VMware vCenter Server 8 build 20519528

How to Install VMware vCenter Server 8

Middle of October 2022, VMware released the new version 8 of the vCenter Server. Finally I got some time to update my home lab. In this article I will demonstrate how to install VMware vCenter Server 8.

To start, you need an installation kit of vCenter Server 8. For this article, I will use the GA version of vCenter Server 8.0.0 – VMware-VCSA-all-8.0.0-20519528.iso.

Same as in the previous versions of vCenter Server, the installation process consists in two separate stages. At the end of the first stage you will have the appliance installed, then in the second stage you will configure it.

Install vCenter Server 8 – Stage 1 – Install the VM

To launch the installer I will use a Windows virtual machine (you can also use a Mac or a Linux system). Unzip the ISO archive and navigate to VMware-VCSA-all-8.0.0-20519528\vcsa-ui-installer\win32 folder. Launch installer.exe and begin to install vCenter Server 8.

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ThinkAgile VX Deployer

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Deployer

When you do work that feels good, time flies. LinkedIn reminded me that I joined Lenovo 2 years ago, but I still have a vivid memory of my first day at Lenovo, in the middle of the pandemic: get in the office, spend 20 minutes to get the IT equipment, and then rush home. I realized I wrote nothing on my blog about my work at Lenovo, so I’ll correct this quickly.

In the middle of the COVID-19 crisis priorities changed, for me like for a lot of other people. I decided that 20 years spent in IT operations are enough. During my search for other opportunities, I met the people from Lenovo and I liked their involvement in the community, given my implication in the VMUG community I felt we are sharing similar vision. So here I am jumping in a different boat, software development. I was lucky enough to join a new initiative in Lenovo and help developing a product from scratch, a tool to automate installation and configuration of a vSAN cluster.

What is ThinkAgile VX Deployer?

ThinkAgile VX Deployer is a GUI-based wizard that guides a VMware administrator through the deployment of vSAN clusters on top of Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Integrated Systems. We designed the Deployer to be as simple to use as possible. You just install the VX servers in rack, and then fire the VX Deployer. You don’t need to configure out-of-band interfaces, you don’t need to power on the servers, you just need the right amount of network connections.

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VMware vCenter 7.0.3d CLI

VMware vCenter Server 7.0 Update 3d – How to Install Using the CLI

In this article I will demonstrate an unattended installation of vCenter Server 7.0 Update 3d.

To follow along you will need:

  • installation ISO for vCenter Server 7.0 Update 3d, which you can download from your My.VMware account: VMware-VCSA-all-7.0.3-19480866.iso
  • a text editor. I used Microsoft Visual Studio Code, but you can really use any text editor.
  • the ability to run CLI commands. I used a Windows server to launch the command, but VMware also provides binaries for Linux and Mac.

Prepare the JSON Configuration File

VMware provides a number of JSON template files, so we don’t have to start from scratch. Inside the ISO file, we can navigate to vcsa-cli-installer\templates\install to see the available templates. There are 5 templates, among them:

  • embedded_vCSA_on_ESXi.json – minimum configuration required for the deployment of vCSA on an ESXi host.
  • embedded_vCSA_on_VC.json – minimum configuration required for the deployment of vCSA on a vCenter Server instance.
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Install vSphere 7.0

How to Install VMware vSphere 7.0

In this article I will show you how to install VMware vSphere 7.0. If you are looking for instructions about how to install the older version vSphere 6.7, you can find them here.

To begin with, you need an installation iso for vSphere 7.0, which you can download from your My.VMware account. I downloaded VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0.0-15843807.x86_64.iso (vSphere 7.0 build 15843807). I will install vSphere into a virtual machine (don’t do this in production, this is a configuration unsupported by VMware, but often seen in home labs), so I will just mount the iso file into the CD drive and power on the VM.

Install VMware vSphere 7.0

As soon as the VM boots, you will see a “Loading ESXi installer” screen:

Install vSphere 7.0 - Loading ESXi installer
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vRealize Orchestrator 8.1

How to Install VMware vRealize Orchestrator 8.1

In this article I will demonstrate how to install VMware vRealize Orchestrator 8.1 step by step. This is the latest vRO version to date, released only days ago. You can read more details about the changes in vRO 8.1 in one of my previous articles: VMware vRealize Orchestrator 8.1.

First step is to download the required OVA file: O11N_VA-8.1.0.9326-15995344_OVF10.ova. Make sure DNS resolution for your future vRO appliance works, both forward and reverse (hostname and IP address). You can then proceed to deploy the appliance from your vCenter Server (minimum vCenter Server version is 6.0, although that is already an unsupported version by VMware, and I hope you are at least on version 6.5, if not on 7.0).

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Install VCSA 6.7

How to Install VCSA 6.7 (VMware vCenter Server Appliance)

In this article I will show you how to install VCSA 6.7 (VMware vCenter Server Appliance).

To start, you need an installation kit of vCenter Server Appliance 6.7. For this article, I will use the VCSA 6.7 Update 1 version – VMware-VCSA-all-6.7.0-10244745.iso (the latest available at the time I wrote this article).

Note: If you look for VCSA upgrade instructions, check this article: How to Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 – Stage 1.

