Automating Deployment of vSphere Infrastructure on Equinix Metal

This post is part of the Pure Storage on Equinix Metal series.

May 20, 2021 Terraform Equinix Metal

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Did you know that Equinix has a Bare Metal as a Service (BMaaS) offering? Back in March Pure Storage also announced their Pure Storage® on Equinix Metal™ offering. This allows users to not only procure the Pure Storage FlashArray as an op-ex based purchase, but it also lets you spin up physical servers in Equinix Metal DC’s and connect them to a physical dedicated FlashArray. In this series I will cover how to deploy a vSphere environment on Equinix Metal with Terraform.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Equinix Metal formerly known as Packet is a BMaaS offering Physical Servers on a on-demand consumption model starting at .50¢ an hour. This option provides organizations with a cloud like experience but with the ability to use native tooling and resources. When I hear someone mention my goal is to get out of the datacenter business, immediately they think they HAVE to go to the public cloud. However today’s infrastructure is all about the hybrid cloud and hybrid applications and this use-case fits into this model without needing to adopt a new skill set. It allows organizations to focus on the applications instead of the infrastructure.

For those looking for more information about Pure Storage and Equinix Metal check out the press release with more information.

Equinix Metal Resources

Just like the cloud, Equinix Metal offers On Demand, Spot and Reserve deployment options. When deploying a new server you can choose one of their many global datacenters, multiple size servers small/medium/large and some have a focus on being network optimized or storage optimized. You also get your choice of operating systems such as ESXi, Ubuntu, Windows, CentOS and more… You can even bring your own image if you wish.

Once a server is deployed, as quickly as 60 seconds for some of their Linux distributions you will be provided with an Overview page where you can manage networking, storage and gain access to all the resources you need to manage the server.

However, this blog is about Automation, so lets look at the Equinix Metal Terraform Provider and see how we can automate deployment of a server!

Using the Equinix Metal Terraform Provider

The Equinix Metal Terraform Provider has a few resources but for now we will focus on the metal_device. With a few lines of code we can stand up a Ubuntu 20.04 Server in an existing Project in the NYC Datacenter.

 1terraform {
 2  required_providers {
 3    metal = {
 4      source = "equinix/metal"
 5    }
 6  }
 7}
 8
 9# Authenticate the Equinix Metal Provider.
10provider "metal" {
11  auth_token = var.auth_token
12}
13
14# Use Existing Project
15data "metal_project" "project" {
16  name = "My Project"
17}
18
19# Create a device
20resource "metal_device" "web1" {
21  hostname         = "web1"
22  plan             = "c3.medium.x86"
23  facilities       = ["ny5"]
24  operating_system = "ubuntu_20_04"
25  billing_cycle    = "hourly"
26  project_id       = data.metal_project.project.id
27}

Using Terraform to Deploy vSphere Components on Equinix Metal

The Terraform Manifest can be found here on Github.

Now that we know how to deploy a single server, lets take it one step further. This Terraform manifest will deploy 2x ESXi Servers, change the networking type to allow VLAN’s and then provision a vCenter Server

