This is the first in a series of articles on the VMware Certified Professional 5 – Infrastructure as a Service (VCP5-IaaS) certification blueprint. I will be going through the blueprint, identifying the key components, and sharing them with you to help you on your way to becoming a VCP5-IaaS.

Blueprint Objective 1.1 – Install vCloud Components

Before we start, let’s identify the sections of objective 1.1:

Knowledge

• Identify required vCloud components and pre-requisites for installation
  
• Describe installation order of vCloud components
  
• Explain the purpose and use case of each vCloud component
  
• Create a SysPrep package
  
• Install vCloud Director
  
• Install vShield Manager
  
• Install vCenter Chargeback
  
• Install vCloud Connector
  
• Configure vCloud Director network connections
  
• Configure vCloud Director database settings
  
• Troubleshoot basic installation issues

Tools

• vCloud Director Installation and Configuration Guide
  
• vShield Manager Quick Start Guide
  
• vCenter Chargeback Manager Installation and Upgrade Guide
  
• vCloud Connector Installation and Configuration
  
• VMware Journey to Your Cloud
  
• Architecting a vCloud
  
• VMware vCloud Architecture Toolkit (vCAT)
  
• vSphere Client
  
• vCloud Director Web Console
  
• vShield Manager UI
  
• vCC vSphere Client Plug-in
  
• vCC Web UI

As you can see, this objective is going to be one of the most basic, yet it will also be one covering the most information. Above, I’ve highlighted the portions of the objective that will be covered in this post.

Identify required vCloud components and pre-requisites for installation

Identifying required components and pre-requisites is one of the key steps that must be performed before most any task can be performed, and vCloud Director is no different. First, we’ll identify the components required for a basic vCloud Director installation.

The above image shows all of the basic components to get vCloud Director up and running. They include:

• VMware vSphere
  • At least one vCenter Server and its associated databases
  • At least one ESX/ESXi server
  • vShield Manager, deployed in a 1:1 relationship with vCenter Server. That is, for every vCenter Server deployed, one vShield Manager must be deployed.
• vCloud Director
  • vCloud Director Server – A minimum of one cell must be deployed
  • vCloud Director database – Can be Microsoft SQL or Oracle DB
• Additional components (Not shown above)
  • vCenter Chargeback
  • vCloud Connector

This means we’ll need the following operating systems before we can begin:

• Microsoft Windows Server (64-bit required) for vCenter Server (See Installing vCenter Server 5.0 best practices sizing guidelines and other requirements)
  • Alternatively, the vCenter Server Appliance may be used.
• Microsoft Windows Server (2003 SP2, 2003 R2, 2008, or 2008 R2) for vCenter Chargeback
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (64-bit), Update 4, 5, or 6 (See vCloud Director Installation and Configuration Guide for package requirements and sizing guidelines)

We’ll also need the following VMware software (supported versions listed in the tables):

vCenter Server

ESX/ESXi

vShield Manager

vCloud Director

vCenter Chargeback

vCloud Connector

Note about compatibility of versions – If you have any questions or doubts about compatibility, please see VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes.

Lastly, we’ll need a database:

• vCloud Director
  • Microsoft SQL Server Standard and Enterprise, 2005 SP4 through 2008 R2
  • Oracle DB Standard and Enterprise, 10g R2 through 11g R2
• vCenter Chargeback
  • Microsoft SQL Server Standard and Enterprise, 2005 SP2 through 2008 SP2
  • Oracle DB Enterprise, 10g R2 and 11gR2

Describe installation order of vCloud components

There is a bit of flexibility in the order that vCloud components are installed, but here’s a rough guide you should follow:

1. ESX/ESXi hosts
2. vCenter Server
3. vShield Manager
4. vCloud Director
5. vCenter Chargeback
6. vCloud Connector

Now, for a bit of explanation why:

1. ESX/ESXi hosts – Typically, everything that can be virtualized in a vCloud implementation will be. Since you need a platform on which to run all of your virtual machines, ESX/ESXi hosts come first.
2. vCenter Server – All of the other components rely on vCenter Server, so it’s second.
3. vShield Manager – Required to be installed for vCloud Director configuration, so it’s third.
4. vCloud Director – Last of the main components, so it comes fourth.
5. vCenter Chargeback – Should be installed after vCloud Director (and vShield Manager). It doesn’t necessarily need to be installed before vCloud Connector, so their order respective to one another isn’t important.
6. vCloud Connector – Should be installed after vCloud Director, with the same caveat as vCenter Chargeback, mentioned above.

Explain the purpose and use case of each vCloud component

Each vCloud component has a unique purpose and use case, and it’s very important to know exactly what each piece of the vCloud puzzle is doing.

• ESX/ESXi hosts – Virtualization is the foundation upon which the rest of the vCloud stack relies. Without ESX/ESXi, none of the rest of the stack would work. If you’re reading this, you’re very likely already familiar with this subject.
• vCenter Server – Handles all of the basic management functions, as with a vanilla vSphere implementation, including communication with ESX/ESXi hosts, virtual networks, resource pools, etc.
• vShield Manager – Required for deployment of vShield Edge devices. Without this, you’d get no NAT, DHCP, static routing, firewall, or VPN tunnels in your organization networks.
• vCloud Director – The engine that allows everything else to come together. It allows for self service provisioning of vSphere resources, multi-tenancy, and user management and access.
• vCenter Chargeback – It facilitates gathering resource utilization metrics and applies them to chargeback models to allow the provider to appropriately charge tenants for resources consumed. It can also be used for “showback” in an enterprise deployment to show the business the value that your IT services provide.
• vCloud Connector – Used to connect disparate vCloud or vCenter environments and allows for migration of workloads from one environment to another.