Determining the Deployment and Storage Size of an Existing VCSA

[StephenMoll]

Is it possible to determine just be connecting to a VCSA and examining it by Web Client or PowerCLI how it was deployed? By which I mean : when it was deployed what Deployment Size and Storage Size options were chosen?

[msripada]

Easy way is to identify the deployment size by validating the size of cpu/memory given and compare with defaults sizes

http://masteringvmware.com/vcsa-6-5-system-requirements/

for eg: If your current deployed VCSA is having 4 vcpu and 16gb memory, possibly they might have deployed with Small deployment size and the same would be taken into consideration for storage requirements as well

Note: This can be wrong if someone manually tweaked the storage/cpu/memory info of the vcsa post deployment which I assume is less in nature unless support asked to do so.

Thanks,

MS

[StephenMoll]

Yes that will work. So basically the selected options at deployment time are not stored anywhere other than by what settings they create in the resulting appliance.

So by extension when I see that the appliance I'm looking at has "Hard Disk 2 : 1.74GB", it must have been deployed as an "X-Large Storage Size"?

[msripada]

It would be there for sure ... Any job or task would be logged however I dont have that handy now so gave the alternative way. I will try to deploy and get back to you if possible today.

Thanks,

MS

[StephenMoll]

Hmm! That's not enough, there are 12 disks. Adding them up doesn't seem to quite match the expected numbers.

[Vijay2027]

What's the value after adding all the 12 disks?

And is the appliance running on a snapshot.

[StephenMoll]

The disks are as follows:

Disk	Size (GB)	VMDK Size (KB)
1	12	12,147,712
2	1.74	1,820,672
3	25	5,222,400
4	25	760,832
5	10	10,461,184
6	10	1,729,536
7	15	598,016
8	10	3,909,632
9	1	40,960
10	10	414,720
11	10	388,096
12	100	3,311,616
TOTAL	229.74	40,805,376

There is a snapshot, which for some reason I cannot remove at the moment.

[Vijay2027]

So considering all the parameters looks like you have a small deployment.

[StephenMoll]

I think you're nearly right.

It is actually a "Tiny" deployment with "Default" storage size.

It has 2 vCPUs, 10GB vRAM and ~230GB storage allocation.

The question has arisen because I am having to define how to confirm that a system we are building has been created as per the documented design. The design says "Small" deployment with "Default" storage. So and check the real system (not my test rig where the above detail has come from) I should see:

4 vCPUs

16GB vRAM

~290GB storage, across the 12 disks.

What adds slightly to the confusion is that the document "vCenter Server Installation and Setup Modified on 22 JUNE 2018 VMware vSphere 6.7 vCenter Server 6.7" (https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/vsphere-vcenter-server-67-installation-guide.pdf​) has different values in different tables. Table 2-2 says a "Small - Default" deployment should be 290GB, whereas Stage 1 of the deployment process in step 9 it says it will be 340GB. I put the difference down to the space required for the PSC, but Table 2-2 title "Storage Requirements for a vCenter Server Appliance with an Embedded or External Platform Services Controller" suggests that it is already included within the 290GB. So why the difference between the two values I wonder?

[HassanAlKak88]

Hello,

Try the following:

root@..... [ /etc/vmware ]# install-parameter deployment.node.type

Please consider marking this answer "CORRECT" or "Helpful" if you think your question have been answered correctly.

Cheers,

VCIX6-NV|VCP-NV|VCP-DC|

@KakHassan

linkedin.com/in/hassanalkak

[StephenMoll]

That just returns "embedded", and I believe relates to the whether the deployed VCSA is going to use the embedded database engine or an external one.

[koonisetty]

go to /etc/vmware

type " cat deployment.size 

result: tiny ( in my case)

 

VCSA Appliance: 

  Default Storage Size Large Storage Size

Tiny environment (up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines)

300 GB

825 GB

 

Correct me if i'm worng.

 

Pratap Kooonisetty.

[Geotho2481]

I dont see a file called deployment.size what version of VCSA are you running 

[JewelK1]

The option that you select determines the number of CPUs and the amount of memory for the appliance.