You can deploy the VMware Cloud Director appliance as an OVF template by using the vSphere Client (HTML5). After you deploy the OVF template, you must complete the configuration in the appliance management user interface.

You must deploy the first member of a VMware Cloud Director server group as a primary cell. You can deploy a subsequent member of a VMware Cloud Director server group as a standby or VMware Cloud Director application cell. See Appliance Deployments and Database High Availability Configuration.

Important:

Mixed VMware Cloud Director installations on Linux and VMware Cloud Director appliance deployments in one server group are unsupported.

When adding additional or replacement appliances to a database cluster, the vCPU and RAM must match those of the existing primary and standby cells in the cluster.

The OVA version of the newly deployed standby must be the same as the existing appliances in the cluster. To view the version of the running appliances, see the About information in the appliance management UI. The appliance is distributed with a name of the form VMware Cloud Director-v.v.v.v-nnnnnn_OVF10.ova, where v.v.v.v represents the product version and nnnnnn the build number. For example: VMware Cloud Director-10.2.0.0-9229800_OVA10.ova.

For information about deploying OVF templates in vSphere, see vSphere Virtual Machine Administration.

As an alternative, you can deploy the appliance by using VMware OVF Tool. See Deploying the VMware Cloud Director Appliance by Using VMware OVF Tool.

Note: Deploying the VMware Cloud Director appliance in VMware Cloud Director is unsupported.

Prerequisites

See Prerequisites for Deploying the VMware Cloud Director Appliance.

What to do next

  • Starting with VMware Cloud Director 10.4, both the console proxy traffic and HTTPS communications go over the default 443 port. VMware Cloud Director 10.4.1 and later do not support the legacy implementation of the console proxy feature. If you want to use the legacy console proxy implementation on VMware Cloud Director 10.4, after you enable the LegacyConsoleProxy feature from the Feature Flags settings menu under the Administration tab of the VMware Cloud Director Service Provider Admin Portal, you must configure the public console proxy address. You must configure the address because the VMware Cloud Director appliance uses its eth0 NIC with custom port 8443 for the legacy console proxy service. See Customize Public Addresses for VMware Cloud Director on Linux.
  • To add members to the VMware Cloud Director server group, repeat the procedure.
  • To enter the license key, log in to the VMware Cloud Director Service Provider Admin Portal.
  • To replace the self-signed certificate that is created during the appliance first boot, you can Create and Import CA-Signed SSL Certificates for VMware Cloud Director on Linux.

Start the VMware Cloud Director Appliance Deployment

To start the appliance deployment, you open the deployment wizard in the vSphere Web Client (Flex) or the vSphere Client (HTML5), and deploy the OVF template.

For more information about the VMware Cloud Director appliance sizing options or possible configurations, see VMware Cloud Director Appliance Sizing Guidelines.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Web Client or the vSphere Client, right-click any inventory object and click Deploy OVF Template.
  2. Enter the path to the VMware Cloud Director .ova file, and click Next.
  3. Enter a name for the VM and browse the vCenter Server repository to select a data center or folder on which to deploy the appliance, and click Next.
  4. Select an ESXi host or cluster on which to deploy the appliance and click Next.
  5. Review the template details and click Next.
  6. Read and accept the license agreements, and click Next.
  7. Select the deployment type and size, and click Next.
    The primary-small and standby-small VMware Cloud Director appliance sizes are suitable for lab or test systems. The other sizes meet the minimum sizing requirements for production systems. Depending on the workload, you might need to add more resources.
    Option Description
    Primary-small

    Deploys the appliance with 12 GB of RAM and 2 vCPUs as the first member in a VMware Cloud Director server group.

    The embedded database in the primary cell is configured as the VMware Cloud Director database. The database name is vcloud, and the database user is vcloud.

    Primary-medium

    Deploys the appliance with 16 GB of RAM and 8 vCPUs as the first member in a VMware Cloud Director server group.

    The embedded database in the primary cell is configured as the VMware Cloud Director database. The database name is vcloud, and the database user is vcloud.

    Primary-large

    Deploys the appliance with 24 GB of RAM and 16 vCPUs as the first member in a VMware Cloud Director server group.

