VMware

The following are some architectural highlights of Kubernetes clusters provisioned by Palette on VMware:

• Kubernetes nodes can be distributed across multiple-compute clusters, which serve as distinct fault domains.

• Support for static IP as well as DHCP. If your are using DHCP, Dynamic DNS is required.

• IP pool management for assigning blocks of IPs dedicated to clusters or projects.

• A Private Cloud Gateway (PCG) that you set up within the environment facilitates communications between the Palette management platform and vCenter installed in the private data center.

  The PCG is Palette's on-prem component to enable support for isolated, private cloud, or data center environments. When the PCG is installed on-prem, it registers itself with Palette's SaaS portal and enables secure communications between the SaaS portal and private cloud environment.

  

Prerequisites

The following prerequisites must be met before deploying a Kubernetes clusters in VMware:

• vSphere version 7.0 or above. vSphere 6.7 is supported but we do not recommend it, as it reached end of general support in 2022.

  Palette supports port groups as follows. Opaque networks in vCenter Server are not supported.

  • Virtual machine port groups on vSphere standard switch
  • Distributed port groups on vSphere distributed switch
  • NSX-T distributed virtual port group

• A Resource Pool configured across the hosts onto which the workload clusters will be provisioned. Every host in the Resource Pool will need access to shared storage, such as vSAN, to be able to make use of high-availability (HA) control planes.

• Network Time Protocol (NTP) configured on each ESXi host.

• An active vCenter account with all the permissions listed in VMware Privileges.

• Installed PCG for VMware. Installing the PCG will automatically register a cloud account for VMware in Palette. You can register your additional VMware cloud accounts in Palette as described in the Create VMware Cloud Account section.

• A subnet with egress access to the internet (direct or via proxy):

  • For proxy: HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY (both required).
  • Outgoing internet connection on port 443 to api.spectrocloud.com.

• PCG IP requirements are:

  • One node with one IP address or three nodes for HA with three IP addresses.
  • One Kubernetes control-plane (VIP).
  • One Kubernetes control-plane (extra).

• IPs for application workload services, such as LoadBalancer service.

• A DNS to resolve public internet names, such as api.spectrocloud.com.

• Shared Storage between vSphere hosts.

• A cluster profile created in Palette for VMWare.

• Zone tagging for dynamic storage allocation for persistent storage.

info

The following naming conventions apply to vSphere Region and Zone tags:

• Valid tags consist of alphanumeric characters.

• Tags must start and end with an alphanumeric character.

• The regex used for validation is (([A-Za-z0-9][-A-Za-z0-9_.]*)?[A-Za-z0-9])?

Some example Tags are: MyValue, my_value, and 12345.

Zone Tagging

You can use tags to create node zones and regions for your Kubernetes clusters. The node zones and regions can be used to dynamically place Kubernetes workloads and achieve higher availability. Kubernetes nodes inherit the zone and region tags as Labels. Kubernetes workloads can use the node labels to ensure that the workloads are deployed to the correct zone and region.

The following is an example of node labels that are discovered and inherited from vSphere tags. The tag values are applied to Kubernetes nodes in vSphere.

topology.kubernetes.io/region=usdc topology.kubernetes.io/zone=zone3 failure-domain.beta.kubernetes.io/region=usdc
failure-domain.beta.kubernetes.io/zone=zone3

info

To learn more about node zones and regions, refer to the Node Zones/Regions Topology section of the Cloud Provider Interface documentation.

Zone tagging is required to install Palette and is helpful for Kubernetes workloads deployed in vSphere clusters through Palette if they have persistent storage needs. Use vSphere tags on data centers and compute clusters to create distinct zones in your environment. You can use vSphere Tag Categories and Tags to create zones in your vSphere environment and assign them to vSphere objects.

The zone tags you assign to your vSphere objects, such as a datacenter and clusters are applied to the Kubernetes nodes you deploy through Palette into your vSphere environment. Kubernetes clusters deployed to other infrastructure providers, such as public cloud may have other native mechanisms for auto discovery of zones.

