Dell EMC Technical White Paper ESXi deployment using Dell EMC OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter (OMIVV) and deployment best practices Abstract Dell EMC OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter (OMIVV) supports ESXi deployment on bare-metal servers. This technical white paper illustrates the process of an ESXi installation and best practices to follow during the deployment process.
Revisions Revisions Date Description January 2021 Initial release Acknowledgments This paper was produced by the following: Authors: Kavyashree Ramakrishna - Test Engineer2, Server, and Infrastructure Solutions Anand Changegowda – Software Senior Engineer, Server, and Infrastructure Solutions Atanu Sikder - Software Senior Engineer, Server, and Infrastructure Solutions Support: Swapna M, Technical Content Developer 2, Information Development The information in this publication is provided “as is.
Contents Contents Revisions.............................................................................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgments ...............................................................................................................................................................2 Contents ...........................................................................................................................
Contents 4.15 ESXi password requirements ...........................................................................................................................29 4.16 Port information for ESXi installation ................................................................................................................29 4.17 ESXi deployment failure ...................................................................................................................................29 4.
Terminology Terminology 5 Terminology Description OMIVV OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter iDRAC Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware Interface OS Operating System SATA Serial Advanced Technology Attachment OOB Out-of-band CIFS Common Internet File System NFS Network File System BIOS Basic Input/Output System FC Fiber Channel MAC Media Access Control BOSS Boot Optimized Storage Solution NVMe Non-Volatile Memory Express SSD Solid Sta
Executive summary Executive summary OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter (OMIVV) provides an ability to install an ESXi instance on baremetal servers. The hosts can be onboarded to vCenter server and managed using OMIVV after successful inventory. This technical white paper describes how to perform an ESXi deployment and best practices to follow when performing an ESXi deployment.
1 Introduction The core of the vSphere product suite is the hypervisor (ESXi). A hypervisor is a piece of software that creates and runs virtual machines. ESXi provides a virtualization layer that abstracts the CPU, storage, memory, and networking resources of the physical host into multiple virtual machines. The applications running in virtual machines can access these resources without direct access to the underlying hardware. An ESXi deployment is an essential step during any data center setup.
2 Bare-metal discovery Discovery is the process of adding supported bare-metal server. After a server is discovered, you can use it for system profile and an ISO profile deployment. Prerequisites: • The network connectivity from the iDRAC of bare-metal server to the OMIVV virtual machine is required. • The hosts with existing ESXi instances should not be discovered into OMIVV. Add hosts to the vCenter and host credential profile.
Few example configurations of discovery job are shown in the following sections: 2.2.1 Single node discovery To discovery a single server in a job: 1. Enter only Start IP with all four octets of an IP. 2. Enter the credentials manually or select the option Use Deployment Credentials to use the settings configured under Settings>Deployment Credentials. Figure 1: Single server discovery 2.2.2 Multiple nodes discovery without exclusion To discover all the servers within a given range: 1.
Figure 2: Range server discovery Each IP range in a discovery job can contain a maximum of 256 IPs (Example:192.168.1.0–255). To discover 1024 IPs in a discovery job, multiple IP ranges must be configured such that the total of all IPs in all the defined ranges does not exceed 1024. The following screenshot shows the sample configuration for the same with four IP ranges with each range containing 256 IPs. Figure 3: Discover 1024 IPs.
2.2.3 Multiple nodes discovery with exclusion The following is the sample configurations to discover all the IPs from 100.100.100.1 to 100.100.100.50 excluding IPs from 100.100.100.25 to 100.100.100.30 and also from 100.100.100.40 to 100.100.100.45. Figure 4: Range server discovery with exclusion. To discover few sets of IPs in a range with a different credential, you can add a separate range for the same and give separate credentials. The following is the sample configuration to discover IPs from 100.
2.3 Discovery jobs After you submit the discovery job, you can track the status of the job at OMIVV->Jobs->Discovery Jobs page. A single entry is available for every server in the range and consolidated status is shown against the job. To purge jobs older than a given date with the Successful or Failed or Canceled status, click CLEAR COMPLETED. Figure 6: Discovery Jobs 2.
3 Create an ISO Profile An ISO profile is a template in OMIVV that points to a specific ESXi ISO image. It is required to deploy an ESXi installation on a server.An ISO profile requires Dell EMC customized ISO file location on an NFS or CIFS share. A test connection must be performed in order to save an ISO profile successfully. Test connection is performed to check the following: • • The CIFS or NFS share is accessible with the provided username and password.
Figure 8: Test connection 3.1 Deploy an ISO profile To perform an ISO profile deployment (ESXi installation), ensure that you have: • • • Discovered bare-metal server Created an ISO Profile Created Host Credential Profile (the profile used to store the iDRAC credentials and ESXi credentials, which are optional for 6.7 or higher) OMIVV supports only VMware ESXi Dell EMC customized ISO images installation on target bare-metal servers.
Notes: VMware supports ESXi installation on SD cards for 6.7 U3 and earlier versions. Based on the presence of the modules supported, an appropriate target is available for you to select during deployment. Figure 9: Installation targets You can select the multiple servers at a time for an ESXi deployment. Installation target selection is a onetime operation for all the servers that are selected for the deployment job.
Figure 10: Installation targets with options 3.3 Select Host Credential Profile From OMIVV 5.2 onwards, selection of Host Credential Profile (HCP) and providing root password is mandatory as same is used during setting ESXi password. The following are applicable for root user during deployment: • • • If an ISO profile has ESXi 6.5 and earlier version, the password that is entered in selected host credential profile is used. For ESXi 6.
