Deploy HSF Using Software Firewall Orchestration Plugin
The Software Firewall Orchestration plugin is introduced to orchestrate the HSF
Cluster deployments in ESXi environments.
Where Can I Use This?
What Do I Need?
Prisma AIRS
Software NGFW Credits
HSF subscription license
The Software Firewall Orchestration plugin is introduced to orchestrate the HSF Cluster
deployments in ESXi environments. Using the Software Firewall Orchestration plugin you
can configure, deploy, update, and monitor your HSF cluster. You can also autoscale and
manage software migrations in the VM firewall cluster using this plugin.
The following are the prerequisites to deploy the HSF:
Plugin Prerequistes
You will need to install three plugins:
Software Firewall Orchestration plugin version 1.0.1 - The main plugin used
to orchestrate HSF.
Clustering plugin version 3.0.0 - For visibility, monitoring and to obtain
metric data needed for autoscaling.
VM-Series plugin on Panorama version 6.0.1 - To establish communication with
the VM-Series plugin on your firewalls.
Prerequistes on ESXi
You will need to install three plugins:
vCenter: Add ESXi servers to the vCentre by navigating to Datacentre
—> vSphere Cluster —-> ESXi Server hosts. vCenter credentials must have
global level administrator privileges for cluster deployment.
vCenter and ESXi version: The plugin supports vCenter version 7.0+
and ESXi version 7.0.
vSphere cluster with ESXI servers: All ESXi servers in a vSphere
cluster must have identical host resources, network resources.
Port Groups: Ensure that the port group and network is configured and
available for the ESXi servers vNIC. Configure the portgroups with the same
name across all the hosts. You can configure a standard switch or
distributed switch.
Create the following vSwitch and Port groups for the
interfaces of the deployed resources.
Management
Cluster Control Interconnect
Cluster Traffic Interconnect
Data Interfaces
You will need a minimum of three
port groups for management, cluster control link, and
cluster traffic link for the firewalls in the cluster. You
may use the rest of the port groups to the data
links.
Ensure to set the MAC address changes of the Management
VSwitch to accept config.
Cluster Traffic Interconnect interface is to be set between 2000
to 9000 MTU in ESXi environments.
vSphere Cluster:
Create 1-2 vSphere Clusters – Based on cluster deployment needs,
both AI-Gateway nodes and AI-DP nodes can be deployed in the same or
separate vSphere clusters. Ensure to have at least one dedicated
vCenter cluster created on
vCenter and have the ESXi hosts added to it before you go ahead with
the VM HSF Cluster deployment.
All the hosts in a vCenter cluster must be identical (host
resources, network, and so on).
Shared storage can be used with
multiple host deployment, to download the image from a common
location. The AI-Gateway and AI-DP node deployment happens using
the shared storage. Alternatively, local datastore can also be
used. All the hosts in the same cluster should have the same
name for local datastore (for example, datastore, datastore(1),
and so on).
Ensure that the iSCSI
drive is visible in the datastore of all the hosts in the
cluster. It is recommended that you use a 10 gig link for
your shared storage, for faster completion of the cluster
deployment.
Image: Ensure to upload the OVA image of Prisma AIRS in the
vCenter local content library.
If
the OVA deployment times out on the vCenter content library,
ensure to increase the timeout
to greater than 20 mins.
Credentials with administrator permission for VM HSF
deployment.
If you are using Intel 810 SR-IOV, ensure to configure more queues
(around 16).
Prerequisites on Panorama
License authcode with HSF subscription.
Configure license API-key on panorama to
delicense the deleted VMs as part of the undeploy workflow or
scale-in event - generate licensing
API.
request license api-key set key
<key>
(optional) Log Collector Group: Create a log collector group.
Template:
Policy template: Create a template for cluster nodes
external interfaces and policies
Custer Template - The Software Firewall Orchestration plugin will
automatically deploy a fixed template. This template contains
interfaces for cluster traffic ports based on the required config
for AI-Gateways to enable traffic flow. For SRIOV, clone and modify
the fixed template which contains the cluster traffic interconnect
interface config for all nodes.
You may choose the fixed template created
by the plugin
AI-HSF-CLUSTERING-DO-NOT-MODIFY.
If you are using SRIOV, then clone the
AI-HSF-CLUSTERING-DO-NOT-MODIFY
template and make the necessary changes to
it and then choose the new cloned template.
By default, the fixed template is for VMxNet3
deployments and the first Interface (eth1/1 ) is
used for Cluster traffic Interconnect. For SRIOV
based deployments or if you change the CT interface
to a different one, then a fixed template can be
cloned or edited to change the Cluster Traffic for
each node.
Download the same content on the Local and Device
Deployment page of the Panorama.
Schedule Download and Install of App&Thread and AV
at the same time on both local and Device Deployment
page of the Panorama.
Clustering plugin should be installed on Panorama - This is needed to obtain
metric data needed for autoscaling and for firewall cluster visibility.
Commit the vCenter credentials and check the validity of the onboarded
credentials.