For example, assume a vCenter environment contains three compute clusters, cluster-1, cluster-2, and cluster-3. To support this environment you create the tag categories k8s-region and k8s-zone. The k8s-region is assigned to the datacenter, and the k8s-zone tag is assigned to the compute clusters.

The following table lists the tag values for the data center and compute clusters.

vSphere Object	Assigned Name	Tag Category	Tag Value
Datacenter	dc-1	k8s-region	region1
Cluster	cluster-1	k8s-zone	az1
Cluster	cluster-2	k8s-zone	az2
Cluster	cluster-3	k8s-zone	az3

Create a tag category and tag values for each datacenter and cluster in your environment. Use the tag categories to create zones. Use a name that is meaningful and that complies with the tag requirements listed in the following section.

Tag Requirements

The following requirements apply to tags:

• A valid tag must consist of alphanumeric characters.

• The tag must start and end with an alphanumeric characters.

• The regex used for tag validation is (([A-Za-z0-9][-A-Za-z0-9_.]*)?[A-Za-z0-9])?

vSphere Permissions

The vSphere user account that deploys Palette require access to the following vSphere objects and permissions listed in the following table. Review the vSphere objects and privileges required to ensure each role is assigned the required privileges.

Spectro Root Role Privileges

The Spectro root role privileges are only applied to root objects and data center objects. Select the tab for the vSphere version you are using to view the required privileges for the spectro root role.

8.0.x

vSphere Object	Privilege
CNS	Searchable
Datastore	Browse datastore
Host	Configuration Storage partition configuration
vSphere Tagging	Create and edit vSphere tags
Network	Assign network
Sessions	Validate session
VM Storage Policies	View VM storage policies
Storage views	View

7.0.x

vSphere Object	Privileges
CNS	Searchable
Datastore	Browse datastore
Host	Configuration Storage partition configuration
vSphere tagging	Create vSphere Tag Edit vSphere Tag
Network	Assign network
Profile-driven storage	View
Sessions	Validate session
Storage views	View

6.0.x

vSphere Object	Privileges
CNS	Searchable
Datastore	Browse datastore
Host	Configuration Storage partition configuration
vSphere tagging	Create vSphere Tag Edit vSphere Tag
Network	Assign network
Profile-driven storage	Profile-driven storage view
Sessions	Validate session
Storage views	View

warning

If the network is a Distributed Port Group under a vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS), ReadOnly access to the VDS without “Propagate to children” is required.

Spectro Role Privileges

As listed in the table, apply spectro role privileges to vSphere objects you intend to use for Palette installation. A separate table lists Spectro role privileges for VMs by category.

During the installation, images and Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) files are downloaded to the folder you selected. These images are cloned from the folder and applied VMs that deployed during the installation.

Select the tab for the vSphere version you are using to view the required privileges for the spectro role.

8.0.x

vSphere Object	Privileges
CNS	Searchable
Datastore	Allocate space Browse datastore Low-level file operations Remove file Update VM files Update VM metadata
Folder	Create Folder Delete folder Move folder Rename folder
Host	Local operations: Reconfigure VM
Network	Assign network
Resource	Apply recommendation Assign VM to resource pool Migrate powered off VM Migrate powered on VM Query vMotion
Sessions	Validate sessions
Storage policies	View access for VM storage policies is required. Ensure StorageProfile.View is available.
spectro-templates	Read only. This is the vSphere folder created during the install. For airgap installs, you must manually create this folder.
Storage views	View
Tasks	Create task Update task
vApp	Import View OVF environment Configure vAPP application Configure vApp instance
vSphere tagging	Assign or Unassign vSphere Tag Create vSphere Tag Delete vSphere Tag Edit vSphere Tag

The following table lists spectro role privileges for VMs by category. All privileges are for the vSphere object, Virtual Machines.

