vCenter virtual appliance Installation on shared storage

[normchri1920]

Hi,

I will start to test virtualization soon, and for the storage i will use a Synology NAS DS212j. My purpose is to create a cluster with two ESXi servers, with the virtual machines stored on the NAS.

My question is should I connect my nas with iSCSI on my ESXi and then deploy the OVA template of the vcenter virtual appliance or i deploy the ova on the physical storage of one of my ESXi and then i try to deplace it to the shared storage ?

I'm not sur if my question is clear, but thanks for your response !

C. N.

[schepp]

Hi,

I would deploy the appliance directly to the shared storage. Saves one Storage vMotion step :smileywink:

Tim

[normchri1920]

That's what i've tought about :smileyhappy:

So when i create the cluster i must add the storage to vcenter or it will be done automatically ? It's the first time we put virtualization in our infrastrutcure so it's a little bit new to me ^^

Thanks for your response !

C. N.

Edit : i'm going to use NFS for the virtual storage, not iSCSI lun, does it change something ?

[schepp]

I think you're mixing the terms up a bit and that's adding consufion :smileywink:

Storage is added to the ESXi hosts directly. vCenter has nothing to do with the storage, only the hosts.

a Cluster is an object that you configure in vCenter. You add hosts to this cluster.   ( There's also an object "datastore cluster", but that's another story :smileywink: )

Your general steps would be:

1. Install one ESXi host (or both, doesn't matter)

2. Connect to the host with vSphere client and add iSCSI storage

3. deploy vCenter Appliance on the host.

4. Configure appliance

5. connect to the appliance with vSphere client / webclient ( I would go with the webclient https://appliancename:9443/vsphere-client as the old vSphere client will run out in the next vSphere version )

6. create a cluster

7. add the already installed host to the vCenter and move it into the cluster

8. install second ESXi and also add it to vCenter and move it into the cluster

Tim

[normchri1920]

Yes it's new to me so I'm a little bit confused, but thanks for your help !

Your steps are really clear to me !

Juste one more question, so for my second esxi host, i'll need to connect the shared storage manually to him. And everytime  i'd like to add an esxi host i'll connect to it the storage and add it to the cluster ?

[schepp]

Glad I can help :smileywink:

You need to set up the iSCSI conifguration for each host, yes.

But the second and all other hosts later will then scan the iSCSI adapter and see the VMFS datastore you created with the first host and mount it automaticly.

You don't need to add every host to the same cluster though. You only need to do that when you want to use functions like HA & DRS across the hosts inside the cluster.

Tim

[normchri1920]

Thanks that's perfect ! I'll start the test next week, thanks for your help !