vCenter Operations Manager (vcops) installation steps

vCenter Operations Manager (vcops) installation steps

1) Download the vApp from VMware.com.

2) Using the vSphere Client, connect to the vCenter Server with the cluster where you are installing the vApp.

3) Set up the IP Pool:

1. Select the DataCenter which has the cluster where the vApp is to be hosted, and click the IP Pools tab.
2. Click Add... at the top of the page. A dialog box opens.

3. Enter a name for the IP Pool. (For example, vCOps.)
4. Enter the subnet (not the subnet mask) that the vCenter Server resides on.
5. Enter the subnet mask as a bit. (For example, a mask of 255.255.255.0 is equivalent to a /24 network.)
6. Enter the Gateway IP.
7. Do not enable the IP Pool, as this is not required for proper use.

8. Click the DNS tab and enter the appropriate DNS information for this network.
   
   Note: You can enter multiple DNS servers by separating them with a comma.

9. Click the Associations tab and select the Port Group the vCenter Server is attached to, or one that can easily reach vCenter.
10. Click OK.

4) Deploy the vApp:

1. In the vSphere Client, click File > Deploy OVF Template...
2. Follow the prompts in the Deploy OVF Template wizard.
   
   Note: When specifying a disk format, VMware recommends using Thick Provisioned Eager Zeroed in vSphere 5.

3. When specifying an IP allocation scheme, select Fixed (recommended) or DHCP.
   
   Note: Fixed IP allocation requires you to provide two IP addresses for the two virtual machines in the vApp. DHCP allocation requires that you enable DHCP in your IP pool. Transient is not supported at this time.
4. Click Finish and wait for the deployment process to complete.

5) (Optional) Set up a DRS affinity rule:

Note: These steps may be necessary for distributed vSwitch communication issues. Skip these steps unless you experience difficulties with initialization.

1. Right-click the cluster which will host the vApp, and select Edit Settings.
2. Click Rules.
3. Click Add.
4. Enter a name for the Rule. (For example, vCOps.)
5. Select Keep Virtual Machines Together.
6. Click Add.
7. Select the UI VM and Analytics VM virtual machines.
8. Click OK.

6) Power on the vApp.

7) Set up vCenter monitoring:

1. Browse to http://IP_address/admin, where IP_address is the IP address or fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the vApp.
   
   Note: You can confirm this address on the console of the UI virtual machine.

2. Update the administrator password ("admin") which provides access to the Administration Portal and SSH access to the vApp.
   
   Note: The password requires a minimum of eight characters that include at least one letter and one digit or special character.
3. Update the root password ("root") for the operation system of the vApp.
   
   Note: The admin password and root password are different. Please document your root password.

4. Enter a human-friendly name for the vCenter Server system.
5. Enter the FQDN (recommended) or IP address of the vCenter Server system to collect information from and monitor.
6. Enter the registration credentials for vCenter Operations Manager to use when connecting to the vCenter Server.
   
   Note: The user credentials you provide must have administrator privileges within vCenter. VMware recommends the use of a service account.
7. (Optional) Enter the collection credentials for vCenter Operations Manager to use for collecting data from vCenter Server.
   
   Note: Using separate collection credentials can be used to increase security, and only require read-only privileges within vCenter.

8. Click Test to verify that vCenter Operations Manager can connect to the vCenter Server.
   
   Note: If this step fails, verify that you are able to log into the vCenter Server using the credentials used in step f.
9. (Optional) If you have linked vCenter Server systems, select the appropriate members of the linked group to register with, and provide a name for each system. Each vCenter Server must be registered individually.
   
   Note: You can register vCenter Operations Manager with a subset of vCenter Server systems for scalability or inventory management purposes.
10. (Optional) If vCenter Operations detects that you have vCenter Operations 1.x or Capacity IQ 1.x installed, provide the appropriate credentials to import the data from the older installations.
    
    Note: This can only be performed during installation, and will not be presented in the Admin page after the installation. If this information must be imported post-installation, you must deploy a new vApp to do so.

8) After the installation is complete, browse to http://IP_address, where IP_address is the IP address or fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the vApp.

9) To license vCenter Operations Manager:

1. Using the vSphere Client, connect to the vCenter Server with the cluster where you are installing the vApp.
2. Go to Home > Licensing.
3. Verify that a vCenter Operations asset is listed.
4. Click Manage vSphere Licenses.
5. Enter the License in the top field and click Next.
6. Click the Solutions tab and select vCenter Operations.
   
   Note: If the solution is not visible, toggle Show all at the top of the list.
7. Click Next.
8. Click Next.
9. Click Finish.

How High Availability works on vSphere 5.x

How High Availability works on vSphere 5.x

When vSphere HA is created in a ESX cluster, one of the host is automatically elected as the master host. The master host communicated with vCenter Server and monitors the state of all virtual machines & slave hosts. When one of the ESX host fails in the cluster, the master host must distinguish between a failed host and one that is in a network partition or that has become network isolated. The master host uses network and datastore heartbeating to determine the type of failure.

