed AWS EC2 Instances on a subnet that I plan on attaching to the Transit Gateway (10.0.10.0/24). However, notice below that only the learned routes for the VPN to VMC are listed below. While the 10.250.10/0/24 subnet is learned, in order to open communication via the AWS VPC, we first need to attach the VPC to the Transit Gateway so the 10.0.10.0/27 subnet is included. Here are the steps to create the VPC attachment to the Transit Gateway.

Step 1: Select “Transit Gateway Attachments” then “Create Transit Gateway Attachment”. Find correct Transit Gateway ID.

Step 2: Add tag for attachment name.

Step 3: Select the correct VPC and ensure you have the correct subnet selected. Select “Create Attachment”

As you can see, now that the VPC is attached to the TGW, the 10.0.10.0/24 subnet is now listed. This will now allow for the routing of traffic from my EC2 instance to my VM on VMC.

The final step is to create groups and add inbound and outbound firewall rules within the Network & Security section of the SDDC console. Make sure to apply the rule to the VPN Tunnel Interface and NOT “All Uplinks“. The reason for this is that a firewall rule applied to All Uplinks does not apply to the VPN Tunnel Interface (VTI), which is a virtual interface and not a physical uplink. The VPN Tunnel Interface must be specified explicitly in the Applied To parameter of any firewall rule that manages workload VM communications over a route-based VPN. In addition, you can see how groups are created on an earlier blog here.

Now that the routing table is complete and Compute Gateway Firewall rules are in place, you can test!

EC2 Windows VM

Ping results from EC2 VM to VMC VM

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Native AWS VPC Connecting to VMware Cloud on AWS (Part 1) – Native VPC Connectivity via VPN

With the release of VMware Cloud on AWS 1.12, we delivered additional connectivity options with the addition of transit connect (VMware managed AWS Transit Gateway). Over the past few weeks, I have been working on a project that has specific success criteria as well as challenges that prevent certain connectivity options so I thought what better way to show how we got around the issue than to show how we did it as Transit Connect and AWS Direct Connect were out of scope. The plan is to have this be a multiple part blog series that details how to setup and test a route based VPN, attach to native AWS EC2 workloads via ENI in the VMC VPC as well as leverage a Transit connect that makes connectivity easier to configure, manage and maintain. The diagram below is the overall architecture for those already leveraging AWS native services via a Direct Connect and Transit Gateway but can only connect to VMC via IPSEC VPN for certain reasons (shout out to fellow VMC Architect Will Lin for the assist!). While Direct Connect provides much better speeds and feeds, you may still be able to accomplish what you need depending on your application requirements.

STEP 1: To get things started, we need to either identify or create a VPC that we want to communicate with the VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC. If you already have a VPC configured you can skip to Step 2. To create a new VPC, log into your AWS account go to Services > VPC> Create VPC. Similar to creating your VMC SDDCm it is paramount that plan your CIDR range appropriately so can assign subnetting correctly based on what you are trying to accomplish. ** Make sure you are selecting the correct AWS Region based on your requirements! **

Next, create a subnet that you will assign to the VPC. This is why understanding the CIDR ranges is important as you cannot have any overlap between your VPC CIDR and VPC subnets so keep that in mind as you build things out.

Creating a subnet assigned to the AWS VPC

Step 2: Deploy a AWS Transit Gateway (TGW). For reference, an AWS Transit Gateway connects VPCs and on-premises networks through a central hub. Keep in mind the default ASN number for the AWS TGW is 64512. If you are going to use an existing TGW, get the correct number from your team. For the sake of this blog, I setup the TGW with all the default settings.

Step 3: Create a Customer Gateway (CGW). A CGW is a resource that you create in AWS that represents the customer gateway device in your on-premises network, or VMC in this situation. 

In order to configure the CGW, you need to enter the VPN Public IP listed in the Networking & Security section of the SDDC console.