Category	Privileges
Change Configuration	Acquire disk lease Add existing disk Add new disk Add or remove device Advanced configuration Change CPU count Change memory Change settings Change swapfile placement Change resource Change host USB device Configure raw device Configure managedBy Display connection settings Extend virtual disk Modify device settings Query fault tolerance compatibity Query unowned files Reload from path Remove disk Rename Reset guest information Set annotation Toggle disk change tracking Toggle fork parent Upgrade VM compatibility
Edit Inventory	Create from existing Create new Move Register Remove Unregister
Guest Operations	Alias modification Alias query Modify guest operations Invoke programs Queries
Interaction	Console Interaction Power on/off
Provisioning	Allow disk access Allow file access Allow read-only disk access Allow VM download Allow VM files upload Clone template Clone VM Create template from VM Customize guest Deploy template Mark as template Mark as VM Modify customization specification Promote disks Read customization specifications
Service Configuration	Allow notifications Allow polling of global event notifications Manage service configurations Modify service configurations Query service configurations Read service configurations
Snapshot Management	Create snapshot Remove snapshot Rename snapshot Revert to snapshot
Sphere Replication	Configure replication Manage replication Monitor replication
vSAN	Cluster: ShallowRekey

7.0.x

vSphere Object	Privileges
CNS	Searchable
Datastore	Allocate space Browse datastore Low-level file operations Remove file Update VM files Update VM metadata
Folder	Create Folder Delete folder Move folder Rename folder
Host	Local operations: Reconfigure VM
Network	Assign network
Resource	Apply recommendation Assign VM to resource pool Migrate powered off VM Migrate powered on VM Query vMotion
Profile-driven storage	Profile-driven storage view
Sessions	Validate session
spectro-templates	Read only. This is the vSphere folder created during the install. For airgap installs, you must manually create this folder.
Storage views	Configure service View
Tasks	Create task Update task
vApp	Import View OVF environment Configure vAPP applications Configure vApp instances
vSphere tagging	Assign or unassign vSphere Tag Create vSphere Tag Delete vSphere Tag Edit vSphere Tag

The following table lists spectro role privileges for VMs by category. All privileges are for the vSphere object, Virtual Machines.

Category	Privileges
Change Configuration	Acquire disk lease Add existing disk Add new disk Add or remove device Advanced configuration Change CPU count Change memory Change Settings Change Swapfile placement Change resource Change host USB device Configure Raw device Configure managedBy Display connection settings Extend virtual disk Modify device settings Query fault tolerance compatibity Query unowned files Reload from path Remove disk Rename Reset guest information Set annotation Toggle disk change tracking Toggle fork parent Upgrade VM compatibility
Edit Inventory	Create from existing Create new Move Register Remove Unregister
Guest Operations	Alias modification Alias query Modify guest operations Invoke programs Query guest operations
Interaction	Console Interaction Power on/off
Provisioning	Allow disk access Allow file access Allow read-only disk access Allow VM download Allow VM upload Clone template Clone VM Create template from VM Customize guest Deploy template Mark as template Modify customization specifications Promote disks Read customization specifications
Service Configuration	Allow notifications Allow polling of global event notifications Manage service configurations Modify service configurations Query service configurations Read service configurations
Snapshot Management	Create snapshot Remove snapshot Rename snapshot Revert to snapshot
vSphere Replication	Configure replication Manage replication Monitor replication
vSAN	Cluster ShallowRekey

6.0.x

vSphere Object	Privileges
CNS	Searchable
Datastore	Allocate space Browse datastore Low-level file operations Remove file Update VM files Update VM metadata
Folder	Create Folder Delete folder Move folder Rename folder
Host	Local operations: Reconfigure VM
Network	Assign network
Profile-driven storage	Profile-driven storage view
Resource	Apply recommendation Assign VM to resource pool Migrate powered off VM Migrate powered on VM Query vMotion
Sessions	Validate session
spectro-templates	Read only. This is the vSphere folder created during the install. For airgap installs, you must manually create this folder.
Storage views	View
Tasks	Create task Update task
vApp	Import View OVF environment Configure vAPP applications Configure vApp instances
vSphere tagging	Assign or unassign vSphere Tag Create vSphere Tag Delete vSphere Tag Edit vSphere Tag

The following table lists spectro role privileges for VMs by category. All privileges are for the vSphere object, Virtual Machines.