  1terraform {
  2  required_providers {
  3    metal = {
  4      source = "equinix/metal"
  5      # version = "1.0.0"
  6    }
  7  }
  8}
  9
 10# Configure the Equinix Metal Provider.
 11provider "metal" {
 12  auth_token = var.auth_token
 13}
 14
 15# Specify the Equinix Metal Project.
 16data "metal_project" "project" {
 17  name = var.project
 18}
 19
 20# Create a Equinix Metal Server
 21resource "metal_device" "esxi_hosts" {
 22  count            = var.hostcount
 23  hostname         = format("%s%02d", var.hostname, count.index + 1)
 24  plan             = var.plan
 25  metro            = var.metro
 26  operating_system = var.operating_system
 27  billing_cycle    = var.billing_cycle
 28  project_id       = data.metal_project.project.id
 29}
 30
 31# Set Network to Hybrid
 32resource "metal_device_network_type" "esxi_hosts" {
 33  count     = var.hostcount
 34  device_id = metal_device.esxi_hosts[count.index].id
 35  type      = "hybrid"
 36}
 37
 38# Add VLAN to Bond
 39resource "metal_port_vlan_attachment" "management" {
 40  count     = var.hostcount
 41  device_id = metal_device_network_type.esxi_hosts[count.index].id
 42  port_name = "bond0"
 43  vlan_vnid = "1015"
 44}
 45
 46# Add VLAN to Bond
 47resource "metal_port_vlan_attachment" "iscsi-a" {
 48  count     = var.hostcount
 49  device_id = metal_device_network_type.esxi_hosts[count.index].id
 50  port_name = "bond0"
 51  vlan_vnid = "1016"
 52}
 53
 54# Add VLAN to Bond
 55resource "metal_port_vlan_attachment" "iscsi-b" {
 56  count     = var.hostcount
 57  device_id = metal_device_network_type.esxi_hosts[count.index].id
 58  port_name = "bond0"
 59  vlan_vnid = "1017"
 60}
 61
 62# Add VLAN to Bond
 63resource "metal_port_vlan_attachment" "virtualmachine" {
 64  count     = var.hostcount
 65  device_id = metal_device_network_type.esxi_hosts[count.index].id
 66  port_name = "bond0"
 67  vlan_vnid = "1018"
 68}
 69resource "null_resource" "ping1" {
 70  depends_on = [
 71    metal_port_vlan_attachment.management,
 72    metal_device.esxi_hosts,
 73    metal_port_vlan_attachment.iscsi-a,
 74    metal_port_vlan_attachment.iscsi-b,
 75    metal_port_vlan_attachment.virtualmachine
 76  ]
 77  provisioner "local-exec" {
 78      command = "while($ping -notcontains 'True'){$ping = test-connection ${metal_device.esxi_hosts[0].access_private_ipv4} -quiet}"
 79      interpreter = ["PowerShell", "-Command"]
 80  }
 81}
 82
 83resource "null_resource" "ping2" {
 84  depends_on = [
 85    metal_port_vlan_attachment.management,
 86    metal_device.esxi_hosts,
 87    metal_port_vlan_attachment.iscsi-a,
 88    metal_port_vlan_attachment.iscsi-b,
 89    metal_port_vlan_attachment.virtualmachine
 90  ]
 91  provisioner "local-exec" {
 92      command = "while($ping -notcontains 'True'){$ping = test-connection ${metal_device.esxi_hosts[1].access_private_ipv4} -quiet}"
 93      interpreter = ["PowerShell", "-Command"]
 94  }
 95}
 96
 97# Sleep to allow servers to come online
 98resource "null_resource" "sleep" {
 99  depends_on = [
100    metal_port_vlan_attachment.management,
101    metal_device.esxi_hosts,
102    metal_port_vlan_attachment.iscsi-a,
103    metal_port_vlan_attachment.iscsi-b,
104    metal_port_vlan_attachment.virtualmachine,
105    null_resource.ping1,
106    null_resource.ping2
107  ]
108  provisioner "local-exec" {
109      command = "Start-Sleep 30"
110      interpreter = ["PowerShell", "-Command"]
111  }
112}
113
114# Gather Variables for Template
115data "template_file" "configure_esxi" {
116  depends_on = [
117    metal_port_vlan_attachment.management,
118    metal_device.esxi_hosts,
119    null_resource.sleep
120  ]
121  template = file("${path.module}/files/configure_esxi.ps1")
122  vars = {
123    first_esx_pass   = metal_device.esxi_hosts[0].root_password
124    first_esx_host_ip   = metal_device.esxi_hosts[0].access_private_ipv4
125    second_esx_pass   = metal_device.esxi_hosts[1].root_password
126    second_esx_host_ip   = metal_device.esxi_hosts[1].access_private_ipv4
127    vcenter_name = var.vcenter_name
128  }
129}
130
131# Output Rendered Template
132resource "local_file" "configure_esxi" {
133  depends_on = [
134    metal_port_vlan_attachment.management,
135    metal_device.esxi_hosts,
136    null_resource.sleep
137  ]
138    content     = data.template_file.configure_esxi.rendered
139    filename = "${path.module}/files/rendered-configure_esxi.ps1"
140}
141
142#Run Configuration Script
143resource "null_resource" "configure_esxi" {
144  depends_on = [
145    local_file.configure_esxi,
146    metal_device.esxi_hosts,
147    null_resource.sleep
148  ]
149
150  provisioner "local-exec" {
151    command = "pwsh ${path.module}/files/rendered-configure_esxi.ps1"
152  }
153}
154
155# Gather Variables for Template
156data "template_file" "vc_template" {
157  depends_on = [
158    null_resource.configure_esxi,
159    metal_device.esxi_hosts,
160    null_resource.sleep
161  ] 
162  template = file("${path.module}/files/deploy_vc.json")
163  vars = {
164    vcenter_password = var.vcenter_password
165    sso_password     = var.vcenter_password
166    first_esx_pass   = metal_device.esxi_hosts[0].root_password
167    vcenter_network  = var.vcenter_portgroup_name
168    first_esx_host   = metal_device.esxi_hosts[0].access_private_ipv4
169  }
170}
171
172# Output Rendered Template
173resource "local_file" "vc_template" {
174  depends_on = [
175    null_resource.configure_esxi,
176    metal_device.esxi_hosts,
177    null_resource.sleep
178  ]
179    content     = data.template_file.vc_template.rendered
180    filename = "${path.module}/files/rendered-deploy_vc.json"
181}
182
183# Deploy vCenter Server
184resource "null_resource" "vc" {
185    depends_on = [local_file.vc_template]
186  provisioner "local-exec" {
187    command = "${var.vc_install_path} install --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip --no-ssl-certificate-verification ${path.module}/files/rendered-deploy_vc.json"
188  }
189}
190
191# Outputs
192output "hostname" {
193    value = metal_device.esxi_hosts[*].hostname
194}
195output "public_ips" {
196    value = metal_device.esxi_hosts[*].access_public_ipv4
197}
198
199output "private_ips" {
200    value = metal_device.esxi_hosts[*].access_private_ipv4
201
202}

