Google Startup Guide

The Aviatrix cloud network solution consists of two components, the Controller and Gateway, both of which are GCloud instances. The gateway is launched from the Controller browser console. This guide helps you to launch the Controller instance in GCloud:

Note that a GCloud project corresponds to an Aviatrix cloud account or an AWS (IAM) account with its own credentials. A network in a GCloud project is logically equivalent to a VPC in AWS, but with a few significant differences. For example, a network in GCloud project can have disparate subnets and a subnet can connect across regions.

Important

The Aviatrix Controller is a secure multi-cloud networking platform. Aviatrix recommends you deploy your Controller in clouds that offer metered pricing, then deploy your gateways in any supported cloud. Metered pricing offers you a true pay-as-you-go option without any up-front commitments or contract negotiations. The AWS and Azure clouds offer metered pricing for running the Aviatrix Controller image. The GCP and OCI clouds do not offer metered pricing for running the Aviatrix Controller image.

Prerequisites

Get a Customer ID from Aviatrix

Currently, the Aviatrix Controller for GCloud is only available via community image for BYOL license. Send an email to info@aviatrix.com or open a support ticket at Aviatrix Support Portal with your organization name to request a customer ID. We offer a 30-day free trial license.

Creating a Google Cloud Platform (GCloud) Account

Aviatrix Cloud Connect is a software product that is launched in your own GCloud account. The Controller and the Gateways created from the Controller console are all in your own network perimeter and completely under your control.

Create a GCloud account (https://cloud.google.com/). Go on to the next step if you have already done so.

Note that the Controller supports multiple accounts with each one associated with a different GCloud projects, but there needs to be at least one to start with.

Creating a GCloud Project

Log in to your GCloud account and go to the project page: https://console.cloud.google.com/project

Create a project. Go on to the next step if you have already created one. Note that the project ID will be used in referencing to this project by Aviatrix Controller.

(As an example, we created a project called Aviatrix-UCC, the project ID is aviatrix-ucc-1214.)

(Optional) Creating Networks

This step creates a network in the project created in the previous step.

When a new project is created, a default network is created. You may skip this step if you do not need to customize the network address range by creating a new network, or go on to the next step if you have done so.

Note that the Aviatrix Controller handles a GCloud network like a VPC in AWS. Whenever a network configuration is mentioned for GCloud, the term VPC is used. (The VNet is used for Azure.)

At GCloud console, select the project that you have copied the Aviatrix Controller image to. Click the 3 bars. At the dropdown menu, select Networking. Click “[+] Create Network”.

Note: if you plan to have multiple projects, we suggest you plan your subnets so that the network addresses do not overlap. Select Custom to create subnets.

Deploying the Aviatrix Controller in GCP Marketplace (Preview mode)

  1. Go to the GCP marketplace.

  2. Find the product “Aviatrix Secured Networking Platform - BYOL”.

  3. Click LAUNCH.

gcp_controller_gcp_marketplace_01

  1. Make sure the selected Machine type has at least 2 vCPUs with 8 GB memory.

  2. Boot Disk is SSD Persistent Disk with 32 GB.

gcp_controller_gcp_marketplace_02

Important

Do not check the Firewall box to Allow HTTPS Traffic. Aviatrix recommends you improve security by removing any 0.0.0.0 entries on port 443 not allowing the Aviatrix Controller to the world.

  1. Click DEPLOY.

Accessing the Aviatrix Controller

After the instance is created, click the Controller instance name, and note its External IP address and Internal IP address. Go to https://External_IP_of_the_controller.

At the login prompt, type “admin” for username and type the internal IP address for the password, as shown below:

image3

Follow the initial setup process to set up an admin email address and password and install the latest software. Log in again with your new admin password.

Warning

Any resources created by the controller, such as Aviatrix gateways, GCP routing tables, subnets, LB, etc., must be deleted from the controller console. If you delete them directly on AWS console, the Controller’s view of resources will be incorrect, which will lead to features not working properly.

Note

Upgrade from 5.3 to 5.4 is not supported Controller needs to be migrated. Look at the GCP controller migration section in the below link.

https://docs.aviatrix.com/HowTos/controller_migration.html

Onboarding Your GCP Account to Your Aviatrix Controller

If no GCloud account has been set up, you will be guided through the onboarding process. It takes only a few steps. Once that is done, follow the quick tour guide to start launching gateways.

For onboarding instructions on GCloud, click this link.

Resource Names

The maximum length of a gateway cannot exceed 50 characters when configuring Aviatrix Google Cloud gateway. Other resource names like subnet and VPC have a maximum character limit of 63, a requirement for Google Cloud.

Launching Gateway

The following gateway sizes are supported for GCloud:

‘n1-standard-1’,’n1-highcpu-2’, ‘n1-standard-2’, ‘n1-highmem-2’, ‘n1-highcpu-4’, ‘n1-standard-4’, ‘n1-highmem-4’, ‘n1-highcpu-8’, ‘n1-standard-8’,’n1-highmem-8’, ‘n1-highcpu-16’, ‘n1-standard-16’, ‘n1-highmem-16’,’n1-highcpu-32’, ‘n1-standard-32’, ‘n1-highmem-32’

Support

Check out the Help menu for Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), Reference Design and Release Notes. All features have descriptions embedded and should be self-explanatory.

An alert message will be displayed on the Dashboard menu when a new release becomes available.

For support, please open a support ticket at Aviatrix Support Portal.

Enjoy!