Deploy Multiple vCenter Server Appliances Using the CLI

You can deploy multiple instances vCenter Server appliances concurrently (in batch mode) using the CLI installer.

To deploy multiple instances concurrently, create JSON templates for all the vCenter Server instances in your deployment. The CLI installer assesses the topology of the deployment using the JSON templates, and determines the order. For this reason, the JSON templates must use static IP addresses for all vCenter Server instances in the deployment that are dependant upon one another.

Important: The JSON templates you create for each appliance must use a static IP address to resolve the network addresses of other appliances in the deployment upon which they have a dependency.

To perform the batch deployment, place the JSON templates defining your deployment in a single directory. When invoked, the CLI installer deploys your existing deployment using the topology defined in the JSON templates.

Procedure

1. In your workspace, create a folder to contain the JSON files for batch deployment. For example, MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy.
2. Prepare each JSON configuration file and copy the file to your batch deployment folder. See Prepare Your JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment for instructions on configuring the JSON files.
3. Navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer subdirectory for your operating system.
   • If you are running the deployment on Windows OS, navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer\win32 directory.
   • If you are running the deployment on Linux OS, navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer/lin64 directory.
   • If you are running the deployment on Mac OS, navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer/mac directory.
4. (Optional) Run a pre-deployment check without deploying the appliance to verify that you prepared the deployment template correctly. For example:

   vcsa-deploy install --precheck-only MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy

5. Run the deployment command. For example,

   vcsa-deploy install --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip optional_arguments MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy

   Use optional_arguments to enter space-separated arguments to set additional execution parameters of the deployment command.

   For example, you can set the location of the log and other output files that the installer generates.

   vcsa-deploy install --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip --log-dir=path_to_the_location MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy