This is the second 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.

I’m starting with a freshly installed vSphere 5.0 update 1/vCenter 5.0 update 1 environment, for reference.

Deploying vShield Manager

1. In your vSphere Client, click File > Deploy OVF Template.

2. Click Browse

3. Browse to the OVA, select it, then click Open as below.

4. Click Next.

5. Click Accept, then Next.

6. Name your vShield Manager VM, select the appropriate place in Inventory, then click Next.

7. Choose the appropriate disk layout, then click Next.

8. Choose the appropriate Destination Network (portgroup), then click Next.

9. Verify Deployment Settings are correct, tick Power on after deployment, then click Finish.

After you hit Finish, you should see a dialog box with a progress bar showing the deployment progress of your vShield Manager, similar to the screenshot below. When it finishes, close it out or simply tick Close this dialog when completed.

Configuring vShield Manager

To configure the vShield Manager VM, open the console. You should see a screen similar to this:

Initially, you’re going to log in as admin, which has rights to run setup. The initial password for admin is ‘default’ without the quotes.
Once you’re logged in, you’ll be sitting at the command prompt. Type ‘enable’ as below, and hit enter. The password is the admin password.

At the next prompt, type ‘setup’ as below to run the network configuration.

Run through the setup with values appropriate for your environment. Below is how I configured mine. When finished, type ‘y’ to save your configuration.

The configuration will then be saved. Type ‘exit’ and hit enter to log out.

Now you can close the vShield Manager console. All further configuration will be done either from the web interface directly or via the vSphere Client.
Open the vShield Manager web interface by going to https://<vShield Manager IP>/ as below. You will get an error with the SSL certificate as it is self-signed, but you can click through to the page below.

To log in, use the admin user with the same initial password.

Now, you’ll need to give your vCenter Server specifics, as well as an administrator username and password to register your vShield Manager with vCenter Server. You’ll want to leave Assign vShield “Enterprise Administrator” role to this user checked.

Next step is to register the vShield Manager as an extension. Just click the Register button as below to perform this.

Now, you can launch the vShield Manager interface through the vSphere Client. It can be located in the Solutions and Applications section, as below.

Any additional configuration, such as adding a syslog server, setting up NTP, etc., may be done through this interface.