Category	Privileges
Change Configuration	Acquire disk lease Add existing disk Add new disk Add or remove device Advanced configuration Change CPU count Change memory Change Settings Change Swapfile placement Change resource Change host USB device Configure Raw device Configure managedBy Display connection settings Extend virtual disk Modify device settings Query fault tolerance compatibity Query unowned files Reload from path Remove disk Rename Reset guest information Set annotation Toggle disk change tracking Toggle fork parent Upgrade VM compatibility
Edit Inventory	Create from existing Create new Move Register Remove Unregister
Guest Operations	Alias modification Alias query Modify guest operations Invoke programs Query guest operations
Interaction	Console Interaction Power on/off
Provisioning	Allow disk access Allow file access Allow read-only disk access Allow VM download Allow VM upload Clone template Clone VM Create template from VM Customize guest Deploy template Mark as template Modify customization specifications Promote disks Read customization specifications
Service Configuration	Allow notifications Allow polling of global event notifications Manage service configurations Modify service configurations Query service configurations Read service configurations
Snapshot Management	Create snapshot Remove snapshot Rename snapshot Revert to snapshot
vSphere Replication	Configure replication Manage replication Monitor replication
vSAN	Cluster ShallowRekey

Create VMware Cloud Gateway

Use the Palette CLI to deploy a PCG cluster. Review the prerequisites for each option to help you identify the correct installation method.

warning

Use the latest version of the Palette CLI that matches the version of your Palette or Palette VerteX instance. You can find the newest version of the Palette CLI on the Downloads page.

Prerequisites

• Palette version 4.0.X or greater.

• A Palette API key. Refer to the Create API Key page for guidance.

• Download the Palette CLI from the Downloads page and install the CLI. Refer to the Palette CLI Install guide to learn more.

• You can set up the PCG as a single or three-node cluster based on your requirements for high availability (HA). The following t-shirt sizes are suggested for a VMware Private Cloud Gateway PCG. The PCG size impacts the maximum number of simultaneous cluster deployments.

  Use the following tables to determine the appropriate PCG node resource size for your environment.

  Single-Node Cluster

  Size	Nodes	CPU	Memory	Storage	Maximum concurrent cluster deployments
  S	1	4	4 GB	60 GB	1-3
  M	1	8	8 GB	100 GB	4-6
  L	1	16	16 GB	120 GB	7-10

  High-Availability (HA) Cluster

  Size	Nodes	CPU	Memory	Storage	Maximum concurrent cluster deployments
  S	3	4	4 GB	60 GB	4-6
  M	3	8	8 GB	100 GB	7-10
  L	3	16	16 GB	120 GB	10-15

• Sufficient available IP addresses within the configured vSphere subnets.

info

Self-hosted Palette installations provide a system PCG out-of-the-box and typically do not require a separate, user-installed PCG. However, you can create additional PCGs as needed to support provisioning into remote data centers that do not have a direct incoming connection from the management console.

Install PCG

1. In an x86 Linux host, open up a terminal session.

2. Use the Palette CLI login command to authenticate the CLI with Palette. When prompted, enter the information listed in the following table.

   
   

   palette login
   
   

   Parameter	Description
   Spectro Cloud Console	Enter the Palette endpoint URL. When using the Palette SaaS service, enter https://console.spectrocloud.com. When using a self-hosted instance of Palette, enter the URL for that instance.
   Allow Insecure Connection	Enabling this option bypasses x509 verification. Enter y if you are using a self-hosted Palette instance with self-signed TLS certificates. Otherwise, enter n.
   Spectro Cloud API Key	Enter your Palette API Key.
   Spectro Cloud Organization	Enter your Palette Organization name.
   Spectro Cloud Project	Enter your desired project name within the selected Organization.

3. Once you have authenticated successfully, invoke the PCG installer by issuing the following command. When prompted, enter the information listed in each of the following tables.

