Using CA AppLogic® › Appliance Developer Guide › Creating Appliances › Define Multiple External Interfaces

Define Multiple External Interfaces

You can define multiple external interfaces for an appliance and connect the external interfaces to one or multiple VLANs. You enable multiple external interfaces by setting the IP address, netmask, and gateway.

The following features are included for raw (external) interfaces:

• Support for multiple raw interfaces per appliance
• Raw interfaces are visually connected to the corresponding application-level raw interfaces on the canvas
• IP settings are received as interface settings, not as properties
• Raw interfaces are defined and configured on the application boundary
• Different raw interfaces of the same appliance have separate virtual NICs and can be connected to different VLANs

Work with the following dialogs to implement multiple external raw interfaces:

1. To add one or more raw interfaces to your appliance, right-click your appliance and select Modify Boundary. In the Class Definition (Assembly) editor, click the Interfaces tab, then click the Add Raw Interface button to add interfaces.

   For more information, see the help for the Interfaces tab for Simple Appliances.

2. To modify the boundary of the main assembly, right-click in the workspace and select Modify Application Boundary. In the Class Definition (Assembly) editor, click the Interfaces tab, then click the Add Raw Interface button to add interfaces. Add a raw interface for each raw interface you configured in your appliances.

   For more information see the help for the Interfaces tab for Assemblies.

3. After you connect the raw appliance interface to the application raw interface, you can edit the application properties to select the relevant VLAN and choose and IP address. Right-click in the workspace and select Configure Application. In the Application Configuration dialog, click the Interfaces tab and use the drop-down menus to select the network connection and IP address.

   For more information see the help for the Application Configuration editor.

Note: The Application Provisioning Wizard and the wizards to Import an Application and Export an Application support the definition of external interfaces with a new step where you configure interfaces by defining a network and IP address.

Network Information on the CA AppLogic® Dashboard

The account information for your network displays on the AppLogic dashboard. The display has been enhanced to specify application IP ranges separately for each VLAN. Information now includes VLAN name and number, Application IP range, prefix, gateway, and name servers.

VLAN Definition using the Backbone Fabric Controller

You use options in the Administration tab of the Backbone Fabric Controller (BFC) to set parameters for external storage for a grid. You can set specifications for external storage which you can use during grid creation.

When you create a grid, you can use the Network Resources page in the wizard to allow you to specify the IP ranges to allocate for the grid for use by applications and the controller IP. If you use VLAN tagging, you can select IP ranges from the ranges you created in the Networks tab of the Administration page.

You can also work with grid properties in the BFC to configure VLAN information for a grid. You can use the Network tab in the Grid properties page to provide the configuration and VLAN ranges for use by your applications in the grid.

External Interfaces - Backward Compatibility

In releases prior to CA AppLogic® 3.5 you could define an external interface by manually configuring the IP address and other network settings using properties. Use the IP_OWNED property for IP addresses that must be confined to the set of addresses, as defined in the application network ranges for the grid and ip_address for other IP addresses. Both properties are supported in CA AppLogic® 3.5, but we recommend that you use the new external interface features when building new appliances.

Where the earlier implementation of external interfaces appears in the user interface, they are now labeled Legacy Raw Interfaces.