Acquire Traffic using Customer Orchestrated Source

This topic guides you through deploying Gigamon Cloud Suite for traffic visibility on Nutanix platforms running Prism Central pc.7.5, using Nutanix Flow Network Security Next Generation (FNS-NG) and Service Insertion.

Recommended Instance Type

The following table lists the recommended instance type for deploying the fabric components:

Prerequisites

Keep in mind the following when deploying the visibility solution using FNS-NG:

Deployment Planning

This section outlines the workflow for acquiring traffic with Customer Orchestrated Source and deploying GigaVUE Fabric Components. It provides instruction on configuring traffic acquisition, processing, and forwarding to your desired destination.

Create a VM for GigaVUE‑FM

You can deploy GigaVUE‑FM as a VM within the Nutanix Prism Central environment or externally. Ensure that GigaVUE‑FM has network connectivity to the GigaVUE V Series Node management interface.

Refer to Upload Fabric Images to download the image file and upload the same to the Prism Central image library.

To launch the GigaVUE‑FM instance from the Prism Central, refer to Create a VM topic in the Nutanix Prism Central documentation.

The following table lists the specific options you must select when creating a VM for GigaVUE‑FM.

In the Configuration tab, enter the following details:

In the Resources tab, enter or select the following details:

In the Management tab, enter or select the following details:

After the VM is created, it appears in the VM list with the Power State set to Off. Once powered on, the VM becomes active.

Access GigaVUE‑FM by entering the VM’s IP address in a web browser and logging in using the default credentials: username admin and password admin123A!!. You can also access the GigaVUE‑FM console from Prism Central, where you are prompted to change the password on first login.

Create a GigaVUE‑FM Token

GigaVUE‑FM allows you to generate a token only if you are an authenticated user and based on your privileges in accessing the GigaVUE‑FM. You can create multiple tokens if required.

To create a token in GigaVUE‑FM, follow these steps:

1.

Go to , select Authentication > GigaVUE‑FM User Management. The User Management page appears.

Note:  If you are a user with write access, then you can view a drop- down list under Tokens. Select Current User Tokens to create a token.

Note:  You cannot view the generated token. You can only copy and paste the generated token.

Create a Monitoring Domain

If a default Monitoring Domain was automatically created during a previous Third Party Orchestration registration, edit the existing Monitoring Domain to set the Traffic Acquisition Method to Customer Orchestrated Source before creating a Monitoring Session. Else, proceed with the following procedure to create a Monitoring Domain with Traffic Acquisition Method set to Customer Orchestrated Source:

To create a monitoring domain in Third Party Orchestration:

1. Go to Inventory > VIRTUAL > Third Party Orchestration, and then click Monitoring Domain. The Monitoring Domain page appears.
2. In the Monitoring Domain page, select New. The Monitoring Domain Configuration page appears.

   
   

3. Select or enter appropriate information as described in the following table:

   Field	Description
   Monitoring Domain	An alias used to identify the monitoring domain. A monitoring domain consists of set of connections.
   Connection Alias	An alias used to identify the connection.
   Traffic Acquisition Method	Select a tapping method. ● Customer Orchestrated Source: If you select the Customer Orchestrated Source option, the mirrored, tunneled or the raw traffic from your workloads is directed directly to the GigaVUE V Series Nodes, and you need not configure the UCT-Vs and UCT-V Controllers.
   Uniform Traffic Policy (When Traffic Acquisition Method is Customer Orchestrated Source)	Note: This step is optional when acquiring traffic using Customer‑Orchestrated Source in Nutanix Prism Central FNS‑NG. Enable this option if you wish to use the same monitoring session configuration for the GigaVUE V Series Node deployed under this monitoring domain. Enable this check box when using packet mirroring configuration for GCP. Note: Once the monitoring session is deployed for the monitoring domain you cannot enable or disable this option.

4. Click Save.

Deploy and Register GigaVUE V Series Node

Before deploying the GigaVUE V Series Node, you must decide how it will register with GigaVUE‑FM. This choice determines the remotePort and remoteIP values in the cloud-init configuration and cannot be changed after the VM is created.

Refer Upload Fabric Images to download the GigaVUE V Series Node or GigaVUE V Series Proxy image.

Upload the GigaVUE V Series to Prism Central

You are required to make the GigaVUE V Series Node image available in the Prism Central image library for use during VM deployment.

You can upload images to Nutanix Prism Central using one of the following methods:

Use the method that best fits your environment and image source.