   
   

   palette pcg install
   
   

   Parameter	Description
   Cloud Type	Choose VMware vSphere.
   Private Cloud Gateway Name	Enter a custom name for the PCG. Example: vmware-pcg-1.
   Share PCG Cloud Account across platform Projects	Enter y if you want the Cloud Account associated with the PCG to be available from all projects within your organization. Enter n if you want the Cloud Account to only be available at the tenant admin scope.

4. Next, provide environment configurations for the cluster. Refer to the following table for information about each option.

Parameter	Description
HTTPS Proxy	Leave this blank unless you are using an HTTPS Proxy. This setting will be propagated to all PCG nodes and all of its cluster nodes. Example: https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@PROXYIP:PROXYPORT.
HTTP Proxy	Leave this blank unless you are using an HTTP Proxy. This setting will be propagated to all PCG nodes and all of its cluster nodes. Example: http://USERNAME:PASSWORD@PROXYIP:PROXYPORT.
No Proxy	You will be prompted to provide a list of local network CIDR addresses, hostnames, and domain names that should be excluded from being a proxy. This setting will be propagated to all the nodes to bypass the proxy server. Example if you have a self-hosted environment: my.company.com,10.10.0.0/16.
Proxy CA Certificate Filepath	The default is blank. You can provide the file path of a CA certificate on the installer host. If provided, this CA certificate will be copied to each host in the PCG cluster during deployment. The provided path will be used on the PCG cluster hosts. Example: /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/ca.crt.
Pod CIDR	Enter the CIDR pool that will be used to assign IP addresses to pods in the PCG cluster. The pod IP addresses should be unique and not overlap with any machine IPs in the environment.
Service IP Range	Enter the IP address range that will be used to assign IP addresses to services in the PCG cluster. The service IP addresses should be unique and not overlap with any machine IPs in the environment.

5. After the environment options, the next set of prompts is for configuring the PCG cluster for the VMware environment. The following table contains information about each prompt.

Parameter	Description
vSphere Endpoint	vSphere endpoint: FQDN or IP address, without the HTTP scheme https:// or http://. Example: vcenter.mycompany.com
vSphere Username	vSphere account username.
vSphere Password	vSphere account password.
Allow Insecure Connection	Enabling this option bypasses x509 verification. Enter y if using a vSphere instance with self-signed TLS certificates. Otherwise, enter n.

6. Next, fill out VMware account configurations. Specify values for the following properties.

Parameter	Description
Datacenter	The data center to target when deploying the PCG cluster.
Folder	The folder to target when deploying the PCG cluster.
Fault Domains	Specify any fault domains you would like to use.
Cluster	The compute cluster to use for the PCG deployment.
Network	The port group the PCG cluster will be connected to.
Resource Pool	The resource pool to target when deploying the PCG cluster.
Storage Type	Select the datastore or VM Storage policy to apply to the PCG cluster.
NTP Servers	Specify the IP address for any Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers the PCG cluster can reference.
SSH Public Keys	Provide the public OpenSSH key for the PCG cluster. Use this key when establishing an SSH connection with the PCG cluster. This prompt will result in the default text editor for the Operating System to open. Vi is the more common text editor used in Linux environments.
Cluster Size	The number of nodes that will make up the cluster. Available options are 1 or 3 . Use three nodes for a High Availability (HA) cluster.

7. Specify IP Pool configuration. You have the option to select a static placement or use Dynamic Domain Name Service (DDNS). With static placement, an IP pool is created and the PCG VMs are assigned IP addresses from the selected pool. With DDNS, PCG VMs are assigned IP addresses via DNS. Review the following tables to learn more about each parameter.

Static Placement Configuration

Parameter	Description
IP Start range	Enter the first address in the PCG IP pool range.
IP End range	Enter the last address in the PCG IP pool range.
Network Prefix	Enter the network prefix for the IP pool range. Valid values are network CIDR subnet masks from the range 0 - 32. Example: 18.
Gateway IP Address	Enter the IP address of the IP gateway.
Name servers	Comma-separated list of DNS name server IP addresses.
Name server search suffixes (optional)	Comma-separated list of DNS search domains.

