Now we have multiple ESXi hosts installed and configured in our environment. Managing those ESXi hosts individually through host web client or vSphere legacy client can be a tedious task. Also you are missing features like vSphere HA, DRS, VM cloning and template management.
Solution to all those problems is installing an vCenter server to centralize management of ESXi hosts. Now let’s install and configure VMware vCenter server v6.5.
You can download a trial version of vCenter Server from my.vmware.com. Since the vSphere version 5.0 VMware offered an appliance version for vCenter but windows version had more capabilities and features.
But from version 6.0 and 6.5 VMware has put more capabilities to vCenter Server appliance (VCSA) and now VCSA is more capable and feature rich than its windows counterpart.
So for our environment I have chosen VCSA version and following are the minimum requirements to deploy VCSA on ESXi as a virtual machine.
VCSA deployment sizing can be configured according to size of the ESXi environment so refer below table to tailor VCSA deployment as your need.
Also, there are 2 deployment types for the vCenter server. One way is deploying the vCenter with embedded platform service controller.
Other one is deploying external platform service controller before deploying vCenter server. We will discuss more about both deployment methods in a separate article. For today we will deploy a vCenter with external PSC.
Compute resource requirements:
| Number of vCPUs | Memory | |
| Tiny environment (up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines) | 2 | 10 GB |
| Small environment (up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines) | 4 | 16 GB |
| Medium environment (up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machine) | 8 | 24 GB |
| Large environment (up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines) | 16 | 32 GB |
| X-Large environment (up to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual machines) | 24 | 48 GB |
Storage resource requirements:
| Default Storage Size | Large Storage Size | X-Large Storage Size | |
| Tiny environment (up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines) | 250 GB | 775 GB | 1650 GB |
| Small environment (up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines) | 290 GB | 820 GB | 1700 GB |
| Medium environment (up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machine) | 425 GB | 925 GB | 1805 GB |
| Large environment (up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines) | 640 GB | 990 GB | 1870 GB |
| X-Large environment (up to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual machines) | 980 GB | 1030 GB | 1910 GB |
Required Firewall Ports:
| Port | Protocol | Required for |
| 22 | TCP | Appliance deployments of vCenter Server & Platform Services Controller |
| 53 | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller | |
| 80 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of vCenter Server & Platform Services Controller |
| 88 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller |
| 389 | TCP/UDP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller |
| 443 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of vCenter Server & Platform Services Controller |
| 514 | TCP/UDP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of vCenter Server & Platform Services Controller |
| 636 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller |
| 902 | TCP/UDP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of vCenter Server |
| 1514 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of vCenter Server & Platform Services Controller |
| 2012 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller |
| 2014 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller |
| 2015 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller |
| 2020 | TCP/UDP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of vCenter Server & Platform Services Controller |
| 5480 | TCP | Appliance deployments of vCenter Server & Platform Services Controller |
| 6500 | TCP/UDP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of vCenter Server |
| 6501 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of vCenter Server |
| 6502 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of vCenter Server |
| 7080, 12721 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller |
| 7081 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller |
| 8200, 8201, 8300, 8301 | TCP | Appliance deployments of vCenter Server & Platform Services Controller |
| 7444 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller |
| 8084 | TCP | Appliance deployments of vCenter Server |
| 9084 | TCP | Appliance deployments of vCenter Server |
| 9087 | TCP | Appliance deployments of vCenter Server |
| 9123 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of vCenter Server & Platform Services Controller |
| 9443 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of vCenter Server |
| 11711 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller |
| 11712 | TCP | Windows installations and appliance deployments of Platform Services Controller |
Installation
Install External PSC
Mount the ISO to the local PC and then go the location “\vcsa-ui-installer\win32” and from there open the “installer.exe” file .
You will get the following vCenter server appliance installer window and from there click install. You can use other options listed there to upgrade, migrate and even to restore a backed up VCSA appliance.
You will be presented with the introduction page about the installation process. Click next to continue.
Then accept the EULA and click next to continue.
In this window you have to select the deployment type. Choose desired deployment type (vCenter with external PSC for this example) and click next.
Provide an ESXi host details to deploy the external PSC and click next.
In this step we need to provide a name the PSC virtual machine and an appliance root password. After providing those info click next.
Select a datastore to deploy the virtual machine. If you wish to allocate all the disk space at the beginning leave the “Enable Thin Disk Mode” checkbox unchecked and click next.
Provide network configuration details for the PSC and click next.
Review the deployment configuration and click finish to start deploying PSC. This will take few minutes depending on the bandwidth of the network.
After deployment has completed click continue to configure the PSC instance.
Click next to continue.
Provide information to configure the appliance. Recommended to provide an external NTP server over synchronizing time with ESXi hosts. After providing the info click next.
In this window provide information for creating a new SSO domain and click next.
Leave the checkbox ticked if you are wish to join VMware CEIP and click next.
Review the configuration info and click finish to begin the appliance configuration. This setup cannot be stopped or interrupted. If any interruption happens you will have to deploy the virtual machine from the beginning. So my recommendation is to take a snapshot of the VM before completing this step.
After Configuration completes close the appliance installer window to exit the process. Now we can start deploying the vCenter Server.
Install vCenter Server
Launch another appliance installer window from the installation directory and continue towards the deployment selection step. From there select vCenter server under External Platform Service Controller.
From this window select the size of vCenter deployment as required and then click next.
Select a datastore to deploy the virtual machine. If you wish to allocate all the disk space at the beginning leave the “Enable Thin Disk Mode” checkbox unchecked and click next.
Configure network setting as required in this window and click next to continue.
Review the configuration and click finish to start appliance deployment.
After deployment has completed click continue to complete the configuration.
Same as during the PSC deployment provide NTP information during the appliance configuration step and click next.
For SSO configuration enter details of previously configured PSC. Click next to continue.
Review the configuration and click finish to begin the appliance configuration. Same as during the external PSC configuration I’d suggest to take a snapshot before proceeding to this step.
After completing the installation you can access the vCenter Server web client by the IP or the FQDN you have configured.
Log into the vCenter Server by providing the credentials created during SSO configuration.
References:
- https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/com.vmware.vsphere.install.doc/GUID-752FCA83-1A9B-499E-9C65-D5625351C0B5.html#GUID-752FCA83-1A9B-499E-9C65-D5625351C0B5
- https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/com.vmware.vsphere.install.doc/GUID-88571D8A-46E1-464D-A349-4DC43DCAF320.html
- https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/com.vmware.vsphere.install.doc/GUID-FB268055-5D36-4624-A64C-9800D3FCB689.html
- https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/com.vmware.vsphere.install.doc/GUID-925370DD-E3D1-455B-81C7-CB28AAF20617.html
