VMware vSphere 7.0 Installation and Deployment of vCenter Server 7.0 (VCSA)

VMware vSphere 7.0 New Features:

In this re-architecting of VMware vSphere, VMware has essentially combined the capabilities of the traditional vSphere software with Kubernetes in this release.

vSphere with Kubernetes

The first of the vSphere 7 features is vSphere with Kubernetes.

The important takeaway is that Kubernetes is now built into vSphere which allows developers to continue using the same industry-standard tools and interfaces they’ve been using to create modern applications. vSphere Admins also benefit because they can help manage the Kubernetes infrastructure using the same tools and skills they have developed around vSphere. To help bridge these two worlds we’ve introduced a new vSphere construct called Namespaces, allowing vSphere Admins to create a logical set of resources, permissions, and policies that enable an application-centric approach.

There are many other great features found in the vSphere 7 release, including the following:

• Simplified lifecycle management

With vSphere 7, VMware is introducing vSphere Lifecycle Management (VLCM), which will replace the vSphere Update Manager (VUM) used for updates and other tasks in previous releases.  A paradigm shift in the way VMware is handling lifecycle management can be seen in the VLCM tool.

VMware is moving to a desired state methodology with the new vSphere Lifecycle Management (VLCM) tool.  This will allow the driving of lifecycle management consistently and effectively at scale.  Desired state methodologies have become wildly popular among DevOps engineers for configuration management.  It helps to detect configuration drift and apply “desired state” to endpoints.

• Intrinsic security features

Also new with vSphere 7 is built-in intrinsic security features.  Security is of critical concern among businesses today and especially with hypervisor infrastructure.  New with vSphere 7 is a feature called trusted computing base.  This allows organizations to lock down a set of very secure ESXi hosts and use this set of hosts for attestation to ensure other hosts are trusted and have not been modified in an unauthorized way.

• Application acceleration

VMware has included Bitfusion in vSphere 7.  Bitfusion, a company VMware acquired in 2019, is able to take advantage of GPU virtualization for the purposes of AI/ML use cases.  In addition, VMware has incorporated new improvements to vMotion as well as DRS to provide much quicker operations as well as better performance/less disruption for very large VMs during the vMotion process.

vSphere ESXi 7.0 Installation:

Boot from the VMware ESXi 7.0 Source ISO.

Select the Disk to install the OS. (Either Local Disk or From VMware vSAN)

Press F11 to install.

Installing ESXi 7.0.

Now Installation completed Successfully.

Once rebooted you can see this screen with DHCP IP.

Login to Direct User Interface and Configure the Static IP and Hostname.

Select the Configure Management Network option to modify the IP and Hostname.

Select IPV4 Configuration option and modify the IP, Mask and Gateway.

Then Select the DNS Configuration and Modify the Host name.

Save and Quit from the Direct user Interface. See IP address and Host Name got changed.

Open the web browser, and access the ESXi 7.0.

Once Username and Password were authenticated then you can see this console.

Deployment of vCenter Server 7.0:

Download the vCenter source and initiate the installation.

vCenter Server on Windows is no more.

We have following options:

• Install
• Upgrade
• Migrate
• Restore

Click Install to Deploy the vCenter 7.0

vCenter server has merged with PSC which maintains All its functions. The new vCenter Server 7.0 has all Platform Services Controller (PSC) services, keeping the functionality and workflows, including authentication, certificate management, tags, and licensing.

During upgrades and migrations from Windows vCenter servers, the workflow will automatically migrate and consolidate external platform service controllers (PSCs) into the vCenter server 7.0.

vCenter Installation has 2 Stages:

In Ist Stage Deploy vCenter Server and in 2 Stage Setting up vCenter Server.

Specify the ESXi 7.0 target information.

Provide the vCenter Server VM Name and root Password.

Then, Select the deployment size.

Then Select the data store to deploy the vCenter server.

Configure the Network Settings:

Stage 1: Deploy vCenter Server Initializing.

Deployment process started, now you can see the  vCenter server VM is created.

You can view the tasks in Recent Tasks tab also.

Now waiting for the RPM Installation.

In web console, you can see the VM is powered on.

Then, required RPM will install one by one.

You can check this in Recent Tasks also.

Once all the RPM's were installed, then configuring the machine.

Now Stage 1 is completed successfully, then it will start the stage 2.

Initiating Stage 2.

vCenter Server Configuration details.

SSO Configuration.

Now it will ready to complete the vCenter Configuration.

Stage 2 completed successfully.

Login to vSphere Client.

vCenter Server Details.

vCenter Server Management Console.

vCenter Server Backup.

Login to vSphere Client and create a New DataCenter.

Then Add Hosts to the DataCenter.

ESXi 7.0 Host Added Successfully.