Connecting one datalab to another datalab

[spider32]

We have more than 10 vlans and need to run tests using datalab. Since I can only use up to 10 vNICS per datalab, how do I connect datalabs together so all the vlans can talk to each other?

I imaging this would require some routing and iptables configurations on the datalab virtual routers? What about installing an external router to tie the datalabs together? Any guide that you can refer me to?

Thanks for the inputs.

[HannesK]

Hello,
do you really need all 10 VLANs within one SureBackup job? For most customers, the workaround is to use multiple VLABs and multiple SureBackup jobs.

Best regards,
Hannes

[spider32]

We are actually using muitiple Datalabs already for individual application testing. However, Veeam Orchestrator using Datalab was actually "marketed" to us as a feature we can use as well to scale out our DR testing from single application to multiple applications involving hundreds of VMs thus multiple vlans. These applications need to talk to each other so the need to have communications between Datalabs. I could see there is a way doing this but it is certainly an out of the box solution. Thanks!

[HannesK]

puh, not sure who marketed something with more than 9 VLANs (you can PM me that I can talk to that person / fix marketing materials)

there is nothing built-in to overcome that maximum 10 NICs per VM VMware maximum. so you would need to create something on your own. Normally I would say, to use a router you prefer plus PowerShell and instant recovery. But that makes no sense in combination with Orchestrator. Logging into the appliance is possible and you can change routing tables and everything there. But once the wizard of the virtual lab is executed again, the configuration would be overwritten.

@Alec King: any ideas from Orchestrator side?

[Alec King]

Well I have thought of some ideas to scale-out DataLabs using Orchestrator; however they were never officially shared with anyone, certainly not as marketing. Perhaps some whispers escaped
The idea never got beyond the very early planning stage so far. It would require reconfiguring multiple virtual lab appliances into a single network, allowing larger network topologies. However the configuration is complex and the test cases are many! I haven't prioritised research into this. However I'm open to discuss!

[spider32]

In summary, I'm thinking of adding another router and each datalab has a connection to this router. This router has the default gateway for all "production IPs" (everything inside the Datalab), all the masquerade IPs would have the route going to the actual production network. So this means, changing the default gateways on the Datalab routers and adding the masquerade route. And of course, there is the question of clean up after, making sure all the objects created inside vCenter get deleted after the test.

Like what you mentioned, I'm sure, it can be done but it will be complex and there will be out of the box components and configurations needed.

[spider32]

Ok so to add to this discussion, we totally dropped the idea of connecting datalabs together.

We are now using NSX-T logical segments where we put the vaolab servers into. In this way, the network segments are always present and we are not limited to the number of vNICS. So we just use a "dummy" datalab to bring up the vaolab servers and moved them to NSX-T.

For some of you who may have been doing this, I would just like to check what issues have you encountered?