Installing and Configuring vCloud Director Appliance 5.5 [Lab]

It is very simple to install and configure vCloud Director and build your own cloud. I am Installing vCloud Director 5.5. Just needs to make sure of few pre-requisites i.e.,

1. At least one vCenter Server.
2. vCloud Networking and Security needs to configured with the vCenter Server.
3. 2 IP address for UI and Console Access of vCloud Director.

Let's go ahead and install and configure vCloud Director 5.5. I am setting up my own lab so I am using the vCloud Director Appliance which is very quick to deploy and configure

1. Download the vCloud Director Appliance 5.5 ova file from vmware website.
2. Connect to you vCenter Server using web client.  In my case I will have two clusters, Management cluster and a resource cluster. Management cluster would consists of all the Management VMs including vCloud Director, vShield (vCloud Networking and Security), vCenter Server and other management VMs. The Resource cluster is dedicated for my vCloud Director, where all my Organizations reside.
   
3. Point to the vCloud Director Appliance ova file.  
   
4. Accept the EULA and proceed.
   
5. Give a name and select the Host or Cluster to deploy the vCloud Director Appliance.
   
6. Select the Datastore of your choice. It only gives Thin Provision option for Virtual Disk Format as it’s an Appliance in my case.
7. Setup Networks.
   
8. Now the most important settings: Customize template

Set the root password and guest password

For lab I am using the bundled Database which comes along with vCloud Director.

Now Expand the "Networking Properties"

Enter the two IP addresses and other networking information.

 9.   Now confirm if all the supplied setting are correct and click on "finish".

10. After the vCloud Director is deployed, you would also get the IP address to configure networking later if required.
    
11. When you enter the IP (vCloud Director's IP) in a browser, it will take you to the First time vCloud Director setup Wizard.
    
12. Accept the Eula and enter the License Key- Mandatory step.
    
13. Now create a Administrator account with which you will login to the vCloud Administrator page to manage all the clouds.
    
14. Give a name for this vCloud Installation and complete the wizard.
    
15. When you click on the finish button, it will take 2-3 minutes and automatically takes you to the login screen.
    
16. That completes the installation of vcloud Director and you ready to build your own cloud.
    

 I will walk you through the process of building your own cloud in my next post. I feel the most important part of vcloud Director is networking and visibility & understanding of each object at each layer and how they interact i.e., vApp >>Organization>>Provider Virtual Datacenter etc. Complete Networking and Security is provided by vShield Manager and it is linked with the vCloud Director, as vShield Manager is registered to a vCenter Server and this vcloud Director is associated to that vCenter Server. Automatically you will see vShield Edge getting deployed depending upon the networking pools we create while creating the organizations or clouds. I hope this post was helpful.

Installing and Configuring vCloud Networking and Security 5.5

Before installing vCloud Director, it is required to register vShield Manager (vCloud Networking and Security) to the vCenter Server. It is simple to install vShield Manager (now known as vCloud Networking and Security).

1. Download the vCloud Networking and Security Appliance from Vmware website and deploy that OVF using Web-Client or vSphere Client.
   
2. Power on the VM after the Appliance  is successfully deployed.
3. Login with the default username = "admin" and password = "default".
   
4. Now type "enable" and hit enter and enter the password (default).
   
5. Now type "setup" and hit enter. This will takes you the networking configuration page. Enter the appropriate values and exit.
6. It would take few minutes for changes to take effect.
   
7. Now open the browser and enter the IP provided to vShield Manager in the previous step. Login with the same default username and password. This default password can be changed in the admin console.
   
8. Now click on "edit" button next to "vCenter Server" and enter the vCenter Server details.
   
9. Accept the security warning
   
10. After the successful registration of vShield Manager to the vCenter Server, the vCenter Server inventory populates on the left side.
11. The above configuration is sufficient to configure vCloud Director. There are lot of security configurations which can be done on vShield Manager, which I will try to cover as and when I am setting up in my lab.

Install vCenter Server 5.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2

Vcenter Server is available as an Appliance and can also be installed as usual on Windows Server Operating System. This post demonstrate installing vCenter Server 5.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2.