This Terraform manifest is dynamic in the fact everything is variablized and uses the deployment outputs to create files for configuration of ESXi and deployment of vCenter Server.

Deploy 2x Metal Servers Running ESXi 7.0
Changes Network Type to Hybrid to allow Layer3 VLANs
Adds 4 VLANs for Management, iSCSI and Virtual Machine traffic
Waits for servers to be responsive to pings before continuing
Takes the private ipv4 address and password and renders them into the configure_esxi.ps1 This script will setup NTP, Firewall rules as well as create PortGroups and VMKernel Adapters
Next we will render the deploy_vc.json which will be utilized to deploy the vCenter Server

Once this is done we are left with 2 ESXi Servers and vCenter Server waiting to be deployed. This little bit of automation can help and can go a long way for getting an environment quickly spun up.

If you are also looking for other samples, they have one for vSphere and also Tanzu. My goal is to fork these to be use Pure Storage instead of vSAN backed storage.

Whats Next

This blog covered What Equinix Metal is and How to Automate Deployment of a vSphere Environment. The next blog we will bring everything together and integrate the ESXi Servers into the Pure Storage FlashArray and configure the vSphere Environment.

Conclusion

I love the idea of Equinix Metal in the fact it can provide a cloud like experience but with standard resources. Stay tuned on a future post to see how we will automate deployment of additional resources and use our Pure Storage FlashArray.

If you have any additional questions or comments, please leave them below!

Automating Deployment of vSphere Infrastructure on Equinix Metal

Introduction

Equinix Metal Resources

Using the Equinix Metal Terraform Provider

Using Terraform to Deploy vSphere Components on Equinix Metal

Whats Next

Conclusion

See Also