DDNS Placement Configuration

Parameter	Description
Search domains	Comma-separated list of DNS search domains.

8. Specify the cluster boot configuration.

Parameter	Description
Patch OS on boot	This parameter indicates whether or not to patch the OS of the PCG hosts on the first boot.
Reboot nodes once OS patch is applied	This parameter indicates whether or not to reboot PCG nodes after OS patches are complete. This only applies if the Patch OS on boot parameter is enabled.

9. Enter the vSphere Machine configuration for the Private Cloud Gateway.

Parameter	Description
CPU	The number of CPUs in the Virtual Machine.
Memory	The number of memory to allocate to the Virtual Machine.
Storage	The amount of storage to allocate to the Virtual Machine.

10. A new PCG configuration file is generated and its location is displayed on the console. You will receive an output similar to the following.

==== PCG config saved ====
Location: :/home/demo/.palette/pcg/pcg-20230706150945/pcg.yaml

info

The CloudAccount.apiKey and Mgmt.apiKey values in the pcg.yaml are encrypted and cannot be manually updated. To change these values, use the palette pcg install --update-passwords command. Refer to the PCG command reference page for more information.

The Palette CLI will now provision a PCG cluster in your VMware environment.

warning

You cannot modify a deployed PCG cluster. If you need to make changes to the PCG cluster, you must first delete the cluster and redeploy it. We recommend you save your PCG configuration file for future use. Use the --config-only flag to save the configuration file without deploying the PCG cluster. Refer to the Generate a Configuration File section to learn more. For additional assistance, visit our Customer Support portal.

Validate

Once installed, the PCG registers itself with Palette. To verify the PCG is registered, use the following steps.

1. Log in to Palette as a tenant admin.

2. Navigate to the left Main Menu and select Tenant Settings

3. From the Tenant Settings Menu click on Private Cloud Gateways. Verify your PCG cluster is available from the list of PCG clusters displayed.

---

Upgrade PCG

Palette maintains the OS image and all configurations for the cloud gateway. Periodically, the OS images, configurations, or other components need to be upgraded to resolve security or functionality issues. Palette releases such upgrades when required and communication about the same is presented in the form of an upgrade notification on the gateway.

Administrators should review the changes and apply them at a suitable time. Upgrading a cloud gateway does not result in any downtime for the Tenant Clusters. During the upgrade process, the provisioning of new clusters might be temporarily unavailable. New cluster requests are queued while the gateway is being upgraded and are processed as soon as the gateway upgrade is complete.

Delete a VMware Cloud Gateway

The following steps need to be performed to delete a cloud gateway:

1. As a Tenant Administrator, navigate to the Private Cloud Gateway page under Settings.

2. Invoke the Delete action on the PCG instance you want to delete.

3. The system performs a validation to ensure there are no running tenant clusters associated with the PCG instance being deleted. If such instances are found, an error is displayed. Delete any running tenant clusters and retry deleting the PCG.

4. Delete the Gateway Virtual Machines from vSphere.

Resize PCG

You can set up the PCG as a single-node cluster or as a three-node cluster for high availability (HA). For production environments, we recommend three nodes. A PCG can be initially set up with one node and resized to three nodes later. Use the following steps to resize a single-node PCG cluster to a three-node PCG cluster.

1. As a Tenant Administrator, navigate to the Private Cloud Gateway page under Settings.

2. Invoke the resize action for the relevant cloud gateway instance.

3. Update the size from one (1) to three (3).

4. The gateway upgrade begins shortly after the update. Two new nodes are created on vSphere and the gateway is upgraded to a 3-node cluster.

info

Scaling a 3-node cluster down to a 1-node cluster is not permitted.

A load balancer instance is launched even for a 1-node gateway to support future expansion.

IP Address Management

Palette supports both DHCP and Static IP-based allocation strategies for the VMs that are launched during cluster creation. IP Pools can be defined using a range or a subnet. Administrators can define one or more IP pools linked to a PCG.

