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VMware Cloud Availability provider step by step installation

VMware Cloud Director Availability is a powerful solution used by VMware Cloud Providers to offer simple, secure, and cost- effective onboarding, migration, and disaster recovery as a service to or between multi-tenant VMware clouds.

Two types of deployment mode  

      1. Combined appliance

An all-in-one appliance deployment type, only suitable for testing and evaluation environments. The Combined Appliance includes all VMware Cloud Director Availability services:
  • Manager Service
  • Replicator Service
  • Cloud Service with embedded VMware Cloud Director Availability Tenant Portal
  • Tunnel Service
       2. Dedicated appliance - refer Deployment requirement for more info

In this blog, we will focus on the POC installation vCDA 4.0.1.

Step1: Install the OVA by logging into vSphere client. During the installation, select the deployment model as combined appliance. 
 
Note: Ensure that all instances of vCenter Server, ESXi, vCloud Director, Platform Services Controller, and all VMware vCloud Availability appliances use the same NTP server. DNS entries should be created for appliance IP.  
 
Step2: Notice there are no plugin so far for vCDA in vCloud Director admin UI except the inbuilt 4.0.0 version that comes with vCD 10.1.2.
 
 
Step3: Log into vAPP replication manager using https://appliance-IP-address/ui/admin to configure the cloud service

 

click on combined appliance deployment and follow the installation checklist as below 

Step4:  


 

Log into the Replication Manager at https://appliance-IP-address:8441/ui/portal/system to configure Lookup service in the Manager

Change the root password as you are logging for the first time 

 

 

Step5: Complete the initial setup wizard in vAPP replication manager


 

Enter the tunnel appliance address with port 443 when not deployed as combined appliance. Normally, this VM will sit behind the firewall, we use NAT for 443 to 8048, but here my lab is direct connected, so just use the 8048.

 
 
Enter vCenter lookup service URL as https://Lookup-Service-IP-address:443/lookupservice/sdk
 
 
 
Enter vCD URL as https://VMware-Cloud-Director-IP-Address:443/api
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  Step6: Verify the vCDA plugin gets loaded in vCD admin portal 

 

 
 Step7: Configure Replicator (Log into https://appliance-IP-address:8440)
 
    
 
 

 
 Step8: Register the replicator service in the Manager service

 

Log into https://appliance-IP-address:8441/ui/admin

In the New Replicator window, enter the details for the new Replicator Service instance and click Add

 

 

Step9: Setup Tunnel Service

Log into https://appliance-IP-address:8442/ui/admin   

Configure the lookup service 

  

  


Step10:  Finally verify there are no connectivity errors in system monitoring 

  

 

That's all about the installation. However, you would not be able to see the vCDA site in vCloud Director tenant portal unless you create a policy and assign it to a tenant.  

From the vCloud provider portal create a policy and assign it to a tenant 

 

  

Here we go :)  we could see the vCloud Director Availability plugin in vCloud Director Tenant portal

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