The VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator host can also be deployed directly from a pre-created VM packaged in a OVA. This section provides steps for automated deployment of the VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator host using an OVA file and a shell script.

The key differences between and ISO deployment and an OVA automated deployment using a shell script are as follows:

  • This method uses an OVA package instead of the VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator installer media. The entire VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator ESXi install phase is skipped using the sizing of the VM baked in the OVA package.

  • The VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator configuration input is provided directly through YAML files instead of ks.cfg kickstart document.

Procedure

  1. Download the VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator ESXi OVA with the deployment script and sample YAML input files on the machine from which the vCenter or ESXi API endpoint is accessible. A vSphere/ESXi user with OVA/VM deployment privileges is required.
  2. Modify ec_firstboot.yaml sample to specify GitOps configuration and Kubernetes workloads to be run (in addition to or in absence of GitOps provided workload). (Optional, if not provided to deployment script, the VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator host runs the workload specified only through GitOps, if specified). This mode is useful for quick deployment verification and demo purpose.
  3. Invoke the deployment script at a shell terminal prompt as follows. The deployment script imports the OVA as a VM, configures guestenv config for VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator. 
    ./deploy_ecova.sh -v esx \
  -o ./ESXi-ec-0.1.0-22284167-boot2live.ova \
  -m ec-ESXi-ndeshpande-nourl \
  -r '<redacted>'\
  -l 'https://myvcenteraddress.corp.local/sdk' -k \
  -u root -p '<redacted>' -d 'Datastore05' -n 'VM Network'