Saturday 9 November 2013

vCloud Director 5.5 - Deploying VC Appliance v5.5 - Module 1

I am writing this blog to assist my customers with their vCloud Deployments on version 5.5 and also hoping that these posts will be helpful to anyone who wants to setup a small test environment to understand the features of vCloud before implementing the solution in their Production environment.Since, the environment I would be deploying would be within a Single ESXi server, this configuration is not supported in a Production environment.This is only meant for testing. :-)
 VMware provides 2 options for Deploying the vCloud Solution:
1) Installable version - To be deployed in Production Environments.
2) vCloud Director Appliance - Testing and Evaluation, version based upon SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 2.

Below are the Pre-Requisites, for deploying the vCloud Appliance infrastructure:

1) You will need 4 IP address for the following:
     a) 1 for vCenter Server.
     b) 2 for vCloud Director. 1 for HTTP traffic and 1 for Console proxy Traffic.
     c) 1 for vCloud Networking and Security Manager.


2) One Physical ESXi, v5.x  on which all the above components will be deployed.

3) The names of all the components should be resolvable using short name and FQDN names.Use nslookup to verify this.

4) If you will be using more than 1 ESXi Hosts, you will need 4 datastores, each of 100GB shared between all the servers.In my case, I will be providing shared storage to all the ESXi servers using Starwind.

5) A copy of a CentOS 6.3 LiveCD .iso image to use for testing.

6) Installation files for vCloud Director Appliance, vCenter Server and vCloud Networking and Security Manager.

7) An NTP server for all the components to synchronize their time.

8) Once the vCenter is deployed, create 2 clusters called Mangement and Resource.
     a) In the Management cluster, add the Physical Esxi that runs vCenter, vCloud and vCloud Networking and Security Manager.
     b) In the Resource cluster we will deploy the 2 Virtual ESXi Servers which will be used by the vCloud Director.

9) You can download the Evaluation version of vCloud Director using the below link. You will need to register for an account. You can also download the Virtual Center and vShield from the same link. 
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vcloud_suite/5_5

Will update the list as I complete each module:

Module 1 - vCloud Director 5.5 - Deploying VC Appliance v5.5
Module 2 - vCloud Director 5.5 - Deploying vCloud and vShield Appliance
Module 3 - vCloud Director 5.5 - Preparing for vCloud Deployment
Module 4 - vCloud Director 5.5 - Preparing vShield and vCloud Director
Module 5 - vCloud Director 5.5 - Configuring vCloud Director - Part 1

Installation/Configuration of vCenter Appliance: Module 1

1) Start with the Installation of ESXi on the Physical Server.Once the installation is complete, assign an IP  address and open the vSphere Client on your Desktop and connect to the ESXi host.

2) Click on File => " Deploy OVF Template". In the window that appears, browse to the location of the "vCenter Appliance ovf" file you downloaded and select the file. Verify the OVF Details.Figure 1.
                           Figure 1 : Verify the details of the vCenter Appliance file.

3) Click Next , provide a name for the vCenter Server Appliance and the location(if you have a resource pool).Figure 2.
                          Figure 2 : Select the location to place your vCenter Appliance.

4) Specify the Disk format. I will be using Thin Provisioned disk which will use around 3.4gb on the ESXi Datastore. Figure 3.Click Next and specify the VM Network the Appliance will use.
                           Figure 3 : Select the Disk Format.

5) Verify the settings in the Final Screen and click Finish for the import process to start. Figure 4.
                           Figure 4 : Verify the details and click the Finish.

6) Power on the vCenter Appliance and open the console and wait for the VM to boot up. You might be prompted to setup the Network.Figure 5.
                           Figure 5 : Network not detected.

7) In the Console of the vCenter Appliance, press enter to login to the console. Use (root/vmware) as the username and password. Run the command : /opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net Figure 6.
                           Figure 6: Network Setup Screen.

8) Use the Menu screen and assign the IP,DNS, D/GW and hostname for the VC Appliance.Start with option 6. Once the settings are completed, use Option 0 to verify the configuration.Figure 7.
                           Figure 7: Verify Network Configuration.

9) Exit the Program using Option 1. Type "exit" in the command prompt to return back to the console screen.Figure 8.
                          Figure 8: Verify the IP address is assigned to the appliance.

10) To verify that the Virtual Center is accessible, Open a web browser ( I am using chrome) and enter the IP address of the vCenter with the port number 5480. e.g: https://192.168.0.121:5480/ . You will be redirected to the web console of the vCenter Server Appliance. Login using ( root/vmware) .
                           Figure 9: vCenter Server web console.

11) Once, you login to the web Console,  Accept the EULA and proceed to the next screen.Figure 10
                           Figure 10 : Accept EULA and proceed to the next option.

12) The next screen will prompt you for the Options, I will go with the Default options as we will be using the Embedded database for VC and SSO. Figure 11.Select "Configure with default Settings" and Click Next.
                           Figure 11: Select the Default settings.

13) Review the screen for your reference and Click Start. Wait for a few minutes, it might take a while. :-)
                           Figure 12: Review the default settings.

14) Once, the Setup completes. You will be redirected to the vCenter server Configuration page.This is the home page, you can use for making any changes to the vCenter Server. Figure 13.
                           Figure 13: vCenter Server configuration screen after the setup completes.

15) Next step would be ensure that the time on the vCenter server Appliance is synchronized.You need to configure NTP time source for your vCenter Appliance. Select the "Time" tab and enter your NTP server details there.

16) Let's verify that the vCenter is running correctly and you can add your Physical ESXi into the vCenter.Open a WebPage and enter the IP of the vCenter followed by port: 9443. For example : https://192.168.0.121:9443  and use (root/vmware).
                           Figure 14: Login to the vCenter using Web Client.

17) Once logged in to the vCenter Server, add your Physical ESXi to the vCenter. in a new cluster called "Management". In the next Module we will deploy the vCloud Appliance inside this cluster. This completes the Installation of the vCenter server Appliance.

xx

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you for posting this, this is wonderfully detailed!

Ravi said...

You are welcome Justin. Thanks for the comment.

Unknown said...

Awesome post, thanks so much for sharing. I was able to follow and duplicate this using your very good instructions, super helpful.

Anonymous said...

hello Ravi
Many thanks for this wonderful posts
It seems that after module 4 the steps involving creation of virtual esxi are missing. Can you please share those if available? Thank you.
Alok