As a Technical Account Manager (TAM), I’ve seen many enterprise IT transformations—but few as impactful as the one I led with a global pharmaceutical customer migrating to VCF 5.2.1. The challenge? Disparate vSphere environments across five regions, each manually managed with inconsistent NSX and vSAN configurations.
Why VCF 5.2.1 Was a Game-Changer: With the full-stack automation in VCF 5.2.1, we leveraged the new multi-site federation enhancements. Site onboarding was seamless thanks to a single SDDC Manager console, while new workflow-driven NSX upgrades ensured consistent fabric configuration across regions.
In VCF 5.2.1, multisite federation refers to the ability to link multiple VMware Cloud Foundation instances (SDDCs) together, allowing them to be managed as a single, unified environment. This is achieved through the use of a Global Manager, which orchestrates the federation and provides a centralized view of the network and security policies across all SDDCs. VMware Cloud Foundation offers two main solutions for multi-location setups: NSX Multisite and NSX Federation.
Key aspects of multisite federation in VCF 5.2.1:
NSX Global Manager:
This component acts as the central point of control for network and security policies across multiple VCF instances, enabling consistent configurations and automation.
NSX Federation:
This mechanism allows for the stretching of network segments and security policies between different VCF instances, creating a virtualized network that spans multiple physical locations.
Benefits:
Simplified Management:
Administrators can manage network and security policies across all SDDCs from a single point of control.
Enhanced Isolation:
Network segmentation and security policies can be implemented consistently across all VCF instances, ensuring proper isolation between different workloads.
Scalability and High Availability:
Multisite federation enables the scaling of infrastructure across multiple locations, enhancing overall availability and resilience.
TAM Insight:
We built a custom deployment workbook tailored to each site, documenting BOMs and change windows. The pharma client appreciated the ability to apply uniform security posture via NSX Distributed Firewall (DFW) policies globally.
Outcomes:
- 43% reduction in deployment time across regions
- Standardized templates through vRealize Lifecycle Manager integration
- Audit-readiness improved with Aria Operations for Logs and Aria Automation
