Deploying as Physical Appliance

Prerequisites and Guidelines

Before you proceed with deploying the Nexus Dashboard cluster, you must:

  • You must have reviewed and completed the general prerequisites described in the Deployment Overview.

  • Ensure you are using the correct hardware.

    The physical appliance form factor is supported on the original Application Services Engine appliance hardware only. The following table lists the PIDs and specifications of the physical appliance servers:

    Table 1. Supported Hardware

    PID

    Hardware

    SE-NODE-G2

    • UCS C220 M5 Chassis

    • 2x 10 core 2.2G Intel Xeon Silver CPU

    • 4x 25G Virtual Interface Card 1455

    • 4x 2.4TB HDDs

    • SSD, NVMe and M2 SATA

    • 256 GB of RAM

    • 1050W power supply

    SE-CL-L3

    		 A cluster of 3x SE-NODE-G2 appliances.

    Note

    The above hardware supports Nexus Dashboard software only. If any other operating system is installed, the node can no longer be used as a Nexus Dashboard node.

You must have at least a 3-node cluster. Up to four additional worker nodes can be added for horizontal scaling if required by the type and number of applications you will deploy.

Deploying Cisco Application Services Engine as Physical Appliance

This section describes how to deploy Cisco Application Services Engine cluster on the physical Cisco ASE servers. You cannot deploy this image on any other hardware.


Note

When you first receive the Application Services Engine physical hardware, it comes preloaded with the software image. If you simply want to configure the existing software, skip the first two steps in this section.

Alternatively, you can choose to redeploy the software stack on the Application Services Engine hardware. For example if your existing hardware came with an earlier release image and you want to deploy the Release 1.1.3d instead without upgrading.

Before you begin

Procedure

Step 1

Download the Cisco Application Services Engine image.

Skip this step if you are configuring the pre-installed image.

  1. Browse to the Software Download page.

    https://software.cisco.com/download/home/286324815/type

  2. Click Application Services Engine Software.

  3. From the left sidebar, choose the Application Services Engine version you want to download.

  4. Download the Cisco Application Services Engine image (case-dk9.<version>.iso).

Step 2

Deploy the ISO to every server in your cluster.

Skip this step if you are configuring the pre-installed image.
Step 3

Configure the first node.

  1. Connect to first node's console using CIMC management IP.

    You will be prompted to run the first-time setup utility:

    [...]
[ OK ] Started atomix-boot-setup.
       Starting atomix-ready...
       Starting Initial cloud-init job (pre-networking)...
Starting cloud data source ...
Press any key to run first-boot setup on this console...

  2. Enter the cluster name for the service node.

    Cluster Name: ServiceEngine

  3. Specify that this is the master node.

    All nodes in the cluster will be set to master. 

    Master Node? (Y/n): y

  4. Specify that you are configuring the first node.

    When configuring second and third node, you will be able to skip some steps by downloading configuration from the first node. Since this is the first node you are configuring, enter n. 

    Download Config From Peers? (Y/n): n

  5. Enter the node name for the service node.

    Node Name: ServiceNodel

  6. Enter and confirm the password for the root user.

    This password will be used for the Application Services Engine's rescue-user login, as well as the initial password for the GUI's admin user. 

    Admin Password:
Reenter Admin Password:

  7. Enter the data network information.

    You will be prompted to enter the data network IP address, netmask, and gateway.

    Optionally, you can also provide the VLAN ID for the network. For most deployments, you can leave this field blank.

    Data Network:
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.6.172/24
  Gateway: 192.168.6.1
  Vlan ID (optional): 410

  8. Enter the management network information.

    You will be prompted to enter the data network IP address, netmask, and gateway.

    Management Network:
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.9.172/24
  Gateway: 192.168.9.1

  9. Provide the list of other nodes.

    Data network IP address and serial numbers of the other master nodes in the cluster.

    Master List (Space Separated Data Network IP,Serialnumber List)
(Ex: 192.192.5.101,WZP22451Q1R 192.192.5.103,WZP22451Q5A): 192.168.6.173,WZP23340A7P 192.168.6.174,WZP23340A7Q

  10. Provide the DNS details.

    You will need to specify the DNS hostname or IP address as well as the search domain to be used by the Application Services Engine node. 

    DNS:
  Providers (Space Separated IP List): 192.168.10.10
  Search Domains (Space Separated List): tme-lab.local

  11. Provide the NTP servers.

    NTP Servers (Space Separated IP List): 192.168.10.120

  12. Provide the internal networks information.

    You will need to provide the service and application subnet information.

    The application overlay network defines the address space used by the application's services running in the Application Services Engine. The services network is an internal network used by the Application Services Engine and its processes. Both of these subnets must be /16.

    Note 

    Communications between containers deployed in different Application Services Engine nodes is VXLAN-encapsulated and uses the data interfaces IP addresses as source and destination. This means that the Application Overlay and Service Overlay addresses are never exposed outside the data network and any traffic on these subnets is routed internally and does not leave the cluster nodes. As such, when configuring these networks, ensure that they are unique and do not overlap with any existing networks or services you may need to access from the Application Services Engine cluster nodes 

    Service Subnet (not exposed externally) [100.80.0.0/16]: 100.80.0.0/16
App Subnet (not exposed externally) [172.17.0.1/16]: 172.17.0.1/16

Example:

