Deploy the VMware vCenter Server Appliance

As an alternative to installing vCenter Server on a Windows machine, you can download the VMware
vCenter Server Appliance.

The vCenter Server Appliance is a preconfigured Linux-based virtual machine
optimized for running vCenter Server and associated services.

The vCenter Server Appliance has the following default user names
n root@localos with the password vmware.

n administrator@vsphere.local with the password that you entered during installation for the vCenter
Single Sign-On administrator account in the built-in domain.
You can also create a custom password that the vCenter Server Appliance reads on first boot

For external databases, the vCenter Server Appliance supports only Oracle databases, in the same versions
shown in the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix for the version of the vCenter Server Appliance that
you are deploying

Version 5.5 of the vCenter Server Appliance is deployed with virtual hardware version 7, which supports
eight virtual CPUs per virtual machine in ESXi. Depending on the hosts that you will manage with the
vCenter Server Appliance, you might want to upgrade the ESXi hosts and update the hardware version of
the vCenter Server Appliance to support more virtual CPUs:
n ESXi 4.x supports up to virtual hardware version 7 with up to 8 virtual CPUs per virtual machine.
n ESXi 5.0.x supports up to virtual hardware version 8 with up to 32 virtual CPUs per virtual machine.
n ESXi 5.1.x supports up to virtual hardware version 9 with up to 64 virtual CPUs per virtual machine.

If you update the vCenter Server appliance to hardware version 10, you cannot edit the virtual
machine settings for the appliance using the vSphere Client. This might cause difficulties in managing the
vCenter Server Appliance, because you cannot use the vSphere Web Client to connect directly to the host on which the vCenter Server Appliance resides to manage it. Do not upgrade the vCenter Server Appliance to hardware version 10.

To configure networking for the vCenter Server Appliance, you must use the vami_config_net tool, located

at /opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net.

The ESXi Dump Collector service, the vSphere Syslog service, and vSphere Auto Deploy must use an IPv4

address to communicate with the vCenter Server Appliance.

Procedure

1 From the vSphere 5 download page on the VMware Web site, download the .OVA file or the .OVF and
VMDK files for the vCenter Server appliance onto your system.
2 Using the vSphere Web Client, deploy the .OVA file or the .OVF and VMDK files as an OVF template.
If you do not want to commit to using the maximum 80GB of disk space at deployment, deploy the
vCenter Server Appliance with thin provisioning. In the Disk Format panel of the Deploy OVF template
wizard, select Thin provisioned format.
3 Power on the vCenter Server Appliance.
4 Open a console view.
5 Follow the instructions on the welcome screen to open a browser window to the URL shown.
6 Log in to the vCenter Server Appliance and accept the license agreement.
When you log in, the vCenter Server Setup wizard starts.
7 Select the configuration option for your installation.
8 Follow the prompts to complete the wizard.
If you uploaded a configuration file, enter any settings that were not included in the file as you
complete the wizard.
The vCenter Server Appliance is deployed and set up.