Install VCSA 6.7 (VMware vCenter Server Appliance) – Stage 1

To launch the installer I will use a Windows virtual machine (alternatively you can use a Mac or a Linux system). Unzip the archive and navigate to VMware-VCSA-all-6.7.0-10244745\vcsa-ui-installer\win32 folder. Launch installer.exe and begin to install VCSA 6.7.

Install VCSA 6.7 - installer.exe

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Install vSphere 6.7

How to Install VMware vSphere 6.7

In this article I will show you how to install VMware vSphere 6.7. If you are looking for instructions about how to install vSphere 6.5, you can find them here.

To start, you need an installation iso for vSphere 6.7, which you can download from your My.VMware account. From here, I downloaded VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.7.0-8169922.x86_64.iso (vSphere 6.7 build 8169922). I will install vSphere into a virtual machine (beware, this is a configuration unsupported by VMware, but often seen in home labs), so I will just mount the iso file into the CD drive and power on the VM.

Install VMware vSphere 6.7

As soon as the VM boots, you will see a “Loading ESXi installer screen”:

Install vSphere 6.7 - Loading ESXi installer

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New Release – VMware PowerCLI 10.0.0

PowerCLI 6.5.4 is dead, welcome PowerCLI 10.0.0 🙂  VMware released few days ago the latest version, marked with a huge jump in numbering, moving straight from 6 to 10. This version marks also the promote of the former Fling PowerCLI Core into the main PowerCLI product. Now we have same product running multiplatform: Windows, Linux, and MacOS. This makes things simpler. How do you install PowerCLI on Windows? That’s “Install-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI”. How about Linux? “That’s “Install-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI”. MacOS? You got this, it’s the same.

PowerCLI 10.0.0 consists of the following modules:

  • VMware.DeployAutomation
  • VMware.ImageBuilder
  • VMware.PowerCLI
  • VMware.VimAutomation.Cis.Core
  • VMware.VimAutomation.Cloud
  • VMware.VimAutomation.Common
  • VMware.VimAutomation.Core
  • VMware.VimAutomation.HA
  • VMware.VimAutomation.HorizonView
  • VMware.VimAutomation.License
  • VMware.VimAutomation.Nsxt
  • VMware.VimAutomation.PCloud
  • VMware.VimAutomation.Sdk
  • VMware.VimAutomation.Srm
  • VMware.VimAutomation.Storage
  • VMware.VimAutomation.StorageUtility
  • VMware.VimAutomation.Vds
  • VMware.VimAutomation.Vmc
  • VMware.VimAutomation.vROps
  • VMware.VumAutomation

Not all these modules are supported on PowerShell Core, generating an error when trying to launch on Linux, but I will detail this in a future article. [Update 05 March 2018: The article is here: PowerCLI 10.0.0 Linux Error in VMware.VimAutomation.Srm Module. The mentioned error: “Import-Module : VMware.VimAutomation.Srm module is not currently supported on the Core edition of PowerShell”.]

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Install vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager

How to Install vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 1.1

vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager is a relatively new tool in VMware’s portfolio. You can use it to install, configure and upgrade vRealize environments consisting in vRealize Automation, vRealize Business for Cloud, vRealize Log Insight and vRealize Operations. In this article I will show how to install vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 1.1.

You will need access to both a vCenter Server and an ESXi host 6.0 or 6.5. For running the virtual machine you will have to allocate minimum 2 vCPU and 16GB of RAM. The smallest used disk is around 3GB, and it can grow up to 135GB.

You can download vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 1.1 from My.VMware portal (you need to use your credentials to authenticate). You will end up with a 1.7GB OVA file (VMware-vLCM-Appliance-1.1.0.7-7359844_OVF10.ova), released on 12 December 2017.

Install vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager - My VMware
Install vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager – My VMware

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Install Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Developer Edition

How to Install Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Developer Edition

“This is a cloud/virtualization blog, why would you publish an article on how to install Microsoft SQL Server?” That’s a valid question. I am in no way an expert in SQL Server, but I know my way around it. If you follow my blog, you may know I’m a big fan of vRealize Automation. I am working on a vRealize Automation install in my home lab, and this is how this post was born. A Windows domain is mandatory, so I wrote How to Install Active Directory on Windows Server 2012 R2. SQL Server is another prerequisite for vRA, so here I am documenting how to install Microsoft SQL Server 2017.

When thinking at SQL Server, there are few editions to choose from. If you run production workload, you can choose between Enterprise, Standard and Express editions (each which different price and set of features). If you run a test and development environment, you can choose between Express and Developer editions, both free. Express has few limitations, may be enough for a lab environment, but I decided to go with Developer Edition (full-featured free edition). Developer Edition used to be a paid (and cheaper) version, but since March 2016 Microsoft decided to offer it for free. That’s a nice move Microsoft, I hope you will extend the program to Windows Server as well 🙂

I will now document how to do a basic install of Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Developer Edition, to be used in a home lab environment. I will also add to the mix SQL Server Management Studio.

As a first step, you need to prepare a virtual machine where you will install SQL Server. There are plenty of supported operating systems, ranging from Windows 8 to Windows Server 2016. In my case, I chose a Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Edition virtual machine with all the normal goodies (latest hardware version, latest VMware Tools, vmxnet3 network adapter, paravirtual SCSI adapter). I installed Microsoft security patches (including the latest ones for Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities).

You then need to download Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Developer Edition and SQL Server Management Studio 17.4.

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