Clusters created using a PCG can select from the IP pools linked to the corresponding PCG. By default, IP Pools are shared across multiple clusters but can optionally be restricted to a cluster.

The following is a description of various IP Pool properties:

Property	Description
Name	Descriptive name for the IP Pool. This name will be displayed for IP Pool selection when static IP is chosen as the IP allocation strategy
Network Type	Select Range to provide a start and an end IP address. IPs within this range will become part of this pool. Alternately select 'Subnet' to provide the IP range in CIDR format.
Start	First IP address for a range based IP Pool E.g. 10.10.183.1
End	Last IP address for a range based IP Pool. E.g. 10.10.183.100
Subnet	CIDR to allocate a set of IP addresses for a subnet based IP Pool. E.g. 10.10.183.64/26
Subnet Prefix	Network subnet prefix. e.g. /18
Gateway	Network Gateway E.g. 10.128.1.1
Name server addresses	A comma-separated list of name servers. e.g., 8.8.8.8
Restrict to a Single Cluster	Select this option to reserve the pool for the first cluster that uses this pool. By default, IP pools can be shared across clusters.

Create a VMware Cloud Account

Use the following steps to create a VMware cloud account.

Prerequisites

• A VMware cloud gateway must be configured. Refer to the Create VMware Cloud Gateway section for guidance.

  info

  Enterprise version users should choose the Use System Gateway option.

In addition to the default cloud account already associated with the private cloud gateway, new user cloud accounts can be created for the different vSphere users.

Property	Description
Account Name	Custom name for the cloud account
Private cloud gateway	Reference to a running cloud gateway
vCenter Server	IP or FQDN of the vCenter server
Username	vCenter username
Password	vCenter password

warning

If you change the password for a user account in vCenter, you must also change it in Palette for the same VMware cloud account. We recommend updating the passwords immediately to avoid potentially locking Palette out of vCenter. For guidance, refer to Change VMware Cloud Account Password in Palette.

Change VMware Cloud Account Password

The user account password in vCenter must match the password for the corresponding VMware cloud account in Palette. This section provides steps to change the password in Palette in the event the vCenter password changes.

Prerequisites

• Access to the vCenter credentials.

Change the Password in Palette

1. Log in to Palette.

2. From the Menu Menu navigate to Tenant Settings > Cloud Accounts.

3. Click the three-dot Menu for the VMware account you want to update, and select Edit.

4. In the window that opens, update the password in the Password field and click the Validate button.

5. Confirm your changes.

Validation

Palette validates the password. Incorrect credentials will result in an error. As an extra precaution, try scaling a cluster up or down.

info

In addition to changing the password for a VMware account, Palette provides a way for you to also change the user associated with an account by entering a new username in the Username field. Ensure the new user account has the same permissions as the previous user account in vCenter.

Deploy a VMware Cluster

Use the following steps to provision a new VMware cluster.

1. Provide the basic cluster information like Name, Description, and Tags. Tags are currently not propagated to the Virtual Machines (VMs) deployed on the cloud/data center environments.

2. Select a Cluster Profile created for the VMware environment. The profile definition will be used as the cluster construction template.

3. Review and override Pack Parameters as desired. By default, parameters for all Packs are set with values defined in the Cluster Profile.

4. Provide a vSphere Cloud account and placement information.

   Parameter	Description
   Cloud Account	Select the desired cloud account. VMware cloud accounts with credentials need to be preconfigured in the Project Settings section. An account is auto-created as part of the cloud gateway setup and is available for provisioning of Tenant Clusters if permitted by the administrator.
   Datacenter	The vSphere data center where the cluster nodes will be launched.
   Deployment Folder	The vSphere VM Folder where the cluster nodes will be launched.
   Image Template Folder	The vSphere folder to which the Spectro templates are imported.
   SSH Keys (Optional)	Public key to configure remote SSH access to the nodes (User: spectro).
   NTP Server (Optional)	Setup time synchronization for all the running nodes.
   IP Allocation strategy	DHCP or Static IP

5. Configure the control plane and worker node pools. Fill out the input fields in the Add node pool page. The following table contains an explanation of the available input parameters.

