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Running your Docker in Production Environment using VMware vSphere Integrated Containers – (Part 2)

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Following our tutorial, now we will continue to do the installation and configuration for those components.
So, rephrasing previous blog post. By utilising vSphere Integrated Containers, now Developers can use their docker commands to manage the development environments, also functionalities are enriched with specific container management portal (VMware Admiral) and enterprise features container registry (VMware Harbor). System administrator can still use their favourite management tool to manage the infrastructure, such as vCenter and also vRealize Operations plus Log Insight to manage the virtual infrastructure in a whole holistic view. Shown in the diagram below:
A traditional container environment use the host/server to handle several containers. Docker has the ability to import images into the host, but the resource is tied to that host. The challenge is sometime that host has a very limited set of resources. To expand resource on that host, then we need to shutdown the host and then the containers. Then we need to add resource for that physical/virtual machine before more containers can be powered deployed. Another challenge is the container is not portable as it can not be moved to another host since it is very tight to the OS kernel of the container host.
Another concerns other than resources, already explained in my earlier post regarding some enterprise features if we would like to run docker in production environment such as security, manageability, availability, diagnosis and monitoring, high availability, disaster recovery, etc. VIC (vSphere Integrated Containers) can give the solution for all those concerns by using resource pool as the container host and virtual machines as the containers. Plus with new features of vSphere 6 about Instant Clone now VIC can deliver “instant on” container experience alongside the security, portability, and isolation of Virtual Machine. Adding extra hosts in the resource pool to dynamically increase infra resources, initiate live migration/vMotion, auto placement/Distributed Resource Scheduler, dedicated placement/affinity, self healing/High Availability, QoS/weight, quota/limit, guarantee/reservation, etc will add a lot of benefits to the docker environment.
So, these are our steps to prepare the environments for vSphere Integrated Containers (VIC).

  1. Installation and configuration of vSphere Integrated Containers
  2. Installation and configuration of Harbor
  3. Installation and configuration of Admiral

So, let’s start the tutorial now.

Checking the Virtual Infrastructure Environments

  • I am running my virtualisation infrastructure in my Mac laptop using VMware Fusion Professional 8.5.1.
  • Currently I am using vSphere ESXi Enterprise Plus version 6 update 2, and vCenter Standard version 6 update 2.
  • I have NFS storage as my centralised storage, NTP, DNS and DHCP also configured in another VM.

Installation of vSphere Integrated Containers (VIC)

There are two approach to install VIC. This is the first one: (I use this to install on my laptop)

  1. Download the installation source from github = https://github.com/vmware/vic
  2. You will download the vic from the pull command using git. First install the git components from here = https://git-scm.com/downloads
  3. Run this command = $ git clone https://github.com/vmware/vic
  4. After downloaded go to the directory = $ cd vic
  5. Now, build the binaries using this command = 
    docker run -v $(pwd):/go/src/github.com/vmware/vic -w /go/src/github.com/vmware/vic golang make all

OR, you can do the second approach: (I use this to install on my VM)

  1. Download binary file from here = https://bintray.com/vmware/vic-repo/build
  2. In this personal lab, I am using this binary = https://bintray.com/vmware/vic-repo/build/6511#files
  3. Download that binary to the Virtual Machine that you will be used for VIC Management Host.
  4. Extract the file using = $ tar -zxvf vic_6511.tar.gz.  NOTE:You will see the latest build as shown here. The build number “6511” will be different as this is an active project and new builds are uploaded constantly.

Okay, you already installed the installer now. In those steps above, there are three primary components generated by a full build, found in the ./bin directory by defaul). The make targets used are the following:

  1. vic-machine – make vic-machine
  2. appliance.iso – make appliance
  3. bootstrap.iso – make bootstrap

Okay, after this we will Deploy our Virtual Container Host in VMware environments (I am using vCenter with ESXi as explained earlier). The installation can run on dedicated ESXi host too (without vCenter) if needed.

Now, continue to create the Virtual Container Host in the vCenter. Since I am using Mac, I will use command prompt for mac.
$ ./vic-machine-darwin create --target 172.16.159.150/dc1.lab.bicarait.com --compute-resource cls01.dc01.lab.bicarait.com --user administrator@vsphere.local --password VMware1! --image-store ds_fusion_01 --no-tlsverify --name virtualcontainerhost01 --bridge-network dvPgContainer01 --force
After that command above, let’s check the condition of our virtual infrastructure from vCenter now. Currently we will see that we have a new resource pool as the virtual container host, and a vm as an endpoint vm as a target of the container host.

Okay, installation is completed. Let’s try to deploy a docker machine into the VIC now.
$ docker -H 172.16.159.153:2376 --tls info
After that, let’s do the pull and run command for the docker as normal operation same as my previous posts.
$ docker -H 172.16.159.153:2376 --tls \
--tlscert='./docker-appliance-cert.pem' \
--tlskey='./docker-appliance-key.pem' pull vmwarecna/nginx
$ docker -H 172.16.159.153:2376 --tls \
--tlscert='./docker-appliance-cert.pem' \
--tlskey='./docker-appliance-key.pem' run -d -p 80:80 vmwarecna/nginx

Note: for production, we must use the *.pem key to connect to the environment. Since this is my development environment, so I will skip that.

 
Okay, now finally… this is a video to explain the operational of vSphere Integrated Container, VMware Admiral, and VMware Harbor (I already explained about Admiral and Harbor in my previous blog post in here):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBUaUj7y-h8
 
Kind Regards,
Doddi Priyambodo
 

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