Figure 11: Host Credential Profile Selection 17 ESXi deployment using Dell EMC OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter (OMIVV) and deployment best practices
3.
Figure 12: Static network Configuration When more than one server is selected for deployment, all the servers are listed in network configuration page and individual server can be configured with different settings. Apply Settings to All Servers allows you to retain same settings across all servers, excluding Fully Qualified Host Name and IP Address. To disable all network and hostname fields, select the Use DHCP check box.
To configure appropriate VLAN, select the Use VLAN checkbox.
4 Best practices for OS deployment Below section describes several best practices to follow for seamless hypervisor installation. 4.1 Customized ISO images Do not install raw VMware ESXi images on target bare-metal servers. Dell EMC hypervisor engineering team certifies customized ESXi images for individual platform or category of Dell EMC servers. This also includes several drivers or addons to meet specific solution requirement. You can download ISO images from https://www.dell.
Figure 16: Reset iDRAC 4.3 Disconnected network interfaces Network traffic for an ESXi deployment is navigated through one of the selected Ethernet adapters on the Configure Host Network Settings page. If the selected NIC is down or not connected to proper gateway (NICs which are reachable to ESXi network and iDRAC network (if they are not present in same network)), ESXi deployment job times out. Ensure to pick properly configured NIC of iDRAC.
Figure 17: Select connected NIC from deployment wizard 4.4 First boot disk selection First boot disk generally denotes the first boot device that is mentioned in the Boot Sequence (BIOS or UEFI) of BIOS settings. For example, in the following screenshot, IDSDM is mentioned in boot sequence. IDSDM is not classified as first boot device because only HDD, SSD, and VD are classified as first boot disk.
Figure 18: Boot Sequence denotes IDSDM as first boot device Figure 19: OMIVV does not classify IDSDM as first boot disk 24 ESXi deployment using Dell EMC OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter (OMIVV) and deployment best practices
4.5 Correct boot sequence Ensure that correct boot sequence is selected on the System BIOS Settings page. The selection should match the disk selection. For example, in the following screenshot, Boot sequence for BOSS disk (AHCI) is not appearing first in the list. As a result, after successful installation, BIOS will not load the ESXi from BOSS card and system would behave as ESXi is not installed. This results in the deployment job timing out and failing.
4.6 Boot sequence enablement Ensure that an appropriate Boot Sequence is selected but not cleared from Boot Option of System BIOS Settings else BIOS would not load ESXi after installation. Figure 22: Boot Sequence should be enabled. 4.7 Virtual Disk should be created for controller (PERC or BOSS) To detect local and remote disks of the server, creation of virtual disk for ESXi installation is necessary. For more information about creation of virtual disk, go to https://www.dell.
Figure 24: When virtual disk is created 4.8 In Multi-NIC environment, selection of right OMIVV network selection is important Host can have either iDRAC and vCenter management NIC in the same network or in the two distinct networks. The ISO image can be saved in any of the networks. The ESXi deployment wizard displays both the OMIVV networks. Ensure that you select the correct vCenter network and OMIVV network applicable to the environment.
4.9 OMIVV does not support software controller Onboard SATA controller for Dell EMC PowerEdge servers provides an option to create RAID. The software RAID LUNs are not supported because VMware ESXi does not carry supported drivers. ESXi does not support any software RAID functions. Due to this, OMIVV does not support ISO deployment on software controller. For more information, see VMware vSphere 6 on Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers Release Notes 4.
4.12 vCenter license for adding host to vCenter after deployment 4.13 OMIVV does not support installation of ESXi on virtual machine 4.14 Ensure that OMIVV license for host is available 4.15 ESXi password requirements 4.16 Port information for ESXi installation 4.17 ESXi deployment failure OMIVV installs ESXi on the required bare-metal server and adds the same to registered vCenter.
4.18 When NPAR is enabled on target node and disabled in System Profile, ESXi deployment fails An ESXi deployment fails when a system profile with a disabled NIC Partitioning (NPAR) is applied on a target machine. Here, NPAR is enabled on the target node and only one of the partitioned NIC, except partition 1 is selected as the NIC for the management tasks during the deployment process through the deployment wizard.
If the WSMAN command fails and gives OSD2 (general failure or an unknown error occurred), reset iDRAC and rerun the command. For more information, see Event and Error Message Reference Guide. 4.24 Inaccessible network shares (OSD47, OSD17) iDRAC consumes network share of OMIVV /nfsstage to mount the ISO images. But if nfs daemon is not running with the required ports (2049, 4001–4004) in OMIVV, mount operation may fail. Firewall might be enabled and is preventing access to the share.
4.29 Even though ESXi deployment is successful, inventory fails when selected ISO profile has ESXi 6.5 (or earlier version) image and host credential profile have different or no ESXi password other than which is set in deployment wizard OMIVV recommends update the ESXi credentials at host credential profile to ensure inventory is run successfully after ESXi deployment, if password is not entered in host credential profile, the password that is entered in deployment wizard is used. 4.
5 Conclusion ESXi deployment consists of multiple steps in OMIVV. These steps have internal or external dependencies. Sometimes, you may not aware of these dependencies which results in deployment failure. This technical white paper describes the best practices and dependencies must be followed to use this feature seamlessly. This can improve the responsiveness of an ESXi deployment feature and reduce customer calls for false positive.