Starting apic-sn setup utility
Setup utility for Application Services Engine with SerialNumber WZP23340A7X and running version 1.1.3d
Use AD anytime to start over
Cluster Name: ServiceEngine
Master Node? (Y/n): y
Download Config From Peers? (Y/n): n
Node Name: ServiceNodel
Admin Password:
Reenter Admin Password:
Data Network:
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.6.172/24
  Gateway: 192.168.6.1
  Vlan ID (optional): 410
Management Network:
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.9.172/24
  Gateway: 192.168.9.1
Master List (Space Separated Data Network IP,Serialnumber List)
(Ex: 192.192.5.101,WZP22451Q1R 192.192.5.103,WZP22451Q5A): 192.168.6.173,WZP23340A7P 192.168.6.174,WZP23340A7Q
DNS:
  Providers (Space Separated IP List): 192.168.10.10
  Search Domains (Space Separated List): tme-lab.local
NTP Servers (Space Separated IP List): 192.168.10.120
Service Subnet (not exposed externally) [100.80.0.0/16]: 100.80.0.0/16
App Subnet (not exposed externally) [172.17.0.1/16]: 172.17.0.1/16
Step 4

Review the configuration

After you enter all the configuration, review it and confirm.

Please review the config:
App Subnet: 172.17.0.1/16
Cluster Name: ServiceEngine
Cluster Size: 3
DNS:
  Domain Name: dev-infra12.case.local
  Providers:
  - 171.70.168.183
  Search Domains:
  - atomix.local
Download Config: false
Data Network:
  Gateway: 192.168.6.1
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.6.172/24
  Vlan ID: 410
Management Network:
  Gateway: 192.168.9.1
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.9.172/24
Master List:
- ipAddress: 192.168.6.173
  name: WZP23340A7P
  serialNumber: WZP23340A7P
- ipAddress: 192.168.6.174
  name: WZP23340A7Q
  serialNumber: WZP23340A7Q
NTP Servers:
- 192.168.10.120
Node Name: ServiceNodel
Node Role: Master
Node Type: Physical
Password: <hidden>
Service Subnet: 100.80.0.0/16

Re-enter config?(y/N) n

Login with rescue-user & issue acidiag health to check cluster status

CentOS Linux 7 (Core)
Kernel 4.14.174stock-1 on an x86_64

ServiceNodel login:
Step 5

Configure the second node.

  1. Connect to the node's console using CIMC management IP.

    You will be prompted to run the first-time setup utility:

    [...]
[ OK ] Started atomix-boot-setup.
       Starting atomix-ready...
       Starting Initial cloud-init job (pre-networking)...
Starting cloud data source ...
Press any key to run first-boot setup on this console...

  2. Enter the cluster name for the service node.

    Cluster Name: ServiceEngine

  3. Specify that this is the master node.

    All nodes in the cluster will be set to master. 

    Master Node? (Y/n): y

  4. Specify that you've already configured the first node.

    When configuring second and third node, you can skip some steps by downloading configuration from the first node. 

    Download Config From Peers? (Y/n): y

  5. Enter the node name for the service node.

    Node Name: ServiceNode2

  6. Enter and confirm the password for the rescue-user user.

    We recommend configuring the same password for all nodes, however you can choose to provide different passwords for the second and third node. If you provide different passwords, the first node's password will be used as the initial password of the admin user in the GUI. 

    Admin Password:
Reenter Admin Password:

  7. Enter the data network information.

    You will be prompted to enter the data network IP address, netmask, and gateway.

    Optionally, you can also provide the VLAN ID for the network. For most deployments, you can skip the VLAN ID parameter. 

    Data Network:
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.6.173/24
  Gateway: 192.168.6.1
  Vlan ID (optional):

  8. Enter the management network information.

    You will be prompted to enter the data network IP address, netmask, and gateway.

    Management Network:
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.9.173/24
  Gateway: 192.168.9.1

  9. Provide the list of other nodes.

    Data network IP address and serial numbers of the other master nodes in the cluster.

    Master List (Space Separated Data Network IP,Serialnumber List)
(Ex: 192.192.5.101,WZP22451Q1R 192.192.5.103,WZP22451Q5A): 192.168.6.172,WZP23340A7X 192.168.6.174,WZP23340A7Q

  10. Review the configuration

    After you enter all the configuration for second and third node, review it and confirm.

    Please review the config
Cluster Name: ServiceEngine Cluster Size: 3
Data Network:
  Gateway: 192.168.6.1
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.6.173/24
  Vlan ID: 410
  Download Config: true
Management Network:
  Gateway: 192.168.9.1
  IP Address/Mask: 192.168.9.173/24
  Master List:
    ipAddress: 192.168.6.172 serialNumber: WZP23340A7X
    ipAddress: 192.168.6.174 serialNumber: WZP23340A7Q
Node Name: ServiceNode2
Node Role: Master Node
Type: Physical Password: <hidden>
Re-enter config?(y/N): n
Step 6

Repeat the previous step to configure the third node.
Step 7

Verify that the cluster is healthy.

It may take up to 30 minutes for the cluster to form and all the services to start.

After all three nodes are ready, you can log in to any one node via SSH and run the following command to verify cluster health:

  1. Verify that the cluster is up and running.

    You can check the current status of cluster deployment by logging in to any of the nodes and running the acidiag health command.

    While the cluster is converging, you may see the following outputs:

    $ acidiag health
k8s install is in-progress
    $ acidiag health
k8s services not in desired state - [...]
    $ acidiag health
k8s: Etcd cluster is not ready
    When the cluster is up and running, the following output will be displayed:
    $ acidiag health
All components are healthy

  2. Log in to the Application Services Engine GUI.

    After the cluster becomes available, you can access it by browsing to any one of your nodes' management IP addresses. The default password for the admin user is the same as the rescue-user password you chose for the first node of the Application Services Engine cluster.

    When you first log in, you will be prompted to change the password.