Deploy and Configure the GigaVUE V Series node VM

You are required to deploy the GigaVUE V Series Node as a VM in Prism Central, configured with the appropriate NICs and cloud-init registration parameters to enable automatic registration with GigaVUE‑FM on first boot.

GigaVUE V Series requires three NICs:

Refer to Create a VM topic in Nutanix Prism Central documentation.

The following table lists the specific options you must select when creating a VM for GigaVUE V Series.

On the Configuration page, enter the basic VM settings:

On the Resources page and select the following.

On the Management configuration page, configure cloud-init to enable automatic registration with GigaVUE‑FM.

#cloud-config
write_files:
  - path: /etc/gigamon-cloud.conf
    owner: root:root
    permissions: '0644'
    content: |
      Registration:
          groupName: <Monitoring Domain Name in GigaVUE-FM>
          subGroupName: <Connection Name within the Monitoring Domain>
          token: <Token generated in GigaVUE-FM>
          remoteIP: <IP address of the GigaVUE-FM>
          remotePort: 443

Important: If you have not added the NICs during the VM creation, you can attach the required NICs by editing the VM configuration before powering on the VM.

Review the configuration on the Review page and create the VM. After the VM is created, power on the GigaVUE V Series node VM. The GigaVUE V Series node automatically registers with GigaVUE‑FM using the cloud-init configuration.

You can verify that the deployed node appears in GigaVUE‑FM under Third Party Orchestration > Monitoring Domain > GigaVUE V Series Nodes (IP) with the status Healthy.

[Active-Standby] Deploy and Register a Second GigaVUE V Series Node

Note:  For high availability, we recommend deploying two GigaVUE V Series nodes and registering them to the same Monitoring Domain in GigaVUE‑FM.

Active-Standby mode improves availability by using two GigaVUE V Series nodes. One node is active and processes traffic, while the other is standby and takes over if the active node becomes unavailable. During failover, the standby node automatically becomes active, ensuring continuous traffic monitoring.

Requirements

Deploy a second GigaVUE V Series node by referring to Deploy and Register GigaVUE V Series NodeRegister both nodes with GigaVUE‑FM.

After deploying and registering the GigaVUE V Series node, create the Network Function (NF) entity and Security Policy in Nutanix Prism Central to define how traffic is redirected to the node.

Create Network Function Entity in Prism Central

You must create a Network Function (NF) entity in Prism Central. A Security Policy redirects traffic only to a Network Function entity, not directly to a VM or NIC. Without this entity, the GigaVUE V Series node does not receive traffic, even if it is deployed and registered with GigaVUE‑FM.

Refer to Create Network Function Entity topic in the Nutanix Prism Central.

The following table lists the specific options you must select while creating a Network Function Entity:

The network function entity is now created and linked to the GigaVUE V Series node.

Note:  Each NF entity supports a maximum of two GigaVUE V Series nodes as an Active-Standby pair. If your deployment includes additional GigaVUE V Series nodes, create separate NF entities and corresponding Security Policies for each node pair, and map the appropriate target VM categories to distribute traffic across nodes.

(Optional) Assign Categories to Target VMs

Security policies in Prism Central are applied to categories, which are logical groupings of VMs. Assign categories (tags) to identify the workloads whose traffic you want to monitor.

Refer to the following topics in the Nutanix Prism Central documentation:

Assign the required category key‑value pair to the VM so it can be identified and used in Create an Application Security Policy.

You can also assign the required category during VM creation by selecting the appropriate key‑value pair in the Categories field on the Management configuration page. Search for the key‑value pair you created, select it, and then complete the remaining VM configuration to ensure the VM is correctly classified from the start.

Create an Application Security Policy

Nutanix Prism Central offers a visualization-based approach to configuring security policies and monitoring the traffic to which a given policy applies. A Security Policy can redirect traffic to only one NF entity, which maps to the Network Function NIC of a specific GigaVUE V Series node.

Note:  If you have deployed more than one GigaVUE V Series node, create a separate NF entity and a dedicated Security Policy for each node in Nutanix Prism Central.

To distribute traffic across multiple nodes, define distinct target VM categories and create a corresponding Security Policy for each node, ensuring that each policy maps its assigned VMs to the appropriateGigaVUE V Series node.

Refer to Creating an Application Policy with Service Insertion.

The following table lists the specific options you must select when you are creating a security policy.

On the Define Policy page, enter the following details:

On the Secure Application page, enter the following details:

After defining the traffic sources and secured entity:

What to do next:

Create a Monitoring Session (Third Party Orchestration) in GigaVUE‑FM to define the traffic processing pipeline from the GigaVUE V Series's Network Function NIC to the monitoring tool.