When a host is added to a vSphere HA cluster, an agent is uploaded to the host and configured to communicate with other agents in the cluster.

HA election process

1) All active hosts participates in the election to choose the cluster's master host
2) Hosts with more number of datastores has an advantage in the election
3) In a cluster, there could be only one master host.
4) If the master host fails (or) shut down (or) in standby mode (or) removed from cluster, a new election is held.

Master host responsibilities

1) Monitors the state of slave hosts.
2) If a slave host fails or becomes unreachable, the master host identifies which virtual machines need to be restarted.
3) Monitoring the power state of all protected virtual machines. 
4) If one virtual machine fails, the master host also determines where (on which host) the restart should be done.
5) Manages the lists of cluster hosts and protected virtual machines.
6) The master host has the list of protected virtual machines in the cluster's datastores.

Slave host responsibilities

1) The slave hosts contributes to the cluster by running virtual machines
2) Reports the state updates to the master host.
3) A master host can also run and monitor virtual machines. 

Virtual to Physical (V2P) migration using PlateSpin Migrate 9.3 - Step by step guide

Virtual to Physical (V2P) migration using PlateSpin Migrate 9.3 - Step by step guide

Discovering Source Machine in Plate Spin

1) Log in to the PlateSpin server with domain account or local system account privileges.

2) Open the PlateSpin Migrate Tool “PlateSpin Migrate Client” and click on Actions -> Discover Details.

3) "Discover Details" window opens up

a) Enter the “Host Names & IP Addresses – Use Semicolons” field with Server name of the source machine and its IP Address

b) Select the Machine Type as "Windows"

c) Enter local system account credentials in the "Credentials" field.

d) Click on “Discover”.

4) Discover windows pops up. Once virtual machine is discovered, click on “Close”.

5) Discovered virtual machine gets listed in the "Servers" view pane.

Discovering Destination Machine in PlateSpin Migrate

1) Log in into the Destination Machine (physical) through ILO.

2) Go to Remote Console –> Integrated Remote Console –> Mount the Windows "PlateSpinBoot.iso" image. (Download the PlateSpin boot ISO image from Novell Downloads)

3) Command prompt opens up and it prompts for PlateSpin server URL.

4) Enter PlateSpin server URL as "http://platespin_server/platespinmigrate" and click “Enter”.

5) Enter user name of "platespin_server" and click “Enter”.

6) Enter password of "platespin_server" and click “Enter”.

7) Choose available NIC card and enter the digit associated to the particular NIC Card and click “Enter”.

8) Enter the IP address, subnet mask and default gateway and click “Enter”. (to get the physical server available in network)

9) It prompts for below details:

        a) “Host name for current server” – [Default] Leave it as blank

        b) “SSL Encryption on your plate spin server” – type ‘n’ [NO]

        c) Plate Spin Server Network – [Default] Leave it as blank

10) Physical server detects the network card and identifies the IP address and registers with PlateSpin server.

11) Click refresh button in PlateSpin tool and wait for some time till Physical server detects in PlateSpin Migrate tool.

Copying Workload from Virtual to Physical

1) Right click on the virtual machine  and click “Copy”.

2) Action wizard opens up – Select the target machine on Action wizard.

3) Click “start wizard” and "Conversion wizard" appears. In the "Conversion wizard", Enter the source machine credentials and click “Test”.

4) Click “Next” and Select Transfer method as “Block Based” and again click “Next”, "Network Identification" wizard appears.

5) In "Network identification" wizard, enter the destination host name and domain admin account credentials in “Domain credentials” column and click “Next”.

6) "Ethernet NIC Configuration" wizard opens up. In networking section, select the NIC card and enter the IP address of destination machine.

7) "Clean up VMware tools" section appears. In "Clean up VMware Tools", enter the system account credentials to clean up activates and click next.

8) "Volume configuration" windows opens up. In "Volume configuration" window,  Keep the default settings and click “Next”.

9) "Physical disk configuration" wizard appears. In "physical configuration" window, change other drives to Disk 2 (depends on your requirement) and click “Next”.

10) "Service configuration" window appears. In "Service configuration" wizard, disable the unwanted services and click “Next”.

11) "Transfer services" window opens up. In "Transfer services" wizard, select the unwanted services that needs to be stopped during transfer and click “Next”.

12) "User Post Conversion Action" window pops up. In "User Post Conversion Action" wizard, keep the default settings and click on “Advanced”.

13) In "Advanced" option. Select the disk drives option and change the other drives to disk 2.

14) In "additional items" wizard, keep the default settings and click on “next”. Below screen appears. Click start to initiate conversion process.

15) Conversion process initiated.

16) On "starting job" wizard, Click “Hide” and go to jobs in PlateSpin migrate tool.

17) Conversion process completed.