VMworld 2015: vCenter Appliance as First Choice

Session: INF5975

Transforming software delivery with software appliances

  • Accelerat
  • e time to value
  • Simplify software management
  • Performance
  • Security
  • Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO)

vCSA

  • Security hardened Suse OS (SLES 11 SP3)
  • vCenter server and vPostgreSQL DB in a single VM
  • Appliance shell and UI support for appliance configuration
  • vCenter 6.0 appliance is ‘enterprise ready’
  • Same scalability as Windows vCenter deployment
  • Full support for linked mode

Windows and appliance are nearly at same performance at medium and large inventories

vCSA Deployment Configurations

  • Embedded and external PSC deployment modes
  • PSC abstracts common services such as SSO, licensing, certs, etc.
  • Convert from embedded to external PSC mode in 6.0 U1 (repointing)
  • vCenter Windows to vCSA migration tool is available as a fling
  • Can upgrade from vCSA 5.1 and 5.5 to 6.0 (U1)

vCSA Configuration

  • Network settings – DNS, hostname, IP, etc.
  • Time zone and NTP
  • Enable/disable services
  • Security considerations: SSH, password expiration, AD domain, firewall, log files, SNMP, etc.
  • Do NOT install third party agents on vCSA

Backup/Restore

  • Backup both embedded PSC and external PSC configurations
  • Works with VADP
  • Supports third party backups like NetBackup and CommVault

High Availability

  • Use VMware HA – Time tested. Protects against host and hardware failure.
  • vCenter Server watchdog
  • Attempts to restart processes, and will restart the service or VM
  • Ensures application level availability

Monitoring

  • vCenter Server Appliance Management
  • Appliance GUI in 6.0 U1
  • Generate support bundles
  • Monitor appliance resources and vCenter services
  • Receive SNMP trap notifications

vCenter server appliance management – security

  • Manage SSO users and groups
  • Password policies and management
  • Built-in certificate store and out of box certificate management

Patching

  • Easily apply product and third party patches (OS, Postgres, JRE)
  • Connect directly to VMware update repository or create custom repository
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