vCenter Server Appliance is installed on a remote server for management of the edge clusters.

Official deployment guidance for vCSA can be found at docs.vmware.com.

  1. From a remote machine with network access to the host, where you want to deploy vCSA, right-click and mount the ISO file (downloaded as part of the prerequisites).

  2. Navigate within the folder structure to find the appropriate executable files for the VM to install. For example, the vcsa-ui-installer\win32\installer.exe , if you are installing the VM from a Windows operating system. VMware recommends running the .exe with administrator privileges.

    • The installation contains two parts, each of which might take a few minutes.

    • When configuring the Stage 1 network settings, the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) can be the same as the static IP address of the host.

  3. After the installation is finished, you can access vCSA from a browser using the static IP address or FQDN.

Figure 1. vCSA Stage 1 Configuration Example

Configure Initial Data Center and Host

  1. Log in to vSphere Client by providing your credentials.

  2. Right-click the vCenter Appliance icon and click New Datacenter.

    Figure 2. New Datacenter

  3. Enter a name for the data center.

  4. Right-click the data center that you created and click Add Host.

    Figure 3. Add Host

  5. Enter the FQDN or IP address of the host that resides on the same network where ESXi is already installed. Provide the root login credentials of the host to connect.

For the VVS reference architecture shown in VVS Reference Architecture, there are two data centers added:

  • One with a single host (at the control center).

  • One with a cluster and two hosts (at the control building of a substation). 

The inventory hierarchy of this architecture is shown in VCenter Inventory for VVS Reference Architecture. A naming convention must be established to maintain consistency as the environment scales up.

Table 1. VCenter Inventory for VVS Reference Architecture

Inventory Item

Name

VCenter instance

vcenterOT.mycompany.local

Datacenter

Control Center

Host or Cluster

vCenter_1

Datacenter

Substation

Cluster

Substation_Cluster

VM

vAC_1

VM

vAC_1

VM

vAC_n-1

VM

vAC_n

Host

Server_1

VM

vPR_1A

VM

vPR_nA

Host

Server_2

VM

vPR_1B

VM

vPR_nB