DELL PowerVault MD3600i - LUN Creation

1. Click on the 'Storage and Copy services' tab and check if there is sufficient space available. Right click on the container showing Free capacity details and select 'Create Virtual Disk'

DELL PowerVault MD3600i - Host Group Creation

1. Goto 'Host Mappings' tab. Right click on the Array and click create a new Host Group.

DELL PowerVault MD3600i

We recently received this DELL Power Vault iSCSI Storage box for testing purpose. I captured the screenshots when I was playing with it and configuring the LUN. 

Note: This is not a production box and I have just created this post for reference purpose.

"The Dell PowerVault™ MD3600i array is a next-generation 10 Gigabit Ethernet iSCSI SAN solution that is ideal for entry-level storage consolidation in virtualized environments that require high availability and high performance without sacrificing ease of use. Designed for flexibility, the MD3600i arrays support a range of drive types, enclosures and RAID levels all within a single array"

Below is the specification sheet for this 

Specification Sheet

So lets begin to explore certain features and options for this storage. The software installation is pretty much straight forward. I writing this post software installation. So once you have installed the software you can start the Disk Storage Manager.

1. Initial Setup
2. Host Group Creation
3. LUN Creation

Initial Setup

1. This is what you see when you login to the console. There are certain Start-up tasks you can perform.

Elastic Org VDC Allocation Pool

You must have noticed this option certain times in vCloud environment. This is basically a new feature introduced in the vCloud Director 5.1 where the Allocation Pool can be leveraged to use the every chunk of resources, Memory for example, allocated to it.

Let me explain a little bit more with example,

Virtual Networking

MAC Address Change

When set to Allowed,

1. Virtual Switch will allow the Guest OS to change the MAC address of the Virtual Network Adaptor.
2. In short, if ‘Effective MAC’ is different from the ‘Initial MAC’, the traffic will still be allowed.
3. The flow of network traffic is from Virtual Switch to VM.

When set to Rejected,

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vCAC Deployment Guide

vCAC is an enterprise level automation tool that helps the end users to consume the Cloud resources yet giving Cloud administrators complete control over the resources.

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vCAC - Install & Configure IaaS Engine

Pre-requisites of IaaS

1. Windows Server 2008 or 2012.

2. Dot Net Framework 4.5

3. vCAC Prereq Automation Script (Optional)

4. Separate blank Database.

These are the 6 core components of IaaS,

1. IIS Role

2. Distributed Execution Managers (DEMs)

3. Agents

4. Model Manager

5. Manager Service

6. Database

Iaas Component Architecture Diagram

To start with, make sure the PowerShell policy is set correctly. Set the Execution policy to remote signed.

Configuring vCAC 6.0 Portal

This is the workflow for the vCAC Admin portal post IaaS Engine install.

Once you have successfully deployed the IaaS engine, there are certain Windows Services also gets deployed that we should take a look from troubleshooting point of view.

These are DEM services and vCAC service. We need to keep an eye on these services always.

1. Tenant Configuration.

2. Endpoint & Agent Configuration.

3. Fabric Group creation.

4. Create Machine Prefix.

5. Business Group creation.

6. Create Reservations & Policies.

7. Create Network Profile.

8. Create Blueprints.

9. Create Service Catalogs.

10. Governance and Approval policies.

11. Demo.

Deploying and Configuring VMware Identity Appliance

The Identity Appliance provides single sign-on (SSO) for vCloud Automation Center. Multiple instances can be deployed for availability purposes. You can use the SSO services from the VMware® vCenter™ deployment if you are running vSphere 5.5 Update 1.

VIA can be deployed through vSphere Web Client as OVF package. It is pretty straight forward like any other VMware appliance.

Once the VIA is deployed use the IP provided during the installation to configure it. Make sure the port number 5480 is used with it. So the URL will be something like below,

https://<VMware Identity Appliance>:5480

If all goes well then you will see the screen like below.

Deploy and Configure vCAC Appliance

1. Login to Web Client and Goto vCenter view. Under actions select the option Deploy OVF template.

VMware vCenter Orchestrator - Configure

Orchestrator Architecture

Orchestrator contains a workflow library and a workflow engine to allow you to create and run workflows that automate orchestration processes. You run workflows on the objects of different technologies that Orchestrator accesses through a series of plug-ins.

Orchestrator provides a standard set of plug-ins, including a plug-in for vCenter Server, to allow you to orchestrate tasks in the different environments that the plug-ins expose.

vCenter Orchestrator Configuration

vSphere Client Integration Plug-In - Web Client

Sometimes it is difficult to download and install vSphere client integration plugin. Below is the location where it can be manually downloaded,

C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphereWebClient\server\work\deployer\s\global\72\0\container-app-war-5.5.0.war\vmrc

Replace the vCD Transfer Storage

If you have a new NFS share and want to replace it with the existing one, you can follow something below,

For example you setup a new share name: 192.168.1.5:/mnt/esxsan/nfs/vcdshare

Setup Transfer Server Storage on vCD cell

It is very simple and straight forward to setup. The transfer server storage is basically mounted on the path "/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer/" on the vCD cell. If it is a single cell then the transfer storage is mounted on the local disk.

Pre-requisites,

• NFS server with fully setup shares.
• NFS server and share details.
• Atleast one vCD cell.
• Both NFS and vCD must talk to each other.

vCloud Networking

Different vCloud networks

I will attempt to lay out some of the networking concepts used in vCloud Director. So for a start this is divided into three networks layers,

• External Network
• Organization Network
• vApp Network

Prepare Host for VXLAN

The VXLAN network gets created automatically when you create the first PvDC. But if you are facing issues setting up VXLAN network in the PvDC then probably you  may have missed the below,

1. Login to the vCNS.

Add vCenter to vCD

Here is how you add the vCenter to vCD,

1. Login to the vCD application page, that looks like something below,

Not able to prepare host in vCD? Remove the vCD agent....

When you try to prepare the host(s) you get below error,

The host is managed by another  vCloud Director system "vcd". Unprepare the host from the other system or uninstall the agent software on the host...

Hosts not visible in the vCD vSphere resources?

Here I would check and do,

1. Make sure the time synchronization is accurate among vCD, vShield Manager and vCenter server. Use of NTP server is recommended.

2. Make sure vLookup service is responding and correctly configured.

3. Check if the PvDC is throwing any error, this issue is most probably related to the PvDC. If possible remove the PvDC and re-create it.

4. Once PvDC re-created the hosts should show up.

vCloud Director Initial setup

So whats next after installing the vCloud director...

1. Login to the vCD using the browser IP, if you see something like then you are going good so far, read the welcome note (if you really want to) and click next...

vCloud Director Install - Appliance

So here how we will install the vCloud Director (vCD). These are the appliance guidelines,

1. Login to the vCenter, deploy the vCD ovf file using the "Deploy OVF Template" wizard. This is a very straight forward process so I have not detailed all the steps here.

Register the vCenter server in the vShield Manager

Once you are all set with the vShield Manager,

1. Login to the vShield Manager using the web address.

2. Click on "Edit" button under the Lookup service and enter the details.

3. Enter all the details along with SSO credentials.

What is VXLAN?

VXLAN stands for Virtual Extensible LAN for a start.

You will come across this term 'VXLAN' very often when you go along vCloud environment. It is a very large topic and discussion on this can go on for many hours on this.

Install vCNA also known as vShield Manager 5.x

1. First of all download vCNA OVA from VMware.com download page. They should look something like below.