Creating network pods in BMC Network Automation

A pod is the base on which logical networks are created in the cloud. A pod is created on a group of co-located network hardware, such as routers, firewalls, and load balancers that segregates cloud networks from other pods and non-cloud networks.

Pods are created in BMC Network Automation using pod blueprints, which define the pod architecture and include a definition of the physical pod topology. After a pod is created, you can then onboard the pod into BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

Before you begin

• Create the provider company, as described in Creating tenant companies and users by using BMC Remedy ITSM Foundation.
• Create a physical location, as described in Creating a physical location for a pod.

• Enable the integration with BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management in BMC Network Automation.

   Click here to view the steps required to enable the vdcEnabled property in BMC Network Automation.

  Before you can use BMC Network Automation to provide network resources to BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, you must first enable the vdcEnabled property in BMC Network Automation. The BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management installer allows you to enable this option during the installation.

  1. Open the the <BCAN_DATA>\global.properties file located in C:\BCA-Networks-Data\global.properties.
  2. Verify that the line containing, vdcEnabled=true is not commented out by using # as the first character on the line.
  3. (Optional) If the line starts with the #character:
     1. Remove the # character from the line and save the file.
     2. Restart BMC Network Automation.

  Note

  If you do not enable this option while running the installer, you must import the cloud-related pod and container files using the import.bat or import.sh script. Scripts are available in the bcan-import-export-<v.r.mm>.zip file in the <BCAN_HOME>\public\bmc\bca-network\extras directory. When you unzip the file, the scripts are in the bin subdirectory. The lib subdirectory contains the libraries needed to run the scripts.

• Enable the integration with BMC Atrium CMDB in BMC Network Automation. This integration is used to synchronize the physical location created in the cloud with BMC Network Automation, and to create the pod for that physical location.

   Click here to view the steps to configure the BMC Atrium CMDB inside BMC Network Automation.

  1. In BMC Network Automation, navigate to Admin > System Admin > System Parameters.
  2. Select the Enable CMDB Integration option.
  3. Enter the Web Service Endpoint URL:
     
     http://<AR_Enterprise_Host_Server>:<Port>/cmdbws/server/cmdbws
  4. Enter the user name and password.
  5. Click Save.

To create a network pod

1. Gather information about the network devices such as the names and credentials of the physical firewall host, load balancer host, distribution switch host, and access switches that you plan to use in your pod or cloud virtual infrastructure. See Configuring vendor-specific devices.
   
   

   Note

   When you configure devices to be used in a pod, ensure that the file transfer mode is set to FTP, SCP, or TFTP. Do not use tunneled protocol because its use might lead to performance problems with large ACLs. BMC Network Automation automatically uses tunneled protocol for the following actions:

   • Merging a template to an F5 device.
   • Executing the initGuestAction in a fault host pair because the action is executed before the guest context has a management address to use for file transfers.
   • Configuring a standalone firewall or load balancer host because they might be sending templates that contain commands to switch from admin context to guest context.

2. In BMC Network Automation, create device security profiles (DSP) for the network devices that you identified in Step 1 by performing the following substeps:
   
   

   Note

    You need only one DSP per set of credentials. For example, if three devices use the same credentials, create one DSP that applies to all three devices.

   1. In a web browser, log into BMC Network Automation at https://<localhost>/bca-networks.See Accessing the interface in the BMC Network Automation documentation.

      Note

       The default user name and password are sysadmin. The GUI prompts you to change the password if you have not done so.

   2. Add a new DSP. See Adding a device security profile in the BMC Network Automation documentation.
      Example DSP

      Field	Value
      Name	<DSP Name>
      Login User Name	<Username>
      Login Password	<Password>
      Confirm Login Password	<Password>
      Privileged User Name	<Priv Username>
      Privileged Password	<Priv Password>
      Confirm Privileged Password	<Priv Password>

3. In BMC Network Automation, add routers and switches.See Adding a device in the BMC Network Automation documentation.

   Note

   Ensure that you have added a configuration entry for all of your devices before performing any network-related activities in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.
   
   By default, a backup is made of the configuration entry when you add a device. The skipAutomaticBackup=false option in the global.properties file is commented out by default.

   Example 1

   Field	Value
   Name	Access
   Device Type	VMware vSwitch
   Device Category	Switch
   Host Name/IP Address/URL	<VSwitchName>&nbsp <ESXServerName>)https://<VCenterServerName> <VSwitchName>@https://<ESXServerName> For example: vSwitch2@aus-r710-clm-esx-03.bmc.com@https://aus-r710clm2vc1.bmc.com
   Device Security Profile	ESX Server DSP

   
   Example 2

   Field	Value
   Name	Edge
   Device Type	Cisco IOS Switch/Router
   Device Category	Router
   Host Name/IP Address/URL	<address>
   Device Security Profile	ESX Server DS

4. Create a pod blueprint and import it into BMC Network Automation. See Creating network pod blueprints.
5. Create a pod by using the pod blueprint that you created in step 4 by performing the following substeps:

   1. In BMC Network Automation, navigate to Network > Virtual Data Center > Pod Blueprints > Create Pod.See Creating a pod from a pod blueprint in the BMC Network Automation documentation.Example pod

      Field	Value
      Name	Baby1
      Vlan Pool Customer - VLAN Start Number	2
      Vlan Pool Customer - VLAN End Number	10
      Vlan Pool Management - VLAN Start Number	11
      Access Node Device	access
      Edge Node Device	edge
      Address Pool ManagementAddresses - Pool Address	11.0.0.0
      Address Pool ManagementAddresses - Pool Mask	255.255.255.128
      Address Pool ManagementAddresses - Gateway Address	11.0.0.1
      Address Range Customer - Range Address	10.0.0.0
      Address Range Customer - Range Mask	255.255.252.0

      Note

      If you plan to onboard a Citrix XenServer cluster and if you have a rogue device in your network pod, you must use the following requirements when specifying the device during pod creation:

      • Specify <switch name>@<xen host>@<xen master host> for the ROGUE_DEVICE_ADDRESS parameter.
      • The switch name must be the same as the xen resource pool name.
      • <xen host> must be entered exactly as it was entered in BMC Server Automation. For example, if you used a fully qualified domain name in BMC Server Automation, you must specify it in the same way for the pod.
   2. Click Save.
6. Back up the database by executing the BCAN_HOME\tools\backup_db.bat backup1.dump command.
   
   The bcan.dump backup file is located in the BNA-Network-Data\dbbackup directory.

Related topics

Onboarding and offboarding network pods