Control Plane Pool

Parameter	Description
Name	A descriptive name for the node pool.
Size	Number of VMs to be provisioned for the node pool. For the control plane pool, this number can be 1, 3, or 5.
Allow worker capability	Select this option for allowing workloads to be provisioned on control plane nodes.
Labels	Add a label to apply placement constraints on a pod, such as a node eligible for receiving the workload.
Taints	To set toleration to pods and allow (but do not require) the pods to schedule onto nodes with matching taints.
Instance type	Select the compute instance type to be used for all nodes in the node pool.
Availability Zones	Choose one or more availability zones. Palette provides fault tolerance to guard against hardware failures, network failures, etc., by provisioning nodes across availability zones if multiple zones are selected.
Disk Size	Give the required storage size

Worker Pool

Parameter	Description
Name	A descriptive name for the node pool.
Enable Autoscaler	You can enable the autoscaler by toggling the Enable Autoscaler button. Autoscaler scales resources up and down between the defined minimum and maximum number of nodes to optimize resource utilization.
	Set the scaling limit by setting the Minimum Size and Maximum Size, as per the workload the number of nods will scale up from minimum set value to maximum set value and the scale down from maximum set value to minimum set value
Size	Number of VMs to be provisioned for the node pool.
Rolling Update	Rolling update has two available options. Review the Update Parameter table below for more details.
Labels	Add a label to apply placement constraints on a pod, such as a node eligible for receiving the workload.
Taints	To set toleration to pods and allow (but do not require) the pods to schedule onto nodes with matching taints.
Instance type	Select the compute instance type to be used for all nodes in the node pool.
Availability Zones	Choose one or more availability zones. Palette provides fault tolerance to guard against hardware failures, network failures, etc., by provisioning nodes across availability zones if multiple zones are selected.
Disk Size	Provide the required storage size

6. Review settings and deploy the cluster. Provisioning status with details of ongoing provisioning tasks is available to track progress.

info

New worker pools may be added if it is desired to customize certain worker nodes to run specialized workloads. As an example, the default worker pool may be configured with 4 CPUs, 8 GB of memory for general-purpose workloads, and another worker pool with 8 CPUs, 16 GB of memory for advanced workloads that demand larger resources.

Delete a VMware Cluster

The deletion of a VMware cluster results in the removal of all Virtual machines and associated storage disks created for the cluster. The following tasks need to be performed to delete a VMware cluster:

1. Select the cluster to be deleted from the Cluster View page and navigate to the Cluster Overview page.

2. Invoke the delete action available on the page: Cluster > Settings > Cluster Settings > Delete Cluster.

3. Click Confirm to delete.

The Cluster Status is updated to Deleting while the Cluster Resources are being deleted. Provisioning status is updated with the ongoing progress of the delete operation. Once all resources are successfully deleted, the Cluster Status changes to Deleted and is removed from the list of Clusters.

info

The Delete action is only available for Clusters that are fully provisioned. For Clusters that are still in the process of being provisioned, Abort action is available to stop provisioning and delete all resources.

Force Delete a Cluster

A cluster stuck in the Deletion state can be force deleted by the user through the User Interface. The user can go for a force deletion of the cluster, only if it is stuck in a deletion state for a minimum of 15 minutes. Palette enables cluster force delete from the Tenant Admin and Project Admin scope.

To force delete a cluster:

1. Log in to the Palette Management Console.

2. Navigate to the Cluster Details page of the cluster stuck in deletion mode.

   • If the deletion status is stuck for more than 15 minutes, click the Force Delete Cluster button from the Settings dropdown.

   • If the Force Delete Cluster button is not enabled, wait for 15 minutes. The Settings dropdown will give the estimated time for the auto-enabling of the Force Delete button.

warning

If there are any cloud resources still on the cloud, the user should cleanup those resources before going for the force deletion.