vCloud Director 5.5 - Preparing for vCloud Deployment - Module 3

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

Configuring VM Storage Profiles and vSphere Distributed Switch - Module 3

After completing the Import of the vCenter, vCloud Director and the vShield Appliance the next step would be to configure the Storage Profile (VM Storage Policies) and Networks for the vCloud Environment.

We will configure VM Storage Policies, to specify the Storage Capabilities. We will use 3 Datastores with Names "High Priority, Medium Priority,Low Priority" to denote the kind of VM Workload that would be deployed on these Datastores.  

1) Login to the vCenter Server using the WebClient. If you have not already added your Virtual ESXi Servers, now would be a good time to do so. I am assuming that you have presented the Storage to the ESXi Servers. 

2) If you are not familiar with VM Storage Policies  the below steps will show you how to configure them.If already configured, you can skip Step 15.

3) Click on the "VM Storage Profiles" on the Home Screen. Figure 1.

                            Figure 1: Open "VM Storage Profiles".

4) Next step is to Enable VM Storage Profiles on the Resource Cluster. Click on "Enable VM Storage Profiles" Figure 2. and then select the Cluster on which the "Storage Profile needs to be enabled" and click Enable.Click Close to save the settings.Figure 3.This enables "VM Storage Profiles" on the cluster.

                          Figure 2: Click on the Icon to enable "VM Storage Profile"

                           Figure 3: Select the cluster, click Enable and then Close.

5) In vSphere 5.5 "VM Storage Profiles" works on the concept of Tags. So, we need to create tags which will associate  Datastores to Datastore policies.Open the Home page of vCenter and select the "Tags" icon.Click on the "New Tag" icon. Figure 4.

                            Figure 4: Select the "New Tag" icon.

6) In the New Tag window, Specify a name for the Tag and for the Category, select new Category and fill in the information.Figure 5, shows the details I have used. I have created 2 more tags " Medium-Priority Tags" and "Low-Priority Tags". Figure 6.

                                Figure 5: New tag and New Category for datastore.

                            Figure 6: Total of 3 Tags are created for each datastore.

7) Next step will be to assign Tags to Datastores. Select " Home view" => "Storage" => "High Priority" Datastore. Right-click and select "Assign Tag". All the Tags that were created are shown in the new window. Select " High-Priority Tags" and click on "Assign". Repeat the same steps for the other 2 Datastores and assign their respective Tags.

                            Figure 7: Assign Tags to respective Datastores.

8) The next step will be to create "VM Storage Policy". Go back to the Home Screen and click on the "VM Storage Policies". Click on "Create a new Storage Policy" icon Figure 8, fill in the details in the next window Figure 9. and click Next.

                             Figure 8: Create a new Storage Policy.

                             Figure 9: Provide a name for the Storage Policy.

9) The next step provides details about the relation between rules and tags. Figure 10.Click Next to assign the Rule sets.

                           Figure 10: Details about the Rule Sets.

10) In the "Add tag-based rule" window under the Categories field from the drop down select  " High Priority Category" and click on OK. Figure 11

                           Figure 11: Select the "High Priority Tags" from the drop down under categories.

11)  In the next screen, as the storage we are using does not have any Vendor Specific rules "Rules based on Vendor-Specific Capabilities" will be None.Verify that the "High-Priority Tags" are selected under "Rule based on Tags". Figure 12. Click Next.

                            Figure 12: High-Priority Tag is selected.

12) The next screen should be automatically filled, as the tag has been assigned a datastore previously. Figure 13.Click Next.

                            Figure 13: The Datastore assigned to the tag should be back filled.

13) Verify the details and click "Finish". Figure 14.

 

                             Figure 14: Verify the details and click Finish.

14) Now repeat the same steps for the other 2 Datastores " Medium Priority" and " Low Priority".Figure 15.

                           Figure 15: Create additional Storage Policies.

15) This completes our configuration of Storage Policies for vCloud Deployment and the next step would be to create distributed switches. Select the "Networking" View, in the vCenter Home Screen.Select your datacenter and click on "Create a distributed switch". FIgure 16. 

                            Figure 16: Create Distributed Swtich.

16) The next screen will prompt you for a name,in my case I am assigning a name "vCloud-DV" , click Continue. The next screen will prompt you for the version of the DVSwitch, I am selecting v5.5.0 Figure 17. The next screen will prompt, you if you want to change the number of uplinks, in my setup the ESXi server have only 2 uplinks for the DVSwitch, so I will go with the defaults. I have also changed the portgroup name to "vCloud-PG". Click Next and review the final and click Finish. Figure 18. 

                           Figure 17: Distributed Switch version.

                           Figure 18: Review the final screen and click Finish.

17) This concludes the module of creating "VM Storage Policies" and the Distributed switche which will be used later when we are configuring our vCloud environment.

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