Step 4: With your transit and customer gateways configured, it’s time to create the VPN connection from the AWS side. Go to Services > VPC > Site-to-Site VPN Connections > Create VPN Connection. Name the VPN connection and select “Transit Gateway” as the gateway type and add your CGW. Take note that you can also add a new CGW didn’t as a part of the previous steps. We want to set the routing options to dynamic so we take advantage of BGP. My personal preference is to define the CIDR and per AWS documentation, this needs to be a /30 within a certain range. I also created a basic preshared key rather than have AWS create the key randomly.

AWS VPN Configuration

Step 5: Download the VPN configuration as a generic file. This is where you can validate the configuration and use it for configuring the VPN from the VMware Cloud SDDC Console.

Step 6: Configure the VPN on the SDDC. Go to the VMC SDDC Console > Networking & Security > VPN > Route Based > Add VPN. Here you want to take the Virtual Private Gateway Outside IP and enter that into the Remote Public IP Field. Take the Customer Gateway Inside IP Address and enter that number as the BGP Local IP. Next, take the Virtual Private Gateway Inside IP and enter that into the BGP Remote IP field. All that’s left is to enter the BGP ASN number that your configured earlier as a part of the TGW creation. It should also be listed in the config file you downloaded. If all numbers are correct, you should see the VPN Tunnel and BGP come up in a matter of minutes! If the VPN comes up and BGP does not, check your IPs and ASN numbers. Additional help can also be found here!!!!

You now have a working VPN from AWS to VMC!!! While the tunnel is up, there is more work to do so you can fully test traffic. In Part 2 I will cover routing tables and SDDC Gateway rules to enable two way communication. Stay tuned!!!!

Deploying a VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC End to End

For those of you who are ready to deploy your first Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) on VMware Cloud on AWS, there is a little bit more than meets the eye when it comes to the initial deployment. As a part of the VMware TAM Lab series, I demonstrate how to deploy an SDDC from start to finish, including the configuration of the VPC in AWS.

**SHAMELESS PLUG** – Subscribe to the TAM Lab YouTube channel. We are covering all VMware Technologies and use cases….including how to go about building your own home lab. Check it out!!!

AWS re:Invent 2018 – Day 1

This is where things really get moving. I’m happy to say I didn’t regret gorging myself with wings the night before and was ready to hit the ground running to see re:Invent in full swing. Day 1 step count…15,308 (7.57 mi). I started off the morning by attending everyone’s favorite topic….SECURITY!!! This session was spent debunking 13 Cloud Security Myths. A few things that I already knew were reinforced. One, public clouds are more secure that on-prem data centers. Two, security should be the first thing you think about when deploying everything from applications to infrastructure. Three, if you continue to follow older security models that have been around for years, you are missing the entire point of the cloud!

 

Next up was a two-hour workshop getting some hands-on experience with the AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). VPCs are the backbone to everything AWS including VMware Cloud on AWS. Although I have taken some online classes via AWS and A Cloud Guru, it was great to spend more time setting up VPCs as it is core to understanding how AWS works. We worked in groups of six where we set up VPC peering with each other. My main takeaway….have a concrete plan for the CIDR blocks you choose for your VPCs. If you don’t plan correctly, you will have to start over. A tool given out by the architects running the session was http://subnet-calculator.org/cidr.php . Bookmark it! An added benefit to the workshop was $25 in AWS credits!

Next stop was the Expo Hall and welcome reception. Of course, the hall was massive with hundreds of booths and all the SWAG you can handle. I decided to take a look around beforehand so I knew where to get “the good stuff.” Since I’m a VMware guy, it was awesome to see us well represented we even have our newest members of the family in Heptio (met Joe Beda at the booth) and Cloud Health with booths of their own.

The last session of the day was a VMware Cloud on AWS Deep Dive with Andy Reedy and Jin Zhang. If you ever get a chance to spend time with Andy, I would recommend it. I met him two years ago at some customer meetings and he is a fantastic architect. He got into the weeds with VMWonAWS regarding the host hardware and the interconnectivity between the vSphere hosts and AWS native services. We even went into the i3 and r5 models for EBS backed VSAN. It was a great session. As I have said before, AWS and VMware have a deep partnership to make this service available. The pace of innovation is blinding! Day 2 is next!!

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