1. Make sure the Windows Virtual Machine or the physical machine is part of Domain and please remember vCenter Server cannot be installed on a machine which is a Domain Controller.
2. Mount the vCenter Server installer ISO and launch the installer.
3. I am installing all the components on the same machine, hence selecting "Simple Install". i.e., Single Sign On, Web Client, Inventory Services and vCenter Server.
   
4. Accept the EULA and the installer automatically checks the pre-requisites for Single Sing On.
   
5. Set the Administrator Password for Single Sign On.
   
6. Give a name for this site, in future if you are adding new Datacenter, SSO can later be added to this site in a multisite or HA mode.
   
7. Proceed with the default options and click on "Install".
   
8. After the successful install of SSO, the installer takes you back to the same screen and prompts to install the next component in sequence which is Web-Client and then the Inventory Services.
   
9. Now comes the turn of the last component, vCenter Server.
   
10. Enter the License Key or can be updated later.
    
11. Database Option: I am using the MS SQL 2008 Express which is bundled with the vCenter Server installer. People who are using the separate supported Database select the "Use an existing supported Database option" and point it to the 64-bit DSN
    
12. Proceed with the default options and default ports and click on Install. If you are changing the default port for any reason make sure that from here you use the changed ports wherever required.
    
13. After the installation completes, a message pops up informing all the 4 components have been installed.
    
    
    
14. Now you may connect to vCenter Server using Web-Client pointing to the vCenter IP/FQDN:9443.

https://vcenter_fqdn:9443

Add NFS Datastore to ESXi host using Web-Client

Many people are not familiar with the new interface of Web Client including me which is going to replace the good old vSphere Client. This post is about adding NFS Datastore to ESXi 5.5 host using Web-Client.

1. Select the vCenter Home and Seletct the "Hosts" from Inventory list.
   
2. Right click on the Host and click on "New Datastore".
   
3. Select the Type as "NFS" and click Next.
   
4. Give a name to Datastore, IP/FQDN of the filer or NFS export (Make sure you add this NFS export with either IP or FQDN on all the remaining hosts to avoid duplicate/Appended NFS Datastore) and enter the Folder details.
   
5. Confirm and click on Finish.
   

Present local storage as shared NFS volumes in simple steps (Lab only)

I am using the OpenFiler 2.99 version to transform local storage of my physical servers to shared NFS storage so utilize all the benefits of vSphere which are only available with Shared Storage.

1. Create a Virtual Machine with 1 vCPU and 2 GB RAM and install Openfiler (2.99 latest version)on it. Add a secondary Virtual Disk with maximum space which would be further sliced and presented as shared/NFS storage from the filer settings.
   
2. Static IP could configured during installation, after the installation completes, the configuration page login url is provided on the home screen.
3. Login to the Admin page with default username: openfiler and password: password on any browser.
4. Select the "System" Tab and update the ESXi host network information under "Network Access Configuration". You may add the specific host network information or the complete network of the ESXi hosts
   
5. Select the "Services" Tab and "enable" & "Start" the NFS Server service.
   
6. Select the "Volumes" Tab and then select the "Block Devices" from right hand side and click on "/dev/sdb"
   
7. Scroll down till "Create a Partition in /dev/sdb" and make sure "Physical Volume" is selected under Partition Type and click on create.
   
8. Now click on "Add Volume" on the right hand side and "Create A New Volume Group"
   
9. Now again click on "Add Volume" and "Create a Volume" with the required share size, this size would be the size of the NFS Datastore. In my case I will create 3 NFS Datastore by dividing 370GB into 3 volumes.
   
10. Now Click on "Share" Tab and click on the share just created and create a folder name
    
11. Click on the folder created and then click on "Make Share"
    
12. Under "Share Access" select "Public Guest  Access" and click on update. Remember, this is a lab environment and public access option will make this share accessible to all the hosts.
    
13. Scroll Down and Select "RW" under Shared Access Control Mode. This will provide Read / Write permissions on the NFS share.
    
14. For more volumes, repeat the steps from 9 to 13.

Now you have created NFS shares and presented to all the ESXi hosts in the your Lab Environment. NFS Datastores are simple to add and manage in a vSphere environment as compared to iSCSI and FC. NFS is also capable of all the vSphere features when compared with iSCSI and FC.