Looking at above deprecated topologies, be careful when you plan your vCenter server 6.5 deployment design.
As we discussed in previous article that vCenter Server 6.5 appliance deployment is 2 staged process for each instance. So we will have 2 stages while deploying PSC appliance and 2 stages while deploying vCenter appliance.
Also, for installing vCenter Server 6.x with external PSC, we will have to follow the installation order. We must install PSC appliance first and then install vCenter Server 6.x appliance.
To keep post short and simple, in this post we will see the walkthrough of installing PSC appliance node only. In another post, we will see deploying and joining vCenter server to external PSC appliance as continuation of this post.
So, let’s walkthrough with PSC 6.5 installation steps along with screenshots.
Download and mount the vCenter Server 6.5 ISO media from VMware portal.
Once ISO is downloaded, you can mount it from your desktop which can be windows, MAC OS or Linux operating system as this ISO includes installer support for all these operating systems as you can see in image below.
Navigate to directory as per your desktop OS.
Double click installer.exe under win32 directory as in my case I am using windows desktop for deployment.
We now have 4 options to choose from on installer launch screen as described.
Install – for deployment of vCenter server appliance or PSC.
Upgrade – To upgrade from previous version of vCenter appliance
Migrate – To Migrate from windows based vCenter server to vCenter appliance 6.5
Restore – To restore the backups taken with native backup feature introduced in vCenter Server 6.5
We will click Install as this will be greenfield deployment.
Clicking Install link will launch the stage one. Click next to begin the deployment process.
Accept the EULA license agreement and click next.
Select PSC node first under External PSC installation mode and click next.
Enter ESXi server details where you will deploy and host PSC appliance and click next.
ESXi host has self signed certificate currently hence we will get certificate warning. Accept the certificate warning by clicking Yes.
Provide PSC Appliance VM details such as Appliance VM name, root credentials and click next.
Select datastore to store PSC appliance VM files and click next. If required, you can enable thin provisioning for PSC appliance.
Configure network settings for PSC appliance and click next.
Review and click finish to complete stage one of PSC appliance deployment.
Once clicked finish, PSC appliance deployment will start. Deployment process will take few minutes to complete. Wait for deployment to complete
Once completed, click Continue to proceed with stage two of the deployment .
On Stage two screen, click next to continue PSC setup.
Configure NTP and SSH settings as per your environment and click next.
On Configure SSO screen, select create new SSO Domain and provide SSO domain details such as SSO domain name, Admin credentials, site name and click next.
Make selection as per your choice of joining VMware CEIP and click next.
Review the configuration and click finish to complete stage 2 of PSC deployment.
Once clicked finish, stage 2 configuration will be launched as per settings done. Wait for stage 2 to get completed.
On completion screen you can see the PSC client URL. Access the URL to confirm successful deployment of PSC appliance.
You can also access VAMI page interface and check the appliance health.
Ensure all services are healthy and running.
This completes the PSC appliance deployment process. Hope this helps.
Cheers!!!!
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