    The embedded database in the primary cell is configured as the VMware Cloud Director database. The database name is vcloud, and the database user is vcloud.

    Primary-extralarge

    Deploys the appliance with 32 GB of RAM and 24 vCPUs as the first member in a VMware Cloud Director server group.

    The embedded database in the primary cell is configured as the VMware Cloud Director database. The database name is vcloud, and the database user is vcloud.

    Standby-small

    Used to join a primary-small cell in a database HA cluster.

    Deploys the appliance with 12 GB of RAM and 2 vCPUs as the second or the third member in a VMware Cloud Director server group with a database high availability configuration.

    The embedded database in a standby cell is configured in a replication mode with the primary database.

    Standby-medium

    Used to join a primary-medium cell in a database HA cluster.

    Deploys the appliance with 16 GB of RAM and 8 vCPUs as the second or the third member in a VMware Cloud Director server group with a database high availability configuration.

    The embedded database in a standby cell is configured in a replication mode with the primary database.

    Standby-large

    Used to join a primary-large cell in a database HA cluster.

    Deploys the appliance with 24 GB of RAM and 16 vCPUs as the second or the third member in a VMware Cloud Director server group with a database high availability configuration.

    The embedded database in a standby appliance is configured in a replication mode with the primary database.

    Standby-extralarge

    Used to join a primary-extralarge cell in a database HA cluster.

    Deploys the appliance with 32 GB of RAM and 24 vCPUs as the second or the third member in a VMware Cloud Director server group with a database high availability configuration.

    The embedded database in a standby appliance is configured in a replication mode with the primary database.

    Cloud Director Cell Application

    Deploys the appliance with 8 GB of RAM and 8 vCPUs as a subsequent member in a VMware Cloud Director server group.

    The embedded database in a vCD application cell is not used. The vCD application cell connects to the primary database.

    Important: The primary and the standby cells in a VMware Cloud Director server group must be of the same size. A database HA cluster can consist of one primary-small and two standby-small cells, one primary-medium and two standby-medium cells, and so on.

    After the deployment, you can reconfigure the size of the appliance.

  8. Select the disk format and the datastore for the virtual machine configuration files and virtual disks, and click Next.
    Thick formats improve performance, and thin formats save storage space.
  9. From the drop-down menus in the Destination Network cells, select the target networks for the eth1 and eth0 NICs of the appliance.
    The source network list might be in reverse order. Verify that you are selecting the correct destination network for each source network.
    Important: The two destination networks must be different.
  10. From the IP allocation settings drop-down menus, select a Static-Manual IP allocation and an IPv4 protocol.
  11. Click Next.
    You are redirected to the Customize template page of the wizard to configure the VMware Cloud Director details.
  12. In section VCD Appliance Settings, configure the appliance details.
    Setting Description
    NTP Server

    The host name or IP address of the NTP server to use.

    To specify multiple NTP servers, enter a space-separated list.
    Initial root password
    The initial root password for the appliance. Must contain at least eight characters, one uppercase character, one lowercase character, one numeric digit, and one special character.
    Important: The initial root password becomes the private key password. The cluster deployment requires all the cells to have the same root password during the initial deployment. After the boot process finishes, you can change the root password on any desired cell.

    If you want to use FIPS mode, the root password for the appliance must contain 14 or more characters.

    Note: The OVF deployment wizard does not validate the initial root password against password criteria.
    Expire Root Password Upon First Login If you want to continue using the initial password after the first login, you must verify that the initial password meets root password criteria. To continue using the initial root password after the first login, deselect this option.
    Enable SSH root login Deactivated by default.
    Note: For information about changing the date, time, or time zone of the appliance, see https://kb.vmware.com/kb/59674.
  13. (Optional) In section Additional Networking Properties, if your network topology requires it, enter the static routes for the eth0 and eth1 network interfaces, and click Next.

    If you want to reach hosts over a non-default gateway route, you might need to provide static routes. For example, management infrastructure is accessible only through the eth1 interface, while the default gateway is on eth0. In most cases, this setting can remain empty.

    The static routes must be in a comma-separated list of route specifications. A route specification must consist of the IP address of the target gateway and, optionally, a Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) network specification. For example, 172.16.100.253 172.16.100.0/19, 172.16.200.253.

