Provisioning an infrastructure

In the previous steps we have created the logical networks and endpoints on MetalSoft but so far there have been no actual configurations on the switches. Let’s do that now:

1. Create an Infrastructure

Let’s go ahead and create an infrastructure for a tenant.

Go to upper right corner of the admin and click on the circle with the User’s initials. Select Infrastructure Designer (or go to the “burger” menu next to the logo on the left). The infrastructure editor should appear. If there is no infrastructure the system will prompt you to create one:

Name the infrastructure tenant01-infra01
Select the site in which to create the infrastructure

2. Add endpoints to the infrastructure

Click Add element
Select Endpoint
Input the name of the endpoint added: Server01, label server01
Select the server from the dropdown of the endpoint.

Repeat the steps above and add the rest of the endpoints

3. Add the pre-created logical network

Add the logical networks to the infrastructure editor.

Click Add element
Select pre-created network
Select the network that you created before

4. Connect the endpoints

Select Tagged
Select Access mode Layer 2
Select Redundancy: Active-Active
Select Implementation: Distributed Link Aggregation

5. Deploy the infrastructure

Click Deploy
Leave all options as they are
Click Deploy

You should now wait for the infrastructure to be deployed. At the end of the deploy all of the switches will have been updated with the configuration required to connect the endpoints to the logical network.

Connection Options

The following are the options possible for

Tagged -> If Enabled, the traffic will be sent to (and expected from) the server tagged with the VLAN that was allocated for the respective logical network. If unchecked the traffic will be sent untagged.
Access mode -> Only Layer 2 is currently supported
Redundancy ->
- Disabled - If the endpoint has multiple links to the same fabric, one will be selected at random and configured on the switch side to join the L2 broadcast domain.
- Active-Active: Implementation:
  - None - The ports will NOT be aggregated but simply added all to the same layer 2 broadcast domain. Only two ports are currently supported.
  - Link aggregation - The ports will be aggregated on the same switches but will NOT be aggregated across switches. Only two ports are currently supported.
  - Distributed Link aggregation - The ports will be aggregated across different switches by using the Vendor specific implementation for Multi-chassis link aggregation: MLAG, MCLAG, VLT, VCP etc. Only two ports are currently supported.
MTU - Maximum Transmit Unit - Set to override the default configured on the Network Profile or logical network. The largest value will be used. Only two ports are currently supported.
Disable auto IP allocation - By default, each endpoint connection to a logical network will receive an IP from each of the subnets listed in the IP allocation strategy.

The following options are available only for servers:

Provides the default route - If the server is connected to more than two logical networks, and the logical network has a subnet configured in the IP allocation strategy that has a Gatway set, that IP will be set as the default gateway in the operating system.
Provision Instance DNS records - If the system has a DNS extension registered, it will be invoked to configure the DNS records for the instances of this instance array for all associated IPs created from the subnets configured on the logical network.
Provision Load Balancing DNS records - If the system has a DNS extension registered, it will be invoked to configure a load-balancing DNS record for ALL the associated IPs created from the subnets configured on the logical network. This can be used to provide DNS-based load-balancing.