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Description

NSX allows for creating port groups with the same name, even on the same virtual distributed switch. This plugin has a long history of issues with trying to create VMs on a vSphere cluster with such virtual distributed port groups managed by NSX overlays. VMware resolved this in govmomi 0.27 by allowing finder to use other unique identifiers to select a network:

// Network finds a NetworkReference using a Name, Inventory Path, ManagedObject ID, Logical Switch UUID or Segment ID.
// With standard vSphere networking, Portgroups cannot have the same name within the same network folder.
// With NSX, Portgroups can have the same name, even within the same Switch. In this case, using an inventory path
// results in a MultipleFoundError. A MOID, switch UUID or segment ID can be used instead, as both are unique.
// See also: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/79872#Duplicate_names
// Examples:
// - Name:                "dvpg-1"
// - Inventory Path:      "vds-1/dvpg-1"
// - ManagedObject ID:    "DistributedVirtualPortgroup:dvportgroup-53"
// - Logical Switch UUID: "da2a59b8-2450-4cb2-b5cc-79c4c1d2144c"
// - Segment ID:          "/infra/segments/vnet_ce50e69b-1784-4a14-9206-ffd7f1f146f7"

To leverage this, I request the following:

1. Update the minimum version of govmomi used by this plugin to at least 0.27.
2. Possibly write additional network finder logic to allow users to use one or more of the other unique identifiers for the network, in addition to (or in place of) the network name or inventory path. Segment ID and UUID seem like a reasonable choices here, as they are both fairly readily available from the vCenter UI.

I'm not a GoLang developer, so I'm probably not a great judge of how heavy a lift this would be, but it appears that this may be as simple as just changing the version of govmomi this plugin is built with. The plugin itself looks like it just passes the context and argument straight through to govmomi.Finder.

Use Case(s)

Allow builder to be used in large vSphere environments that provide networking with NSX for scalability and mobility between clusters.