  14. In section Networking Properties, enter the network details for the eth0 and eth1 NICs, and click Next.
    Setting Description
    Default Gateway The IP address of the default gateway for the appliance.
    Domain Name The DNS search domain, for example, mydomain.com.
    Domain Search Path A comma- or space-separated list of domain names for the appliance hostname lookup, for example, subdomain.example.com.
    Note: The domain name that you entered in the Domain Name text box is the first element in the domain search path list.
    Domain Name Servers The IP address of the domain name server for the appliance.
    eth0 Network IP Address The IP address for the eth0 interface.
    eth0 Network Netmask The netmask or prefix for the eth0 interface.
    eth1 Network IP Address The IP address for the eth1 interface.
    eth1 Network Netmask The netmask or prefix for the eth1 interface.
  15. On the Ready to Complete page, review the configuration settings for the VMware Cloud Director appliance, and click Finish to start the deployment.

What to do next

  1. Power on the newly created virtual machine.
  2. Configure the VMware Cloud Director Primary Appliance or Configure the VMware Cloud Director Standby and Application Cells.

Configure the VMware Cloud Director Primary Appliance

After you deploy the OVF Template for the primary appliance, you must continue to the configuration phase in the appliance management user interface of the primary VMware Cloud Director appliance instance.

Prerequisites

  1. Start the VMware Cloud Director Appliance Deployment.

  2. Power on the newly created virtual machine.

  3. Familiarize yourself with the Preparing the Transfer Server Storage for the VMware Cloud Director Appliance topic.

Procedure

  1. Open a Web browser and navigate to https://Primary-Appliance-eth1-IP-Address:5480.
  2. Log in to the appliance management user interface of the primary appliance instance.

    The Primary Appliance System Setup page appears.

  3. In section Appliance Settings, configure the appliance details and click Next.

    Setting

    Description

    NFS mount for transfer file location

    The location of the NFS shared transfer server storage. VMware Cloud Director validates the location and displays a green check mark if the NFS mount is validated.

    DB password for the 'vcloud' user

    The password for the vcloud PostgreSQL database user.

    Confirm DB password

    Confirmation of the password for the vcloud PostgreSQL database user.

    Participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program

    Activates or deactivates the participation in the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program.
  4. In the Administrator Account section, configure the system administrator details and click Next.

    Setting

    Description

    User name

    The user name for the system administrator account. Defaults to administrator.

    Password

    The password for the system administrator account. The password must be between 6 and 128 characters long.

    Confirm Password

    Confirm the password for the system administrator account.

    Full name

    The full name of the system administrator. Defaults to vCD Admin.

    Email address

    The email address of the system administrator.
  5. In the VMware Cloud Director Settings section, configure the installation of this instance.

    Setting

    Description

    System name

    The name for the vCenter Server folder to create for this VMware Cloud Director installation.

    Installation ID

    The ID for this VMware Cloud Director installation to use when you create MAC addresses for virtual NICs. Defaults to 1.

    If you plan to create stretched networks across VMware Cloud Director installations in multisite deployments, consider setting a unique installation ID for each VMware Cloud Director installation.

  6. Click Submit and when the system setup finishes, click OK.

Results

If the deployment is successful, the Embedded Database Availability and Services tabs appear.

What to do next

Configure the VMware Cloud Director Standby and Application Cells

After you deploy the OVF Template for a standby or application cell, you must continue to the configuration phase in the appliance management user interface of the instance you want to deploy.

Prerequisites

  1. Deploy a standby or application cell. See Start the VMware Cloud Director Appliance Deployment.
  2. See Preparing the Transfer Server Storage for the VMware Cloud Director Appliance.
  3. Power on the newly created virtual machine.

Procedure

  1. Open a Web browser and navigate to https://Cell-eth1-IP-Address:5480.
  2. Log in to the appliance management user interface of the standby or application cell.
    The System Setup page appears.
  3. Enter the NFS mount for the transfer file location.
  4. Click Submit and when the system setup finishes, click OK.

What to do next

Change the VMware Cloud Director Appliance Timezone